In case you've been wondering, Paul Krugman is still not a Bitcoin fan.
During a Dec. 18 interview with Indian television news channel CNBC TV18, the prominent American economist claimed that Bitcoin has failed to "come close" to the promise of being money.
Krugman compares the flagship cryptocurrency to gold since he believes that both of these assets are perceived as valuable even without being used. When it comes to Bitcoin, the Nobel Prize laureate is convinced that this view is only boosted by the "techno-libertarian view" that crypto is the future.
The 67-year-old economist does not mention Bitcoin often, but it was his 2011 New York Times op-ed, entitled "Golden Cyberfetters," that earned Bitcoin its very first headlines in the mainstream media.
ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees claimed that Bitcoin had to be absolutely amazing if Krugman was against it in an ancient post on the bitcointalk.org forum:
OMG!!!! Krugman wrote an article on Bitcoin!?!?!?! That is actually serious news! And rejoice Bitcoiners, for this is the same "economist" that still doesn't understand Bastiat's broken window fallacy. If Krugman's against it, Bitcoin must be absolutely amazing!!
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Following Bitcoin's first major bull market in 2013, Krugman then wrote that it was outright "evil."
Alex DovbnyaNever getting it right
Bitcoin is far from being the only thing that Krugman got terribly wrong.
In 1998, he made his most infamous prediction to date, claiming that the impact of the internet on the world economy would be no greater than that of the fax machine.
In December 2020, Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, and Amazon are alone worth an eye-popping $2.8 trillion.
After the Keynesian economist called Germany's decision to cut its government spending in 2010 a "huge mistake," the country ended up seeing much higher GDP growth than the U.S. in the following year.
Finally, he inaccurately predicted a global recession "with no end in sight" that would start in late 2016.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov