When it comes to disliking cryptocurrencies, no single person hates them as much as Nouriel Roubini. He has repeatedly attacked the cryptocurrency world, saying it’s more centralized than North Korea. He doesn’t just attack Bitcoin in his Twitter rants either – oh no – he even takes on Vitalik Buterin – father of the Ethereum Foundation – calling him a dictator. Despite the fact that Vitalik has plans in motion to step back from his role at the Ethereum Foundation, Roubini still insists he is a dictator and should be treated as such.
A Centralized Universe
Roubini is a Harvard educated economist and allegedly predicted the 2008 financial crisis. His hate for the crypto world has earned him the title of “Dr Doom,” and the crypto community now compares his Twitter rants to when Charlie Sheen was using “tiger blood.” Roubini is adamant that the crypto industry is incredibly centralized and that everyone from miners and exchanges to developers and regulators are pretending to be decentralized. To quote Dr Doom, “decentralization is a myth”.
Roubini believes that the Gini coefficient – the statistical measure of the distribution of wealth amongst a population – points to the fact that the crypto world is centralized. When you consider that Bitcoins were cheaper years ago than they are today – and less well known – means that it is plausible that the majority of the wealth lies with a handful of people. This fact alone isn’t enough to call the crypto industry centralized.
Decentralization is a myth: miners, exchanges, developers are centralized (Buterin is “dictator for life” ) & the inequality coefficient of BTC is worse than North Korea that has the worst inequality on earth. Crypto beats Kim Un Jung in regards to centralization & inequality
— Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) October 8, 2018
Spreading FUD
Roubini is well known for his anti-crypto stance, but at the same time he also picks holes in traditional finance. Roubini appears to like mayhem and chaos, one of his proudest achievements was “predicting” the financial crisis in 2008, and no doubt he wants the same accolade for the crypto market. To this extent, he will spread as much FUD about the crypto market as possible in the hope that it crashes – sounds like market manipulation to us.
Altcoins Worse Than Manure
In an earlier rant on Twitter, Roubini said that calling altcoins that lost 99% of their value since the December 2017 boom “shitcoins” is an insult to manure. This highlights his unfounded disdain and hatred for crypto markets. He takes every opportunity he gets to bash the crypto industry and is actively lobbying against it to lawmakers in the US – could he be the reason the SEC is so negative towards Bitcoin ETFs?
Calling this crappy garbage of 1000s of alt-coins – that lost 99% of their value since peak – as “shit-coins” is a grave insult to manure that is a most useful, precious and productive good as fertilizer in agriculture. So apologies to manure for this offensive comparison
— Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) October 8, 2018
Whatever Roubini’s reason is for attacking the crypto world, take his ramblings and rants with a pinch of salt. There is a good chance he is just salty that he passed up an opportunity to get into Bitcoin when it was less than $1,000 and wants everyone else to suffer, just as he is. Dr Doom’s Twitter ramblings are unlikely to ever have any negative impact on the crypto markets, but if you’re ever looking to kill some time they certainly make for an amusing read.
