Nassim Taleb Is No Bitcoin Fan

Bitcoin – despite its present price dilemma – has done quite well for itself. As a currency that’s only 13 years of age, the asset has moved along at a steady pace and has ultimately paved the way for all kinds of new and innovative financial structures and ideals such as digital payments and speculative investing. However, not everyone is a fan, and Nassim Taleb – the author of the acclaimed book “Black Swan,” has always had nasty things to say about the world’s number one digital currency by market cap.
Nassim Taleb Doesn’t Care for BTC Much
In a recent interview, Taleb explained his thoughts and feelings about bitcoin. He stated:
Bitcoin, I call it a tumor. Real estate is another tumor. People have this notion that markets should behave the way they think they should behave. When you look at markets, they swing from overvalue to undervalue.
One of his big problems towards bitcoin is that it has gained heavy steam during the pandemic, which he says occurred through false means. During the pandemic, the dollar began to lose some of its value, and as a means of hedging their wealth against economic strife, many individuals sought to stock up on other currencies and assets – including bitcoin – to get their money out of banks and more in their own, personal control.
During this time, bitcoin experienced massive growth and saw huge boosts in its price. Taleb has an issue with this in that it allegedly gave people false hope and created a phony appearance of a strong market. Throughout this time, the Federal Reserve also sought to instill low (sometimes zero) rates for those looking to obtain loans.
This, he says – combined with bitcoin’s subsequent price spikes – caused a heavy sense of falseness in the financial world. Never has that been clearer than it is today as rates have recently hit six percent and assets like bitcoin have lost more than 70 percent of their value after hitting new all-time highs in the previous year.
However, he said that there is some hope for the present situation as it will give people newer ideas when it comes to the value of money. He mentioned:
Now, people will discover that there’s time value of money. They need to learn what economic policy should be and what monetary policy shouldn’t be. You need to bring interest rates back to a normal level and they can’t vary much.
He Has Problems with the Previous Fed Rates
He also said that now that things are really getting bad (i.e., the stock market continues to tank), he doesn’t think the Fed should lower rates anytime soon as those rates are likely keeping the economy at least somewhat stable. He said:
I would be careful not to use monetary policy by lowering interest rates too much because that’s what brought us here.

Tags: bitcoin, Fed rates, Nassim Taleb