Bitcoin is known as the face of the entire crypto market today. However, despite Bitcoin bulls such as Tom Lee saying that there really is nothing wrong with Bitcoin, not to mention $20K is achievable this year, there are always those who have an opposite opinion regarding the cryptocurrency.
Recently, former CEO of payments services company Paypal, Bill Harris called Bitcoin believers a ‘cult’. He mentioned that “The cult of bitcoin makes may claims—that it’s instant, free, scalable, efficient, secure, globally accepted and useful—it is none of those things”. He mentioned that there is no need for cryptocurrencies since we already have digital currencies that are far more functional and stable.
He said that “We’ve got digital currencies. And we’ve got digital currencies that are more stable, more widely accepted and have intrinsic value. We’ve already got it—it’s called the dollar, the yen, you name it”.
He believes that Bitcoin is going “a whole lot closer to zero than a lot because there is just no value there”. When it comes to cross-border money being transferred from point A to point B, Harris believes that it doesn’t need cryptocurrencies. Instead, it needs faster networks.
He also mentioned that volatility is a point of concern for cryptocurrencies. Harris mentioned that this alone makes it an unviable option for payment mechanism and even said that it’s “ridiculous as a store of value”.
Meltem Demirors who is the chief strategy officer at UK cryptocurrency investment firm CoinShares thinks that the fluctuating price of Bitcoin and Ethereum is simply like the early days of tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Intel.
She mentioned that “New technologies that shift the paradigm take a long time to really understand. I think what we saw in crypto is we saw this massive run-up, where everyone got FOMO”. She also added that “and what it caused is the speculative bubble…But all of that capital is now getting deployed into building real businesses that serve a real purpose”.
However, if you are going to ask Harris, he thinks that “There are a lot of things that have increased dramatically in value. That doesn’t mean that everything is going to increase dramatically in value. There has to be something underpinning it. Bitcoin makes no revenue, no profitability”.
Harris isn’t exactly the only one who bashes cryptocurrencies. You have the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who both think that cryptocurrencies are a gamble and not an investment. The former PayPal CEO is a consistent Bitcoin critic. In the past, he mentioned that Bitcoin was a “colossal pump-and-dump scheme”. However, if you will look at the likes of PayPal alumni Peter Thiel, Thiel believes that cryptocurrencies possess great potential.
No one exactly knows what the future holds for cryptocurrencies. However, in terms of regulatory clarity and the interest among Wall Street firms, it seems that the crypto market is evolving. There is also a chance that we could soon have a Bitcoin ETF. Do you agree with Bill Harris?
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