Over the past few years, cryptocurrencies like the Bitcoin not only fans, but also critics: inside gathered around him. One of them is former financial mathematician Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The statistics researcher has already drawn attention to the risks of the assets in the past. Now he summarized his point again – in extremely clear terms.
Buy bitcoin? Expert advises against it
As early as June 2021, Taleb vented his displeasure with Bitcoin. At the time, he published a short analysis entitled “Bitcoin, Currencies and Bubbles”. At that time, the mathematician formulated his criticisms very factually and explained why the failure of this digital currency was inevitable. So shouldn’t you buy bitcoin? Well, according to Taleb, that would make you a “chump.”
“Think of BTC as a contagious disease. It will spread, spread & its price will increase until saturation is reached ie ~any idiot dumb enough to buy the story will invest. When all the suckers have invested, the prevailing belief will make it an ‘obvious’ investment. That is maximum fragility.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (via Twitter)
Taleb also clearly contradicts the argument that Bitcoin competes with fiat currencies. It only competes with “the thousands of other products that are born every year”. Fragility also arises when free money stops and interest rates rise. As a result, “BTC could prove to be a product of deflation, not inflation.”
Who is Nassim Taleb anyway?
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an American essayist, writer, statistician, and former trader and risk manager. The mathematician is considered an expert in the field of complex financial derivatives. As a specialist, he was employed in several Wall Street companies. Taleb is the author of the bestselling economics The Black Swan: The Power of the Highly Unlikely Events (2007) and Antifragility: A Guide to a World We Don’t Understand (2012).
In his remarks on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the point “fragility” always plays a major role.
Bitcoin price collapses
It seems that the financial expert has taken the recent developments in the crypto market as an opportunity to express his views. After all, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have fallen sharply in value over the past few weeks and months. The analysts at the investment company Invesco even fear a new “crypto winter”. It could soon send Bitcoin price below $30,000. For now, however, further developments remain to be seen.
Source: Twitter/@nntaleb