The Skeptics

A Tribute to Bold Assertions

We propose a global and morally mandatory heuristic that anyone involved in an action which can possibly generate harm for others, even probabilistically, should be required to be exposed to some damage, regardless of context.
N.N. Taleb & C. Sandis, “The Skin in the Game Heuristic for Protection Against Tail Events”

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Price data by CoinMetrics.io

Last updated:

22. huhtikuuta 2011 • $1.40

Niels van der Linden

Amateur economist, VforVoluntary.com

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,933.00
BTC balance
112.51639253
Current value
$7,586,502.75
Percent change
153,690.85%

Archive link

8. toukokuuta 2011 • $3.85

Avery Pennarun

Software engineer

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,917.00
BTC balance
105.75177043
Current value
$7,130,393.00
Percent change
144,915.11%
See, a bitcoin rant is almost too over-the-top for me. Asking why I think bitcoin won't work is like asking why the sky isn't red. I mean, wait, you think it is red? You actually took that seriously? Oh boy. Where do I even start?

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20. kesäkuuta 2011 • $17.51

Tim Worstall

Journalist

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,874.00
BTC balance
101.05683243
Current value
$6,813,833.26
Percent change
139,699.62%
It’s difficult to see what the currency has going for it.

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20. kesäkuuta 2011 • $17.51

Peter Schiff

CEO, Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,874.00
BTC balance
101.05683243
Current value
$6,813,833.26
Percent change
139,699.62%
What [bitcoins] lack is their own fundamental intrinsic value. You can’t do anything with a bitcoin, other than trade it for something you want. So, intrinsically, the bitcoin itself has no value. It only has value as a medium of exchange so long as people are willing to accept it.

9. elokuuta 2011 • $9.80

Adrian Covert

Journalist

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,824.00
BTC balance
97.34725646
Current value
$6,563,712.30
Percent change
135,963.69%
The lulz were abundant. But frankly, it’s time for you to go. Farewell.

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7. syyskuuta 2011 • $7.16

Paul Krugman

Nobel Prize-winning Economist

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,795.00
BTC balance
94.28393332
Current value
$6,357,165.42
Percent change
132,479.05%
So to the extent that the [Bitcoin] experiment tells us anything about monetary regimes, it reinforces the case against anything like a new gold standard – because it shows just how vulnerable such a standard would be to money-hoarding, deflation, and depression.

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24. joulukuuta 2012 • $13.43

Michael Calore

Journalist

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,321.00
BTC balance
9.52996595
Current value
$642,565.15
Percent change
14,770.75%
Then came the malware, the black market, the legal ambiguities and The Man. Today, you can't even use it to buy Facebook stock

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5. maaliskuuta 2013 • $40.67

Patrik Korda

Amateur trader

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,250.00
BTC balance
5.70057697
Current value
$384,365.71
Percent change
8,943.90%
Thus, we have an answer before us: bitcoins are fiduciary media, or more specifically token money. From a monetary standpoint, as devised and formulated by Ludwig von Mises, they are on a par with the stuff you find at Chuck E. Cheese's.

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3. huhtikuuta 2013 • $131.38

Heidi Moore

Finance and Economics Editor, The Guardian US

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,221.00
BTC balance
5.20426288
Current value
$350,901.36
Percent change
8,213.23%
Of course, in a rational world, none of that will be written, except perhaps as satire. Bitcoin's crash is less of a currency crisis than an opportune moment for internet wisecracks.

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9. huhtikuuta 2013 • $230.68

Kurt Eichenwald

Contributing editor, Vanity Fair

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,215.00
BTC balance
5.16362616
Current value
$348,161.39
Percent change
8,160.06%
So, anyone out there buying Bitcoins at ridiculously inflated prices, please recognize the risk you are taking. You will likely lose everything.

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11. huhtikuuta 2013 • $82.90

Justin Wolfers

Economist, Brookings Institution

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,213.00
BTC balance
5.15308746
Current value
$347,450.81
Percent change
8,147.11%

10. toukokuuta 2013 • $117.69

Robert McMillan

Journalist

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,184.00
BTC balance
4.89222103
Current value
$329,861.70
Percent change
7,783.88%
But in the end, the answer was obvious. The world’s most popular digital currency really is nothing more than an abstraction. So we’re destroying the private key used by our Bitcon wallet.

