April 22, 2011 • $1.40
Niels van der Linden
Amateur economist, VforVoluntary.com
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$5,302.00
BTC balance
112.52012459
Current value
$12,889,979.22
Percent change
243,015.41%
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.
May 8, 2011 • $3.85
Avery Pennarun
Software engineer
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$5,286.00
BTC balance
105.75550249
Current value
$12,115,043.72
Percent change
229,091.14%
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?
June 20, 2011 • $17.51
Tim Worstall
Journalist
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$5,243.00
BTC balance
101.06056449
Current value
$11,577,205.24
Percent change
220,712.61%
It’s difficult to see what the currency has going for it.
June 20, 2011 • $17.51
Peter Schiff
CEO, Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$5,243.00
BTC balance
101.06056449
Current value
$11,577,205.24
Percent change
220,712.61%
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.
August 9, 2011 • $9.80
Adrian Covert
Journalist
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$5,193.00
BTC balance
97.35098852
Current value
$11,152,246.97
Percent change
214,655.38%
The lulz were abundant. But frankly, it’s time for you to go. Farewell.
September 7, 2011 • $7.16
Paul Krugman
Nobel Prize-winning Economist
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$5,164.00
BTC balance
94.28766538
Current value
$10,801,321.56
Percent change
209,065.79%
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.
December 24, 2012 • $13.43
Michael Calore
Journalist
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,690.00
BTC balance
9.53369801
Current value
$1,092,152.80
Percent change
23,186.84%
Then came the malware, the black market, the legal ambiguities and The Man. Today, you can't even use it to buy Facebook stock
March 5, 2013 • $40.67
Patrik Korda
Amateur trader
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,619.00
BTC balance
5.70430903
Current value
$653,469.10
Percent change
14,047.42%
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.
April 3, 2013 • $131.38
Heidi Moore
Finance and Economics Editor, The Guardian US
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,590.00
BTC balance
5.20799494
Current value
$596,612.80
Percent change
12,898.10%
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.
April 9, 2013 • $230.68
Kurt Eichenwald
Contributing editor, Vanity Fair
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,584.00
BTC balance
5.16735822
Current value
$591,957.57
Percent change
12,813.56%
So, anyone out there buying Bitcoins at ridiculously inflated prices, please recognize the risk you are taking. You will likely lose everything.
April 11, 2013 • $82.90
Justin Wolfers
Economist, Brookings Institution
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,582.00
BTC balance
5.15681952
Current value
$590,750.29
Percent change
12,792.85%
May 10, 2013 • $117.69
Robert McMillan
Journalist
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,553.00
BTC balance
4.89595309
Current value
$560,866.19
Percent change
12,218.61%
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.
May 14, 2013 • $107.87
Ian Bremmer
Founder and President, Eurasia Group
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,549.00
BTC balance
4.86157637
Current value
$556,928.09
Percent change
12,142.87%
"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.
October 16, 2013 • $138.33
David S. Evans
Chairman of the Global Economics Group
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,394.00
BTC balance
3.39646586
Current value
$389,089.28
Percent change
8,755.01%
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.
November 3, 2013 • $210.28
Emin Gün Sirer
Professor, Cornell University
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,376.00
BTC balance
3.29699904
Current value
$377,694.65
Percent change
8,531.05%
November 6, 2013 • $263.21
Joseph Weisenthal
Executive Editor, Business Insider
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,373.00
BTC balance
3.28376818
Current value
$376,178.96
Percent change
8,502.31%
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.
November 8, 2013 • $333.75
Kevin Rose
Co-founder, Digg
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,371.00
BTC balance
3.27652213
Current value
$375,348.87
Percent change
8,487.25%
November 21, 2013 • $720.76
Matthew O'Brien
Journalist
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,358.00
BTC balance
3.24494777
Current value
$371,731.81
Percent change
8,429.87%
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.
November 29, 2013 • $1,128.73
Gary North
Economist
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,350.00
BTC balance
3.23552947
Current value
$370,652.87
Percent change
8,420.76%
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.
December 2, 2013 • $1,040.81
Matthew Yglesias
Executive Editor, Vox
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,347.00
BTC balance
3.23271327
Current value
$370,330.26
Percent change
8,419.21%
My primary interest in Bitcoin is that I think it's a great platform for making jokes.
December 5, 2013 • $1,027.41
Mark T. Williams
Finance Professor, Boston University
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,344.00
BTC balance
3.22992226
Current value
$370,010.53
Percent change
8,417.74%
Once sellers outnumber buyers, prices will eventually drop below $10, erasing all gains. This price collapse will occur by the first half of 2014.
December 18, 2013 • $526.12
Edward Hadas
Economics Editor, Reuters
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,331.00
BTC balance
3.21420501
Current value
$368,210.01
Percent change
8,401.73%
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.
December 18, 2013 • $526.12
Alex Payne
Developer and Angel Investor
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,331.00
BTC balance
3.21420501
Current value
$368,210.01
Percent change
8,401.73%
Bitcoin represents more of the same short-sighted hypercapitalism that got us into this mess, minus the accountability.
December 18, 2013 • $526.12
Charlie Stross
Author
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,331.00
BTC balance
3.21420501
Current value
$368,210.01
Percent change
8,401.73%
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.
