“Bitcoin is a great concept, but there are too many obstacles to make it a reliable and usable currency over the long term. Regulation, taxation, volatility and diminishing returns for those who make money from it will result in the long-term failure of this experiment.”Peter Leeds - Financial expert and author of “Penny Stocks For Dummies” -- source --
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“Bitcoin really needs to be broken down into two areas: viability as a currency and as a trading vehicle. As a viable currency, I’m excited and fearful for it. I love the thought of taking the power away from our government and the Fed’s ability to print money into infinity. On the dark side of it, Bitcoins can be used to hide large transactions from governments which really opens the door to black market activities. It's far too young for me to get involved in Bitcoin in my own life as I fear that global governments will try to shut it down as they will be losing billions in tax revenue if Bitcoin gets really big.”
Merlin Rothfeld - Power Trading Radio Host and Instructor at Online Trading Academy
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"If you look back in history in terms of financial bubbles, they always end. It's going to be a very rough ride for guys that invest in Bitcoin for speculative purposes."
Alistair Cotton - Senior analyst with Currencies Direct -- source -- -
“As a fee-only financial planner, I have a fiduciary responsibility to my clients to only recommend investments that are suitable to their specific investment plan and risk profile. While my clients’ risk tolerances run the gamut from conservative to aggressive, Bitcoin, with its short history, volatile price movements, and lack of intrinsic value is hard to ever recommend as an investment. While one could make the case for an investment in currencies (due to their diversification benefits), a purchase of Bitcoin would be pure speculation, akin to penny stocks.”
Phillip Christenson - CFA, Phillip James Financial
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Bill Gates - Founder of Microsoft
“Bitcoin is an exciting new technology. For our Foundation work we are doing digital currency to help the poor get banking services. We don't use Bitcoin specifically for two reasons. One is that the poor shouldn't have a currency whose value goes up and down a lot compared to their local currency. Second is that if a mistake is made in who you pay then you need to be able to reverse it so anonymity wouldn't work.”
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“No one really knows who is really behind Bitcoins, as the creator is just a pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. That in itself should be a huge red flag. I would certainly not trust my life savings to some mysterious computer algorithm created by shadowy anonymous characters in a system that attracts underworld types.”
James J. Angel - Georgetown professor specializing in financial markets
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“While the sheer difficulty of mining assures Bitcoin users that there won't ever be a massive supply shock in the digital market, the way that Bitcoins are created causes one enormous problem. Primarily, it incentivizes miners to hoard the currency upon receiving it. This is one of the main causes of Bitcoin's price volatility (it's estimated that up to 25% of Bitcoins mined have never even entered the marketplace). The only way to alleviate this issue is to mandate that miners have to exchange all newly-mined Bitcoins for another currency of their choice. Otherwise, volatility will end up killing this currency's potential, and a group of Bitcoin miners will control the supply. Is that really any better than a central bank?”
Jake Mann - Editor on Insider Monkey, Financial Professional
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"Bitcoin is the cautious expression of a rebellious identity. Using Bitcoin is an effete act of rebellion, a week resistance like wearing a hoodie or getting a tattoo that's well covered by your work clothes."
W. Ben Hunt - Chief Risk Officer of Salient Partners -- source -- -
“So the Bitcoin experience gives us a glimpse of Libertarian paradise: What life would be like with as little government interference as possible, in a market free of burdensome laws and taxes.Unfortunately, that experience looks like a total nightmare. It's characterized by radical instability, chaos, the rise of a boss-class of criminals who assassinate people they don't like, and a mass handover of wealth to a minority even smaller than the 1% that currently lauds it in the United States.”
Jim Edwards - Founding editor of Business Insider UK
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“Bitcoin was created by and for risk-loving individuals. The everyday risk-averse person, which describes most people, should rightly be concerned and stay away.”
Peter Zaleski - Economics professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia -- source -- -
Warren Buffett - American business magnate, investor and philanthropist
“I hope Bitcoin becomes a better way of doing it, [but] the idea that it has intrinsic value is a joke.”
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“Bitcoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizen’s financial transactions.”
Charles Stross - The author of six Hugo-nominated novels and winner of the 2005, 2010, and 2014 Hugo awards for best novella
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“There was plenty of ugliness to be found in the markets this year. Ukranian and Venezuelan sovereign debt. High-yield, energy-related corporate bonds. Argentine pesos. Russian rubles. Greek stocks.But none of these investments has been as atrociously awful as Bitcoin, the heavily hyped crypto-currency that stormed onto the financial scene in the last few years, threatening to disrupt the cornerstone of global finance that is fiat currency.”
