The economist and notorious crypto critic Nouriel Roubini says that, “Crypto technology has no basis for success.” He this said on March 6 in an interview with the CFA Institute.
Speaking to the CFA investor group, New York based Roubini, who gained worldwide prominence through his prediction of the 2008 financial crisis, renewed his criticisms of cryptocurrency and blockchain.
Thus, the economist is convinced that crypto assets are useful neither as a store of value nor as a means of payment. In his opinion, cryptocurrencies do not provide the necessary stability to maintain value. They are not yet scalable enough to handle payments.
To clarify the flaws in cryptocurrencies, Roubini points to the Bitcoin hype towards the end of 2017. When millions of people suddenly invested in cryptocurrencies, just for fear of missing the train, without really knowing about finance and investment, they lose big.
Roubini’s Assumptions
Roubini deduces from the price explosion at the time that cryptocurrencies are an exponentially growing speculative bubble that in reality has no real equivalent.
In addition to his sharp criticism of the cryptocurrency, Roubini also expressed skepticism over Blockchain. Because according to him, the technology has nothing to do with the future of finance.
Accordingly to the economist, Blockchain is also not one of the pioneering technologies that produce a fintech revolution. Rather, in this role, he sees artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, and the Internet of Things. In this regard, Roubini says that, “Financial technology is the real revolution in finance, and financial technology has nothing to do with cryptography.”
He explained, “Financial technology will consist of a mix of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and the Internet. This revolutionizes financial services such as payments, lending, insurance, investment management, etc.”
Earlier in the year, Roubini said polemically that Blockchain was not much better than an Excel spreadsheet and was therefore the most overrated technology ever.
The chairman of the US regulator for futures and options markets was, in contrast to Roubini, optimistic about Blockchain. So he recently said that the technology could have completely prevented the financial crisis of 2008, it would have been available then.
Meanwhile, in early March, International Data Corporation released a study that said blockchain spending will grow by 89% in 2019. Increasing capital expenditures to 2.9 billion, and by 2022 it’s expected to reach 12, 4 billion. Finance is expected to invest the most in the new technology, which is in contrast to Roubini’s assumptions.