A Harvard professor and economist has made the bold claim that bitcoin will more likely be worth $100 in 10 years rather than $100,000.
Speaking on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box,’ Kenneth Rogoff, who is also the author of The Curse of Cash, said:
I think bitcoin will be worth a tiny fraction of what it is now if we’re headed out 10 years from now … I would see $100 as being a lot more likely than $100,000 10 years from now. Basically, if you take away the possibility of money laundering and tax evasion, its actual uses as a transaction vehicle are very small.
However, while Rogoff is claiming that bitcoin is used for money laundering that doesn’t appear to be true. In a January report from Bloomberg, it states that the criminal underworld is dropping the number one cryptocurrency for ninth-placed altcoin monero. According to the report, the European Union’s law-enforcement agency, Europol, wrote in a report that ‘other cryptocurrencies such as monero, ethereum and Zcash are gaining popularity within the digital underground.’
According to the former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), another trigger that will see a drop in bitcoin is if governments regulate the market. However, even though calls have been made for the industry to be regulated, consensus among global authorities remains limited.
Daniele Nouy, the European Central Bank’s chief supervisor, said last month that regulating cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin weren’t a high priority for it. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, has also said that there is ‘no strong case to ban cryptocurrency trading.’
In Rogoff’s opinion, though, a global government crack down needs to be put into place for money laundering and other criminal activities to be tackled.
He said:
It really needs to be global regulation. Even if the U.S. cracks down on it and China cracks down, but Japan doesn’t, people will be able to still launder money through Japan.
Rogoff’s comments join a long list of people who have spoken out against the market. Yet, despite this optimism remains. Even though bitcoin’s value fell from within touching distance of $20,000 in December to just above $6,000 at the start of February, it has since rallied back. At the time of publishing it is trading above $11,000, according to CoinMarketCap.
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