Matt Phillips - Writer for Quartz, former writer in Wall Street Journal
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“Get into Bitcoin or another digital currency if you want. I hope it makes you rich. But don't kid yourself this is anything more than speculation for a quick buck. The messianic stuff will go out the window once it collapses. There are lots of things in the real economy to invest in too. The big advantage of Bitcoin as ‘stateless money’ is that when it collapses, the government won't have to bail it out.”
Dr. Stephen Kinsella - Senior lecturer in economics at the University Of Limerick's Kemmy Business School -- source -- -
“Bitcoin is an interesting idea, but I think their mechanism for regulating the currency supply is fundamentally flawed. Because the Bitcoin supply doesn't increase in proportion to the growth or use of Bitcoins, there is a deflationary effect, creating an incentive for people to hoard Bitcoins rather than spend them. Gresham's Law in economics suggests that for a complementary currency to be successful, it needs to have an inflationary effect that exceeds inflation in the national currency.”
Alex Zorach - Community Currency Developer, Founder of Merit Exchange LLC -- source -- -
“The Bitcoin industry has been rife with scams and thefts, so it's hard to believe that the currency will be able to sustain itself over the long term. Even though there are some who claim Bitcoins are the currency of the future, I just don't see it. It has also been linked to drug trafficking and illegal gambling. I see it as a fad and nothing more, and as more people lose real money because of the legal issues surrounding Bitcoin, I eventually see it fading from existence.”
Andrew Schrage - Founder and CEO of Money Crashers Personal Finance
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“Bitcoins are an odd sort of commodity. They are not financial instruments. The value fluctuates widely, in line with changing views regarding the overall usefulness of the Bitcoin payment system and the speculative manias surrounding such views. There is no financial logic behind Bitcoins’ face value. In other words, if you like to gamble, this is a perfect asset. If you are looking for an alternative monetary instrument, look elsewhere.”
Eric Tymoigne - Assistant professor of economics at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore
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“All of that volatility comes on an average Bitcoin volume of something like 20,000 per day. If I put in an order for $15,000 worth of Bitcoin right now, I’m pretty sure I could move the market between 5 percent and 10 percent to the upside. It’s probably even worse to the downside. Call me a skeptic, but with that kind of easy price manipulation, I’m not quite ready to denominate my paycheck in Bitcoins yet.”
Adam Cohen - Internet Economist
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"If it gets very popular, I can see the government clamping down. I think it would lead to a massive drop off in the number of users."
Alistair Cotton - Senior analyst with Currencies Direct -- source -- -
“There is a similar finding about communities where people describe their investment success more generally, because people tend to brag about their success and not brag about their losses. If you are not careful, all you hear is that people are making tons of money.”
Meir Statman - Professor at Santa Clara University specializing in behavioral finance
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“The biggest challenges that Bitcoin currently faces are flow of funds, a lack of market makers, and outsized exchange rate risk. It's nearly impossible to move USD in and out of the largest trading platform (MtGox) and, as a result, there are very few significant market makers participating in the exchange. Absent reliable providers of a liquid marketplace, volatility will remain high. This presents major difficulties for businesses and individuals that might otherwise accept Bitcoin as payment for goods and service in forecasting Bitcoin exchange rate risk. Bitcoin can't be a viable long-term currency unless, and until, it is more broadly accepted as an exchange medium for items of real value (i.e. these goods and services). These challenges are interconnected and the current regulatory assault is the single most important aggravating factor to these circumstances.”
Andrew Magliochetti - Managing Director, Maroon Capital Group
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Paul Krugman - American economist and the winner of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
“So far almost all of the Bitcoin discussion has been positive economics — can this actually work? And I have to say that I’m still deeply unconvinced. To be successful, money must be both a medium of exchange and a reasonably stable store of value. And it remains completely unclear why Bitcoin should be a stable store of value.”
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“Placing a ceiling on the value of gold is mining technology, and the prospect that if its price gets out of whack for long on the upside a great deal more of it will be created. Placing a ceiling on the value of the dollar is the Federal Reserve’s role as actual dollar source, and its commitment not to allow deflation to happen. Placing a ceiling on the value of Bitcoins is computer technology and the form of the hash function… until the limit of 21 million Bitcoins is reached. Placing a floor on the value of Bitcoins is… what, exactly?”
Brad DeLong - Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley
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“At this point, Bitcoin is neither a legitimate form of currency nor an investment. Until it gains widespread acceptance and price stability, it will never be a mainstream method of payment. And from an investing perspective, Bitcoin's uncertain future and the lack of any meaningful fundamental metrics make it a speculation at best, and gambling at worst.”
Anton Ivanov - Founder of DreamsCashTrue.com
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“As an alleged alternative currency, bitcoin is unacceptable. Its volatility and lack of liquidity pose risks far beyond most traditional currencies.”
Eric Tymoigne - Assistant professor of economics at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore -- source --
