Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is no stranger to criticism from economists, politicians, bankers and investors.
Since its launch in 2008, Bitcoin (BTC) has been subject to countless hateful and skeptical reviews, with some critics calling it a scam or prophesying that Bitcoin is poised to go to zero.
As Bitcoin has grown and matured in the past few years, some critics have reinvented themselves as Bitcoin lovers, while others have dialed back their reasons for disliking the cryptocurrency.
But even with Bitcoin surging past $100,000 for the first time on record in December 2024, some crypto critics still have not capitulated and remain determined to bet against the thriving ecosystem.
Cointelegraph has selected a few Bitcoin commentators who have continued to reject Bitcoin or at least maintained a skeptical stance on the cryptocurrency as it reached new all-time highs in 2024.
Peter Schiff: “Bitcoin may end up destroying the dollar”
American stockbroker Peter Schiff, a prominent advocate for gold investments, has emerged as one of the most solid and long-time Bitcoin naysayers.
Schiff has been criticizing Bitcoin since at least 2013, when the cryptocurrency was worth just between $100 and $1,000. Still, despite Schiff’s Bitcoin skepticism, his son, Spencer Schiff, did not want to miss out on BTC and decided to move 100% of his portfolio into BTC in 2021.
Bitcoin’s $100,000 price mark was probably embarrassing for Schiff as in 2019, the investor predicted that BTC would never reach $100,000.
Source: Peter Schiff
Despite being wrong in his prediction, Schiff has continued to slam Bitcoin, expressing concerns about the United States government’s possible move to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
“Ironically, Bitcoin may end up destroying the dollar after all [...] because the US government embraces Bitcoin, prints trillions of dollars to buy it, and fuels a larger bubble that squanders the nation’s wealth,” Schiff wrote on X on the day BTC hit $100,000 for the first time.
In a subsequent X post on Dec. 8, Schiff referred to Bitcoin as a “national security threat” and a “public enemy number one” due to the US potentially using the public’s money to buy BTC.
Paul Krugman: “Crypto is for criming”
Paul Krugman is an American economist and journalist who won the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics for his work in economic geography and global trade patterns.
As a long-standing Bitcoin critic, Krugman has often been ridiculed in the crypto community for his unfortunate prediction in 1998 that the internet’s impact would never grow bigger than that of the fax machine.
Just like Schiff, Krugman has been criticizing Bitcoin since the cryptocurrency’s early years.
In 2013, Krugman wrote an article titled “Bitcoin is evil” for The New York Times, where he said he was “deeply unconvinced” about Bitcoin due to it missing basic features of money.
“Crypto is to a large extent a Ponzi scheme, this may just happen to be the moment when the scheme has run out of new suckers,” Krugman said in another article in 2022.
Paul Krugman retired as a New York Times columnist after 25 years on Dec. 6. Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin’s historic rise to $100,000 caught Krugman just as he retired from The New York Times on Dec. 6, but his crypto criticism did not stop there.
On Dec. 16, Krugman published a blog post titled “Crypto is for criming,” reiterating one of the most favorite narratives by Bitcoin naysayers.
He argued that while cash banknotes are an “awkward medium for really large-scale criminal activity,” cryptocurrencies like BTC are a better tool for illegal transactions.
“Maybe crypto isn’t digital gold, but digital Benjamins — the $100 bills that play a huge role in illegal activity around the world,” Krugman wrote.
ECB execs: “Bitcoin has failed on the promise to be a global decentralized digital currency”
The European Central Bank (ECB), creator of the European Union’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) project — the digital euro — apparently wasn’t among the happiest about Bitcoin’s success in 2024.
In October, the ECB’s payments director, Ulrich Bindseil, and ECB adviser, Jürgen Schaaf, penned a study warning on the “distributional consequences of Bitcoin.”
In the paper, the academics called on non-holders of BTC to advocate for legislation against Bitcoin. They argued that early and existing Bitcoin holders “exploit” newer buyers by selling BTC at a higher price.
