Warren Buffet goes bearish on Bitcoin
Investment guru Warren Buffet has given his opinion on the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
Speaking to CNBC on Monday, he said:
It's not a currency. It does not meet the test of a currency. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not around in 10 or 20 years
It's not a durable means of exchange; it's not a store of value. It's been a very speculative, Buck Rodgers type thing. People buy or sell them because they hope it will go up or down.
Buffet is far from the only high profile financial figure to express severe doubts about Bitcoin.
In December, the former head of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan said “There is no fundamental issue of capabilities of repaying it in anything which is universally acceptable, which is either intrinsic value of the currency or the credit or trust of the individual who is issuing the money, whether it’s a government or an individual.”
However, not every at the top of the financial world has had such a negative outlook on the fast-growing peer-to-peer currency.
Last year, Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML) said Bitcoin had the potential to grow into a significant player in e-commerce and could eventually gain a reputation as a store of value similar to that of silver.
Features such a finite supply and lower transactions costs also contributed to the bank's positive review of the online currency.
The virtual currency was recently dealt a serious blow by the closure of what was once the world's largest Bitcoin exchange MtGox. Last week, MtGox suspended trading, took it's website offline and erased the company's twitter account.
The exchange had reportedly lost 744,408 Bitcoin – roughly six per cent of Bitcoin circulation – due to problems with the exchange's software. On Friday, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo.