Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor at Colombia University claimed that bitcoin “ought to be outlawed” in a Bloomberg Television interview last week. He stated: “It seems to me it ought to be outlawed. It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.”
His claim may seem untimely to the digital currency’s enthusiasts especially as bitcoin just recently exceeded its historic record of 10,000$ reaching over 11,000$. However, despite its market value of $185 billion, Stiglitz believes that: “Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight”
He mentioned: “It’s a bubble that’s going to give a lot of people a lot of exciting times as it rides up and then goes down.”
Despite bitcoin’s decentralized network structure, Stiglitz believes the US government alone can bring it down: “If the government says ‘the reason bitcoin is being used is circumvention,’ they could close it down at any moment, and then it collapses.”
It is worth mentioning that regardless of his opinion on bitcoin, Stiglitz advises of “moving away from paper and into the 21st century of digital economy”. He first suggested the idea in January 2016 in the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland stating that: “I believe very strongly that for country’s like the United States we could and should move to a digital currency and get rid of currency. There are important issues of privacy [and] cybersecurity, but it would certainly have big advantages.”
Harvard professor and economist Kenneth Rogoff shares the view on the topic of reducing cash. According to Crypto Coins News, he thinks that: “A lot of it’s in the underground economy; a lot of it’s tax evasion” In the end, having survived all forewarnings of setbacks, it is unlikely bitcoin will suffer from Stiglitz’s opinions. The question remains open as to whether and when the bubble will burst. It seems that only time will tell.