December 28, 2013 • $715.85
Brad DeLong
Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,321.00
BTC balance
3.19863017
Current value
$366,425.80
Percent change
8,380.12%
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.
January 15, 2014 • $841.09
Lisa Kramer
"Serious Economist"
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,303.00
BTC balance
3.17629089
Current value
$363,866.67
Percent change
8,356.12%
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.
January 23, 2014 • $810.92
Jamie Dimon
President & CEO, JPMorgan Chase
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,295.00
BTC balance
3.16654599
Current value
$362,750.33
Percent change
8,345.87%
"It’s a terrible store of value," Mr. Dimon said in an interview with CNBC. "It could be replicated over and over."
January 29, 2014 • $793.38
Paul Singer
CEO, Elliott Management Corporation
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,289.00
BTC balance
3.15894960
Current value
$361,880.11
Percent change
8,337.40%
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.
March 1, 2014 • $567.53
Robert J. Shiller
Nobel Prize-winning Economist
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,258.00
BTC balance
3.11208366
Current value
$356,511.28
Percent change
8,272.74%
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.
March 9, 2014 • $640.58
Mark Cuban
TV Actor, Shark Tank
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,250.00
BTC balance
3.09938927
Current value
$355,057.05
Percent change
8,254.28%
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.
March 9, 2014 • $640.58
Nouriel Roubini
Professor of Economics, New York University
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,250.00
BTC balance
3.09938927
Current value
$355,057.05
Percent change
8,254.28%
March 14, 2014 • $628.31
Warren Buffett
Chairman & CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$4,245.00
BTC balance
3.09152841
Current value
$354,156.53
Percent change
8,242.91%
"Stay away from it," he said, according to a transcript. "It’s a mirage basically."
October 14, 2015 • $253.14
Anthony Watson & Halsey Minor
CEO and Founder & Chairman, Uphold (formerly Bitreserve), respectively
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,666.00
BTC balance
1.28201341
Current value
$146,863.74
Percent change
3,906.10%
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.”
[…]
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.”
January 14, 2016 • $429.82
Mike Hearn
Lead Platform Engineer, R3CV
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,574.00
BTC balance
1.02840967
Current value
$117,811.63
Percent change
3,196.35%
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.
January 19, 2016 • $378.16
Vivek Wadhwa
Contributor, The Washington Post; Tryhard
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,569.00
BTC balance
1.01557477
Current value
$116,341.30
Percent change
3,159.77%
Bitcoin did have great potential, but it is damaged beyond repair. A replacement is badly needed.
November 17, 2016 • $735.32
Jeremy Allaire
CEO, Circle
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,266.00
BTC balance
0.43128804
Current value
$49,407.11
Percent change
1,412.77%
“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?”
November 21, 2016 • $736.51
Timothy B. Lee
Senior correspondent, technology and economics, Lead writer for "New Money", Vox Media
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,262.00
BTC balance
0.42589361
Current value
$48,789.14
Percent change
1,395.68%
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.
January 3, 2017 • $1,032.61
Dan McCrum
Editor, Financial Times
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,219.00
BTC balance
0.37248748
Current value
$42,671.09
Percent change
1,225.60%
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.
June 2, 2017 • $2,479.42
Raoul Pal
Macro Strategist, GMI
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,069.00
BTC balance
0.24433164
Current value
$27,989.92
Percent change
812.02%
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.
July 26, 2017 • $2,522.32
Howard Marks
Co-chairman, Oaktree Capital
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$3,015.00
BTC balance
0.22298185
Current value
$25,544.15
Percent change
747.24%
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.
October 9, 2017 • $4,777.53
Kenneth Rogoff
Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Harvard University; Former Chief Economist, IMF
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,940.00
BTC balance
0.20335014
Current value
$23,295.20
Percent change
692.35%
My best guess is that in the long run, the technology will thrive, but that the price of bitcoin will collapse.
October 23, 2017 • $5,888.25
Al-Waleed Bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud
Citigroup shareholder
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,926.00
BTC balance
0.20080400
Current value
$23,003.52
Percent change
686.18%
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.
April 24, 2018 • $9,652.21
Bill Harris
Founder & CEO, Personal Capital; Former CEO of PayPal and Intuit
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,743.00
BTC balance
0.18121424
Current value
$20,759.38
Percent change
656.81%
In my opinion, [Bitcoin’s] a colossal pump-and-dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen.
November 28, 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
$2,525.00
BTC balance
0.14870209
Current value
$17,034.88
Percent change
574.65%
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?
July 24, 2019 • $9,792.79
Steven Mnuchin
United States Secretary of the Treasury
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,287.00
BTC balance
0.09981220
Current value
$11,434.20
Percent change
399.97%
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.
"I can assure you I will personally not be loaded up on bitcoin" in 10 years, says Treasury Secretary Mnuchin #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/0J5acWQwRO
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) July 24, 2019
January 1, 2020 • $7,170.63
Tendayi Kapfidze
Chief Economist, LendingTree
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$2,126.00
BTC balance
0.08134670
Current value
$9,318.84
Percent change
338.33%
“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.”
“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.”
February 12, 2021 • $47,525.21
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Flaneur, or something like that
Daily buy
$1.00
Total invested
$1,718.00
BTC balance
0.04345005
Current value
$4,977.51
Percent change
189.73%
