Bitcoin (BTC) has had a rough time in 2018, losing upwards of 60 percent of its value. The former CEO of PayPal, however, goes so far as to deny any value or usability of the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is a ‘Cult’
The former chief executive officer at PayPal, Bill Harris, was speaking to CNBC’s Fast Money on the matter of Bitcoin. According to him, Bitcoin is nothing but a cult making a bunch of false claims, saying:
The cult of bitcoin [makes] many claims — that it’s instant, free, scalable, efficient, secure, globally accepted and useful — it is none of those things.
This isn’t the first time Harris has been overly negative on the topic. Back in April, he said that cryptocurrency is a “colossal pump-and-dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen.”
Interestingly enough, though, Harris makes another point on fiat currencies, stating:
We’ve got digital currencies. And we’ve got digital currencies that are more stable, more widely accepted and have intrinsic value. We’ve already got it — it’s called the dollar, the yen, you name it.
It’s unclear why he holds that there is any sign of digitalization within the US Dollar.
Lack of Intrinsic Value
According to the former CEO, Bitcoin lacks any intrinsic value whatsoever, saying:
There has to be something underpinning it. […] Bitcoin makes no revenue, no profitability.
His statements are fairly odd, as the US dollar is only backed by the condition of the US economy since it exited the Gold Standard. In other words, the fiat currency that he holds so dear has absolutely nothing tangible underpinning it as well.
However, the blockchain, which is a product of Bitcoin’s technology, has already proven itself to be an invaluable step forward that numerous companies across a range of industries recognize and utilize.
On the matter of profitability, the following chart shows the historical growth of Bitcoin in the last seven years:
Some might call an increase of more than 42,000 percent in as little as seven years profitable.
Harris also pointed out that BTC has major issues such as slow transaction times, scaling challenges, and volatility, making it “useless as a payment mechanism and ridiculous as a store of value.” It’s true – Bitcoin’s network does have scaling issues and faces challenges which are yet to be overcome. However, it is worth remembering that the technology is incredibly nascent – it was brought to light in 2009. Plus, solutions like the Lightning Network are being worked on to address such issues.
In any case, Bitcoin marks its first day trading in the green within the last couple of weeks, bouncing up over 6 percent.
What do you think of the sentiments of Bill Harris? Let us know in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Coin.dance