Another influential financial commentator is disparaging cryptocurrencies amid a run-up in prices.
In an interview with Business Insider Poland, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York Universityâs Stern School of Business, expressed bearish views on bitcoin and its brethren, calling the ongoing price gains âa gigantic speculative bubble.â
Roubini, who earned the nickname Dr. Doom for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, said that while blockchain technology is promising, bitcoin lacks âseriousâ payment and capital storage methods and that there is no fundamental reason for current price levels. Rather, bitcoin âfeeds on itself,â he said.
His comments followed similar remarks in recent months by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who called bitcoin a fraud, and Warren Buffet, the billionaire investor, who said bitcoin is experiencing âa real bubble.â
âWhatâs more â it is also used by criminals, for their shady business. I think that more and more countries will start to make cryptocurrency exchanges illegal like China did. New regulations will be adopted. So, this will find its end,â Roubini added.
Roubiniâs comments come as bitcoinâs price has been setting new records, surging as high as $7,879.06 today on the news that the Segwit2X hard fork had been called off.
Yet Roubini is not new to bashing the worldâs first cryptocurrency. In 2014, he called bitcoin a Ponzi scheme and criticized its volatility and the infamous collapse of the Mt.Gox bitcoin exchange.
Roubini image from CoinDesk archives.