Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the acclaimed author of "Black Swan," recently shared his thoughts on Bitcoin in an interview with L'Express, describing it as "the detector of imbeciles."
Taleb believes that Bitcoin has failed to meet its goal of becoming a decentralized currency and store of value.
According to Taleb, it is vulnerable to inflation and cannot protect against black swan events.
The craze surrounding cryptocurrencies can be attributed to near-zero interest rates as investors wanting risk-free investments find their opportunities limited. Hence, this was pushing people toward speculation instead of "real finance."
He additionally remarked on what could be described as a lingering Ponzi-like mentality taking hold in the tech world, referring to companies with no cashflow and without any underlying financial stability.
Initially, Taleb was somewhat favorably inclined toward crypto because he was critical of the monetary policy enacted by former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke after the 2008 crisis. However, he now believes that digital currencies are increasingly attractive to manipulators and scammers, who have found refuge preying on unsuspecting investors fooled by promises of easy and excessive gains.
That being said, if the system one day manages to become regulated and more serious and honest, it is conceivable that digital money could be an alternative to traditional finance.
Arman Shirinyan
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team