The vast majority of economists seem to have a serious distaste for Bitcoin. Whenever an economist who has received a Nobel Prize, teaches at an Ivy League school or works at a central bank comments on Bitcoin, they always seem to have something negative to say about the technology. Some of these individuals simply say that Bitcoin has no future whatsoever, while others go as far as to claim it is pure evil. Paul Krugman , who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, has ridiculed Bitcoin on multiple occasions. Late last month, fellow Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz shared his own disdain for the peer-to-peer digital cash system at the London School of Economics. Former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Kenneth Rogoff also recently spoke negatively of Bitcoin, saying the U.S. Government should eventually ban the digital money, in addition to cash bills over $10. There is no shortage of economists who want to see Bitcoin crash and burn. Paul Krugman Gets It Wrong on Bitcoin Before getting into the recent comments from Stiglitz and Rogoff, let’s take a closer look at Krugman’s comments about Bitcoin over the years. In his first post on Bitcoin, Krugman called it evil . “I have to say that I’m still deeply unconvinced,” Krugman wrote in regard to whether Bitcoin could even work. Three years later, Bitcoin is still working and processing roughly 225,000 transactions per day . Krugman also didn’t understand that censorship-resistant online transactions are the underpinning value of bitcoin, as Silk Road had illustrated that use case two years prior. In 2014, Krugman went on to essentially call Bitcoin a scam . In 2015, Krugman seemed to lack a basic understanding of Bitcoin when asked about it at The Genius of Economics . “At this point, bitcoin is not looking […]
