Swan...

 

"Black Swan" author Nassim Taleb said bitcoin is worth zero.
In a recent six-page draft paper titled "Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles," Taleb laid out four key arguments against the cryptocurrency, which he promoted to his 743,000 Twitter followers.

First, the author said that in spite of the hype, bitcoin failed to satisfy the notion of "currency without government." In fact, he said, bitcoin proved to not even be a currency at all.

"The total failure of bitcoin in becoming a currency has been masked by the inflation of the currency value, generating (paper) profits for large enough a number of people to enter the discourse well ahead of its utility," he said.

Taleb's second criticism said bitcoin can neither be a short nor long-term store of value. He used the famous juxtaposition of gold versus bitcoin - which he said was poor comparison - to illustrate his point.

"Gold and other precious metals are largely maintenance-free, do not degrade over a historical horizon, and do not require maintenance to refresh their physical properties over time," he said. "Cryptocurrencies require a sustained amount of interest in them."