Why I’m Afraid of Bitcoin
An unregulated fiat currency popular among technocrats and open source wonks. If that was all Bitcoin was, I wouldn’t be afraid of it. I just wouldn’t care. Instead, Bitcoin is an unregulated fiat currency popular among technocrats, open source wonks, and hedge funds. That scares me. Wall Street types going nuts over an unregulated fiat currency, considering their track record, should scare anyone.
There’s nothing to prevent fraud, and nothing to stop unscrupulous investors from crashing the currency and running off with the proceeds. Even worse, the very idea of regulation has already popped one bubble in the currency. Still, with people like famed hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry claiming a single Bitcoin could become worth $1 million [1], one can’t help but think there’s plans to inflate that bubble again.
It’s easy to be blinded by novelty. There’s enough people pushing and promoting Bitcoin as the latest technological salve and as a get-rich-quick scheme that I think most supporters are blinded. The dangers are real, and there’s real people’s money being invested in something frighteningly risky. I wouldn’t put even a penny of my money in Bitcoin, and as long as it remains popular among hedge funds and other unscrupulous Wall Street types. I’ll leave it to the technocrats and wonks to get burned instead.
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Apologies for the Business Insider link, but it’s the best I could find. ↩