Joseph Stiglitz: Bitcoin ought to be outlawed
The cryptocurrency 'doesn't serve any useful function,' says the Nobel-winning economist Image: REUTERS/Victor Ruiz
Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has condemned Bitcoin as “successful only because of its potential for circumvention [and] lack of oversight,” and has called for it to be banned.
In a Bloomberg Television interview, he said the cryptocurrency doesn’t serve “any socially useful function.”
He believes Bitcoin is a bubble, that will give “a lot of people a lot of exciting times as it rides up and then goes down.”
Past the $10,000 mark
The value of one Bitcoin went past $10,000 for the first time this week – continuing the huge rises seen since the beginning of 2017.
At the start of the year, it was worth just $998.
Bitcoin's rapid increase in value has led many analysts – including Stiglitz and fellow Nobel Prize laureate Robert Shiller – to suggest Bitcoin's rise is unsustainable and a price collapse is almost inevitable.
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