Bitcoin Obituaries Timeline

"Btc has no value. In the best light it’s insurance. Based on my lifetime priors there is a 1% chance a superpower will collapse any given year. It’s worth it for me to spend 1% of my wealth on some asset that might not go to zero in that environment. It’s not an investment, it’s a cost, and there is no guarantee it will work. It’s as good at doing that at $100k as it is at $10k. If it works, it has very little to do with technology outside of the initial innovation that happened 15 years ago."

"It is going to hurt a lot of people. I hope I am not one of them. I hope you are not one of them. I do not see any reality to the movement. In my view, it is a bubble, and it will blow up someday."

"Cryptocurrencies are such a puzzle because they violate all the rules of a medium of exchange. They don’t have a stable real value. You know, they have highly variable real value. That kind of medium of exchange is not supposed to survive."

"There’s no fundamental trend for crypto because I don’t know what the fundamentals are, but there is a price trend."

"It goes way up, it goes way down. It is very far from being a safe investment."

"Crypto and blockchain will likely go down as the biggest example of popular delusions and the madness of crowds in world history. The overall losses when the bubble finally pops will be staggering."

"The rise of alternative coins, offering unique features and higher potential returns, leads many to explore them. Bitcoin doesn't have the potential it had in the early days. There is still significant value and influence, but no more old glory and enormous returns."

"As if to put the final nail in the coffin, as if to bury once and for all any hopes of using cryptocurrencies as ‘digital gold,’ bitcoin dropped by 15 percent. It seems less like digital gold than a digital slot machine."

"It will probably go above the all-time high but in the long run its value will be zero because there is no intrinsic value in bitcoin whatsoever. It’s simply a speculative asset."

"I’m calling the bitcoin top. It happened in October 2021 at the peak of the money printing. It’s over now. The next round of inflation will pour into real money, not nonexistent derivatives. We are headed to the End Game with the next inflation round. Bitcoin is dead."

"AMBCrypto reported earlier that BTC may witness a short-term price correction as there was a movement of coins from long-term holders (LTHs) to short-term holders (STHs). The token’s Binary CDD continued to remain red, meaning that long-term holders’ movements in the last seven days were higher than average. Its aSORP was also red. This suggested that more investors were selling at a profit. In the middle of a bull market, it can indicate a market top."

"For disciples, the formal approval confirms that Bitcoin investments are safe and the preceding rally is proof of an unstoppable triumph. We disagree with both claims and reiterate that the fair value of Bitcoin is still zero."

"I’ve always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, etc. The only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers … money laundering, tax avoidance... If I was the government, I’d close it down."

"With the network handling 113 million transactions in 2020 and 96.7 million in 2021, the water footprint per transaction processed on the Bitcoin blockchain for those years amounted to 5,231 and 16,279 L, respectively."

"The report states that each Bitcoin transaction consumes 1,173 kilowatt hours of electricity. That’s the volume of energy that could “power the typical American home for six weeks,” the authors add."

"That the deadly attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians comes as the group has become ‘one of the most sophisticated crypto users in the terror-finance domain’ clarifies the national security threat crypto poses to the U.S., and our allies. Congress and this Administration must take strong action to thoroughly address crypto illicit finance risks before it can be used to finance another tragedy."

"My experience is that, after a fad withers away, those who were blindly promoting it will claim that they knew it all along; it was clearly predictable."

"Institutions could bring down Bitcoin and crypto."

"Bitcoin is, frankly, for suckers in the long term."

"I’ve tried hard to understand the arguments for crypto and figure out why people are so excited. I can’t find value there."

"However, with no intrinsic value, huge price volatility and no discernible social good, consumer trading of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin more closely resembles gambling than a financial service, and should be regulated as such. By betting on these unbacked ‘tokens’, consumers should be aware that all their money could be lost."

"And describing it as “investment” is, needless to say, an abuse of the word; “Ponzi schemes” might be more accurate."

"Bitcoin is a gambling token, and it doesn’t have any intrinsic value."

"So it turns out that Bitcoin is just another bubble asset that blows up when the Fed gets serious about hiking interest rates. Zero store of value function. Zero diversification benefit. Zero yield. Sayonara Bitcoin..."

"Bitcoin and all the pathetic fake currencies that popped up in its wake are the worst thing to happen to the investment world in my lifetime. They are a joke wrapped in a fraud, wrapped in a Ponzi scheme and sold as a get-rich-quick investment opportunity."

"Crypto is now in the process of going to zero except for bitcoin which will probably go negative because if we’re moving into a world with carbon taxes you have to take into account the energy to produce it in the first place."

"Since Bitcoin appears to be neither suitable as a payment system nor as a form of investment, it should be treated as neither in regulatory terms and thus should not be legitimised. Similarly, the financial industry should be wary of the long-term damage of promoting Bitcoin investments - despite short-term profits they could make (even without their skin in the game). The negative impact on customer relations and the reputational damage to the entire industry could be enormous once Bitcoin investors will have made further losses."