ECB’s payments director Ulrich Bindseil (left) and ECB payments adviser Jürgen Schaaf. Source: ECB
ECB’s Bindseil and Schaaf didn’t miss the opportunity to criticize Bitcoin when the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) started trading in the US in early 2024. They stated:
“Bitcoin has failed on the promise to be a global decentralized digital currency. Instead, it is used for illicit transactions. The latest approval of an ETF doesn’t change the fact that Bitcoin is not suitable as a means of payment or as an investment.”
In November 2022, Bindseil and Schaaf wrote a “Bitcoin’s last stand” article for the ECB blog in which they argued that Bitcoin is “rarely used for legal transactions.”
While bashing BTC, Bindseil and Schaaf have been regularly praising a potential European CBDC.
In 2020, Bindseil described CBDCs like the ECB’s not-yet-launched digital euro as the “safest means of payment,” stating:
“This [digital euro] should be game-changing as this implies that the ECB would be directly governing monetary payments [...] The credibility of the payment system then depends on trust in the ECB and no longer in banks or the financial system."
Jamie Dimon: “I call it the pet rock”
Jamie Dimon, CEO of the largest US bank, JPMorgan Chase, apparently remains one of the biggest Bitcoin skeptics in 2024 despite JPMorgan being actively involved in spot Bitcoin ETFs.
A long-time Bitcoin critic, Dimon declared he was done talking about Bitcoin in early 2024, arguing that he doesn’t care about the cryptocurrency even after spot BTC ETFs made a historical trading debut on Jan. 11.
“This is the last time I’m talking about this with CNBC, so help me God,” Dimon said, referring to Bitcoin as a “pet rock.”
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. Source: Fortune
It is unclear whether Dimon has changed his stance on Bitcoin amid the cryptocurrency surging to new highs following Donald Trump’s election win.
In July, Trump — sometimes called America’s first “Bitcoin president” — reportedly disclosed that the JPMorgan CEO “changed his tune” about Bitcoin. Still, since January, Dimon has remained true to his pledge not to talk publicly about cryptocurrency.
In November, Reuters reported that Dimon had no plans to join Trump’s administration despite questions on whether he would take a senior government role after the election.
Rafi Farber: “When you buy Bitcoin, you’re just spreading the US inflation”
Rafi Farber, publisher of the gold-focused marketplace service End Game Investor, is probably one of the youngest Bitcoin critics.
Farber’s skeptical take on Bitcoin comes from a perspective that money cannot be printed forever without a currency collapse and that BTC contributes to more money printing as its price goes higher.
The financial journalist publicly admitted that he wasn’t happy about Bitcoin’s highs in gold terms in a blog post on Dec. 5. However, he still bets that Bitcoin will not survive a dollar crunch banking crisis.
End Game Investor publisher Rafi Farber. Source: YouTube
In November, Farber took to his YouTube channel to discuss the connection between Bitcoin, Tether USDt (USDT) stablecoin and US Treasurys.
“Tether is backed by US Treasurys, which back the US dollar, which is what you redeem Tether for, which is used to buy Bitcoin, which is backed by Tether, which is backed by US Treasurys, which back the US dollar and so on,” Farber said. He added:
“This is a spiral of monetary nothingness spinning in the air, and when you buy gold and silver, you’re taking that money out of the merry-go-round. When you buy Bitcoin, you’re just stimulating the price of Treasurys and you’re spreading the US inflation, and continuing the power of the deep state.”
Despite his skeptical view, Farber doesn’t rule out changing his stance on Bitcoin someday, but he needs to see how it weathers a global financial crisis. He stated:
“When that is triggered, if Bitcoin can maintain stability on gold ounce terms — not in dollar terms, I don’t care about dollars — then I will admit that Bitcoin is a viable gold derivative, and therefore not money itself, but a viable derivative of money, which can be used in commerce.”
“I don’t think that is going to happen,” he added, referring to the fact that Bitcoin’s value went down 37.5 ounces of gold to about 10 ounces in the last BTC crunch.
“I think the next crash of Bitcoin in gold terms will be even worse than that. We will find out soon enough when bank reserves fall below $3 trillion, which will be shortly,” Farber predicted.
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