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14. toukokuuta 2013 • $107.87

Ian Bremmer

Founder and President, Eurasia Group

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,180.00
BTC balance
4.85784431
Current value
$327,543.82
Percent change
7,735.98%
"I would be very surprised if Bitcoin is still around in 10 years," said Bremmer, the founder and CEO of Eurasia Group, the world's largest risk consulting firm. He thinks that bigger players will enter the field and improve upon Bitcoin's weaknesses.

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16. lokakuuta 2013 • $138.33

David S. Evans

Chairman of the Global Economics Group

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,025.00
BTC balance
3.39273380
Current value
$228,757.64
Percent change
5,583.42%
I think there are two realistic directions the bitcoin ecosystem could go in. First, it could just implode and disappear if governments decide that virtual currencies cause too much harm and are too hard to regulate. Long-term investments in bitcoin would then go up in smoke. Second, it could continue as a virtual currency that is only used on the dark web with exchanges that are run by people willing to break the laws. The value of bitcoin would decline to whatever the illegal sector could support; regular investors wouldn’t be able to get their value from bitcoin unless they cashed it in with someone who wanted to do bad things.

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3. marraskuuta 2013 • $210.28

Emin Gün Sirer

Professor, Cornell University

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,007.00
BTC balance
3.29326698
Current value
$222,051.01
Percent change
5,441.58%

6. marraskuuta 2013 • $263.21

Joseph Weisenthal

Executive Editor, Business Insider

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,004.00
BTC balance
3.28003612
Current value
$221,158.91
Percent change
5,423.45%
Bitcoin? Nada. There's nothing keeping it being a thing. If people lose faith in it, it's over. Bitcoin is fiat currency in the most literal sense of the word.

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8. marraskuuta 2013 • $333.75

Kevin Rose

Co-founder, Digg

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,002.00
BTC balance
3.27279007
Current value
$220,670.34
Percent change
5,414.00%

21. marraskuuta 2013 • $720.76

Matthew O'Brien

Journalist

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,989.00
BTC balance
3.24121571
Current value
$218,541.42
Percent change
5,378.60%
In other words, Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme libertarians use to make money off each other—because gold wasn't enough of one for them.

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29. marraskuuta 2013 • $1,128.73

Gary North

Economist

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,981.00
BTC balance
3.23179741
Current value
$217,906.38
Percent change
5,373.66%
Bitcoins will never achieve this. It is a mania going up. It will be a mania coming down. It will not increase the division of labor, because people will recognize it as having been a Ponzi scheme, and they will not again buy it. They will not use it in exchange. Companies will not sell goods and services based on Bitcoins. Bitcoins have to have stable purchasing power if they are to serve as money, and they will never, ever achieve stable purchasing power.

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2. joulukuuta 2013 • $1,040.81

Matthew Yglesias

Executive Editor, Vox

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,978.00
BTC balance
3.22898121
Current value
$217,716.50
Percent change
5,373.01%
My primary interest in Bitcoin is that I think it's a great platform for making jokes.

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5. joulukuuta 2013 • $1,027.41

Mark T. Williams

Finance Professor, Boston University

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,975.00
BTC balance
3.22619020
Current value
$217,528.31
Percent change
5,372.41%
Once sellers outnumber buyers, prices will eventually drop below $10, erasing all gains. This price collapse will occur by the first half of 2014.

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18. joulukuuta 2013 • $526.12

Edward Hadas

Economics Editor, Reuters

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,962.00
BTC balance
3.21047295
Current value
$216,468.56
Percent change
5,363.62%
The electronic pseudocurrency has had a good run. Ideologues, speculators and scammers enjoyed the fun while it lasted. But now that the authorities are taking notice, the price has much further to fall.

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18. joulukuuta 2013 • $526.12

Alex Payne

Developer and Angel Investor

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,962.00
BTC balance
3.21047295
Current value
$216,468.56
Percent change
5,363.62%
Bitcoin represents more of the same short-sighted hypercapitalism that got us into this mess, minus the accountability.

Archive link

18. joulukuuta 2013 • $526.12

Charlie Stross

Author

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,962.00
BTC balance
3.21047295
Current value
$216,468.56
Percent change
5,363.62%
TL:DR; the current banking industry and late-period capitalism may suck, but replacing it with Bitcoin would be like swapping out a hangnail for Fournier's gangrene.

Archive link

28. joulukuuta 2013 • $715.85

Brad DeLong

Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,952.00
BTC balance
3.19489811
Current value
$215,418.42
Percent change
5,350.87%
You can either work doing something useful, or you can set up a botnet to mine BitCoins, or you can fork the code behind BitCoin and set up your own slightly-tweaked virtual cryptographic money network. Setting up a new, alternative network is really cheap. Thus unless BitCoin going can somehow successfully differentiate itself from the latecomers who are about to emerge, the money supply of BitCoin-like things is infinite because the cost of production of them is infinitesimal.

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15. tammikuuta 2014 • $841.09

Lisa Kramer

"Serious Economist"

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,934.00
BTC balance
3.17255883
Current value
$213,912.18
Percent change
5,337.52%
As a Serious Economist, I had been happily ignoring the recent bitcoin frenzy, safe in the smug knowledge shared by all Serious Economists that the surge in bitcoin value is a bubble that will soon pop.

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23. tammikuuta 2014 • $810.92

Jamie Dimon

President & CEO, JPMorgan Chase

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,926.00
BTC balance
3.16281393
Current value
$213,255.12
Percent change
5,331.87%
"It’s a terrible store of value," Mr. Dimon said in an interview with CNBC. "It could be replicated over and over."

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29. tammikuuta 2014 • $793.38

Paul Singer

CEO, Elliott Management Corporation

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,920.00
BTC balance
3.15521754
Current value
$212,742.93
Percent change
5,327.12%
There is no more reason to believe that bitcoin will stand the test of time than that governments will protect the value of government-created money, although bitcoin is newer and we always look at babies with hope.

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1. maaliskuuta 2014 • $567.53

Robert J. Shiller

Nobel Prize-winning Economist

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,889.00
BTC balance
3.10835160
Current value
$209,582.95
Percent change
5,289.12%
The Bitcoin phenomenon seems to fit the basic definition of a speculative bubble — that is, a special kind of fad, a mania for holding an asset in expectation of its appreciation.

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9. maaliskuuta 2014 • $640.58

Mark Cuban

TV Actor, Shark Tank

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,881.00
BTC balance
3.09565721
Current value
$208,727.03
Percent change
5,278.18%
I think as an encryption technology, [Bitcoin’s] great. I think as a transport mechanism, accounting of a transport mechanism, that it's unique and has a great opportunity in the future. I think it has no shot as a long term digital currency. [Would you buy any?] Yeah, I mean I'd look at it, but more as fun, you know? It's almost like buying and selling baseball cards, but there's definitely risk involved if you're looking at it to be a long term currency.

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9. maaliskuuta 2014 • $640.58

Nouriel Roubini

Professor of Economics, New York University

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,881.00
BTC balance
3.09565721
Current value
$208,727.03
Percent change
5,278.18%

14. maaliskuuta 2014 • $628.31

Warren Buffett

Chairman & CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,876.00
BTC balance
3.08779635
Current value
$208,197.00
Percent change
5,271.44%
"Stay away from it," he said, according to a transcript. "It’s a mirage basically."

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14. lokakuuta 2015 • $253.14

Anthony Watson & Halsey Minor

CEO and Founder & Chairman, Uphold (formerly Bitreserve), respectively

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,297.00
BTC balance
1.27828135
Current value
$86,189.09
Percent change
2,514.17%
Watson sounds even more negative on bitcoin. “I’ll be surprised if bitcoin is here in five years,” he has told Fortune. “The value of bitcoin isn’t the currency, but the technology. I think once the world becomes more accustomed and attuned to the platform of bitcoin, the noise will go away, and the currency will go away too.
[…]
Minor, too, predicts that bitcoin as a currency “will get destroyed.” He likens the coin’s current market cap—about $3.7 billion—to “an accounting mistake or rounding error that Bank of America makes.”

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14. tammikuuta 2016 • $429.82

Mike Hearn

Lead Platform Engineer, R3CV

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,205.00
BTC balance
1.02467761
Current value
$69,089.66
Percent change
2,055.68%
But despite knowing that Bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly. The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards. I will no longer be taking part in Bitcoin development and have sold all my coins.

Archive link

19. tammikuuta 2016 • $378.16

Vivek Wadhwa

Contributor, The Washington Post; Tryhard

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,200.00
BTC balance
1.01184271
Current value
$68,224.26
Percent change
2,032.01%
Bitcoin did have great potential, but it is damaged beyond repair. A replacement is badly needed.

Archive link

17. marraskuuta 2016 • $735.32

Jeremy Allaire

CEO, Circle

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,897.00
BTC balance
0.42755598
Current value
$28,828.28
Percent change
895.11%
“Our view is that we’re still in the really early stages of the technology and its development,” said Allaire. “It’s highly unlikely that any of us will be using Bitcoin in five or ten years. In the same way that — how many of us use NCSA Mosaic or Netscape Navigator?”

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21. marraskuuta 2016 • $736.51

Timothy B. Lee

Senior correspondent, technology and economics, Lead writer for "New Money", Vox Media

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,893.00
BTC balance
0.42216155
Current value
$28,464.56
Percent change
883.91%
What went wrong? The Bitcoin community has been hampered by a dysfunctional culture that has grown increasingly hostile toward experimentation. That has made it difficult for the Bitcoin network to keep up with changing market demands...Bitcoin's larger problem may be that it just doesn’t solve any problems normal people have.

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3. tammikuuta 2017 • $1,032.61

Dan McCrum

Editor, Financial Times

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,850.00
BTC balance
0.36875542
Current value
$24,863.61
Percent change
772.41%
As a phenomenon bitcoin has all the attributes of a pyramid scheme, requiring a constant influx of converts to push up the price, based on the promise of its use by future converts. So the ultimate value for bitcoin will be the same as all pyramid schemes: zero.

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2. kesäkuuta 2017 • $2,479.42

Raoul Pal

Macro Strategist, GMI

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,700.00
BTC balance
0.24059958
Current value
$16,222.61
Percent change
500.84%
Bitcoin was supposed to be a store of value, you couldn’t mess with the formula… and now they are talking about a ‘hard fork’ changing it? Even if they don’t change the formula, the fact that they could? That’s enough to say it’s not a long-term store of value.

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26. heinäkuuta 2017 • $2,522.32

Howard Marks

Co-chairman, Oaktree Capital

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,646.00
BTC balance
0.21924979
Current value
$14,783.08
Percent change
458.70%
In my view, digital currencies are nothing but an unfounded fad (or perhaps even a pyramid scheme), based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it.

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9. lokakuuta 2017 • $4,777.53

Kenneth Rogoff

Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Harvard University; Former Chief Economist, IMF

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,571.00
BTC balance
0.19961808
Current value
$13,459.40
Percent change
423.51%
My best guess is that in the long run, the technology will thrive, but that the price of bitcoin will collapse.

Archive link

23. lokakuuta 2017 • $5,888.25

Al-Waleed Bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud

Citigroup shareholder

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,557.00
BTC balance
0.19707194
Current value
$13,287.72
Percent change
419.66%
I just don't believe in this bitcoin thing. I think it's just going to implode one day. I think this is Enron in the making.

Archive link

24. huhtikuuta 2018 • $9,652.21

Bill Harris

Founder & CEO, Personal Capital; Former CEO of PayPal and Intuit

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,374.00
BTC balance
0.17748218
Current value
$11,966.87
Percent change
404.08%
In my opinion, [Bitcoin’s] a colossal pump-and-dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen.

Archive link

28. marraskuuta 2018 • $4,208.48

Robert C. Merton

Nobel Prize-winning Economist; Failed and bailed out co-founder, Long-Term Capital Management

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,156.00
BTC balance
0.14497003
Current value
$9,774.71
Percent change
353.37%
The problem with bitcoin at the moment, despite Ohio, is just what its champions decry: It is not a government-controlled currency. And therefore, asks Merton, who is responsible for the value of our currency if tomorrow morning all the bitcoin screens go dark?

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24. heinäkuuta 2019 • $9,792.79

Steven Mnuchin

United States Secretary of the Treasury

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$1,918.00
BTC balance
0.09608014
Current value
$6,478.28
Percent change
237.76%
I won't be talking about Bitcoin in 10 years, I can assure you that. […] I would bet in even 5 or 6 years I'm no longer talking about Bitcoin as Treasury Secretary. […] I can assure you I will personally not be loaded up on Bitcoin.

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1. tammikuuta 2020 • $7,170.63

Tendayi Kapfidze

Chief Economist, LendingTree

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$1,757.00
BTC balance
0.07761464
Current value
$5,233.23
Percent change
197.85%
“It’s a pyramid scheme,” LendingTree Chief Economist Tendayi Kapfidze tells Yahoo Finance. “You only make money based on people who enter after you. It has no real utility in the world.

“They’ve been trying to create a utility for it for ten years now. It’s a solution in search of a problem and it still hasn’t found a problem to solve.”

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12. helmikuuta 2021 • $47,525.21

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Flaneur, or something like that

Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$1,349.00
BTC balance
0.03971799
Current value
$2,678.02
Percent change
98.52%

Archive link