On February 12, noted Lebanese-American essayist and risk analyst, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, stated that bitcoin’s leading digital currency is a failure, at least for now. Cryptocurrency fans are upset by Taleb’s recent statements after it looks like the famous author has done a full 180 after years of backing the crypto asset.
Nassim Taleb is not impressed with Bitcoin these days
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a very popular author, mathematician statistician and scholar. Over the years, Taleb has been very critical of the current monetary system, the current financial sector and the most recent financial crises. The philosopher is best known for his books “The Black Swan” (2010) and “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder” (2012).
After Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin network, Taleb was initially very optimistic about this emerging technology and over the years wrote positive things about the digital asset.
Two years ago in a post published on Taleb’s Opacity blog entitled “It May Fail, But We Now Know How To Do It,” the novelist explained that “Bitcoin is an excellent idea.” Taleb said his essay was initially written as a foreword to Saifedean Ammous’s book, but he also stressed that he disagreed with Saifedean Ammous’ “grumpy and conspiratorial ideas.” When we talked about bitcoin (BTC), Taleb’s view at the time was that the cryptocurrency was a powerful animal.
“It meets the needs of the complex system, not because it is a cryptocurrency,” Taleb wrote. “But precisely because it has no owner, no authority to decide its fate. It is owned by the masses, its users. And it now has a track record of several years, enough to be an animal in its own right. “
In 2021, specifically on Feb. 12, Nassim Nicholas Taleb decided to tell the public that he was selling some of his bitcoin. Additionally, Taleb criticized a number of people within the crypto community at the end of his tweet.
“I got rid of my BTC,” says the well-known author tweeted to its 705,000+ Twitter followers. Why? A currency should never be more volatile than what you buy [and] sell with it. You cannot price goods in BTC, ”said the former options trader.
Taleb further added:
In that respect, it’s a failure (at least for now). It was adopted by Covid and sociopaths denied the sophistication of amoebas.
Not finished with his scathing criticism, Taleb decided to add to his first statement. “The other problem BTC Protozoa [doesn’t] get: the appeal of a cryptocurrency hinges on some opacity, its ability to facilitate tax fraud and money laundering, “Taleb tweeted“You can anonymize a gold coin by remelting it. You can rework a spoon. BTC is more manageable than cash. The volatility of BTC does not go down with time / on [a] higher price, exactly what you don’t need, ”the famous author further emphasized.
Paul Sztorc: ‘Saner Bitcoiners have become quieter lately’
Proponents of cryptocurrency and bitcoin were, of course, not too happy with Taleb’s statements. The popular bitcoiner Pierre Rochard told Taleb that “bitcoin is crashing”, while digital asset advocate Chris Ellis said “[Bitcoin is] synchronize with the world economy. “
“It’s like looking at the progress bar of an old tape backup without the ‘time to completion’ feature,” says Chris Ellis continued
Others responded differently and discussed the topic from a different perspective. The software developer, Paul Sztorc, shared how healthier BTC people have not been so boisterous in recent times.
Unfortunately, it is true that most Bitcoiners do [Nassim Nicholas Taleb] spoke with embarrassments (namely Saifedean who makes it his mission to ward off all intelligent reasonable people). Saner BTCers have become quieter lately, ”Sztorc said on Twitter.
Sztorc continued:
It’s exactly like [Chris] DeRose / Junseth predicted a long time ago. ‘Enforcer’ types, who are very good at pressuring the gullible to increase their involvement, but are repugnant to outsiders or independent thinkers. I think that’s the people [Nassim Nicholas Taleb] refers to.
Nassim Taleb Not Convinced By Refutations, Says ‘Bitcoin Misfits Share the Monocellular Brain’
After Taleb’s first tweet on Feb. 12, the author tweeted some more on the 14th, and criticized Dan Held from Kraken FX. Blockchain researcher Willy Woo responded to Taleb’s criticisms said that “volatility is a red herring.”
“The most likely path is for BTC to become a reserve asset that backs currencies. If we think of it as a unit of account, that’s a hangover from the agricultural age when we had shells and lumps of silver. We are now in a digital age, we have live indexes and baskets, ”added Woo. Despite all the defense and response to Taleb’s new thinking, the author does not seem to prefer the crypto assets as he did in the past.
Even last April, when news went viral that the Bank of Lebanon was applying strict rules for the transfer of local currency, Taleb tweeted: “Use cryptocurrencies!”
But today is a different story, and on Sunday morning (EST), Taleb seemingly responded to numerous Twitter responses to “reserve assets”.
Bitcoin misfits share the monocellular brain [and] logical wiring errors: ‘BTC is a good idea, that’s why IT WILL BE * THE * reserve currency’ (i.e. no other ideas [and] no other reserve). Reserve ≄ Volatile. [Plus] It is not meant to be volatile AT HIGHER PRICES. [Plus] Never found any applications, ”Taleb insisted
What do you think of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s recent scathing criticism of bitcoin and bitcoin advocates in general? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments below.
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