"I’m a major skeptic on crypto tokens, which you call currency, like Bitcoin, They are decentralized Ponzi schemes."

""

"There will come a day when you wish you sold #Bitcoin for $20,000! Take a look at the historic chart to see how far of a fall is possible, if you are interested in risks associated with an unraveling Ponzi scheme."

"Bitcoin is nothing more than a string of digital codes, and its returns mainly come from buying low and selling high... In the future, once investors' confidence collapses or when sovereign countries declare bitcoin illegal, it will return to its original value, which is utterly worthless."

"Bitcoin's washout will not see a fast comeback. The decentralized dream has been exposed. Connect the dots and act accordingly."

"Bitcoin has pretty much lost all its gains throughout the pandemic and hit a new horror low that will make history."

"Previous declines didn't involve anywhere near the total market cap lost during this decline, nor did they involve massive leverage. This crash is just beginning. #Bitcoin will not recover."

"As cryptocurrency companies come under closer scrutiny, they will start looking less representative of the libertarian ideal on which Bitcoin was founded and more like the ageing banks it was meant to replace. At that point, we might start to wonder where its value comes from. If a couple of companies have the power to crash the entire market, Bitcoin does not look so free after all."

"Bitcoin will never be a safe haven asset or a central currency."

"Bitcoin is down 50% since November. You risk losing everything."

"By its very design, blockchain technology is poorly suited for just about every purpose currently touted as a present or potential source of public benefit. From its inception, this technology has been a solution in search of a problem and has now latched onto concepts such as financial inclusion and data transparency to justify its existence, despite far better solutions to these issues already in use. Despite more than thirteen years of development, it has severe limitations and design flaws that preclude almost all applications that deal with public customer data and regulated financial transactions and are not an improvement on existing non-blockchain solutions."

"My very humble assessment is that it is worth nothing. It is based on nothing, there is no underlying assets to act as an anchor of safety."

"It’s terribly clever, but a pointless, busted bubble."

"Digital currencies sought to replace the financial system with one that was faster, cheaper, less under government control and more accessible to the poor, but they failed."

"So cryptocurrencies are no longer making anyone rapid fortunes, are no longer protecting against inflation, and governments are working out how to find them. What exactly is the attraction? They are clearly little more than a pyramid scheme: machines for redistributing wealth from players who are late into the gold rush to those who were early. And like all other pyramid schemes, they have a brief and finite life. Many of these new get-rich-quick schemes – like NFTs – have already come and gone. Cryptocurrencies face not so much a rapid crash as a slide into nothingness."

"Of course I hate the bitcoin success. I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth, nor do I like just shuffling out of your extra billions of billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air."

"Crypto assets are no different from a classic Ponzi scheme where a steady stream of new entrants pays off the older members. It all depends on greater fools joining the rush to participate because prices are rising. Today, the greater fool is wondering whether to buy Tesla and Ethereum."

"Not only is Biden authorizing the regulation of digital currencies, but he is also instructing to move forward with a central bank cryptocurrency. Once that is done, all other cryptocurrencies will be seized and folded into the government’s crypto. For all of those who said Bitcoin replaced gold and the dollar, if they didn’t bother to look at a chart, it has been declining since last November."

"#Bitcoin won't be around a decade from now."

"People still fixated on #Bitcoin are living in the past. #Gold is the future. The last ten years are irrelevent to what will happen over the next. This is gold's time to shine. Bitcoin's candle will soon blow out. Bitcoin HODLers who fail to grasp the change will lose everything!"

"I wish it had been banned immediately. I admire the Chinese for banning it. I think they were right and we were wrong to allow it."

"Attention #Bitcoin buyers: This could be your last chance to buy Bitcoin above $40,000. So hurry up and buy those high-priced Sats while supplies last."

"Originally, Bitcoin was supposed to be a currency. Then, it was supposed to be a hedge against inflation, a sort of digital gold. But as the great crypto market crash of the last three months has begun to unfold, it’s started to look like something much more mundane: a crappy tech stock."

"In 4 years, bitcoin will be a traumatic memory."

"You’re going to see a lot of movement in terms of doing authentication and insurance policies and real estate transfer taxes all online over the next few years, making NFTs a much bigger, more fluid market potentially than just bitcoin alone."

"I feel safe saying that, when history looks back in hindsight, it will see crypto as a gargantuan bubble that — as capitalism always does — wiped out the finances of tons of small people who could not afford to be wiped out, and left the rich mostly intact, all because it was able to convince regular people to believe that this time was different. The delusion that salvation from capitalism can be found in new, more clever capitalism is incredibly seductive, and always wrong. Let’s hope that we snap out of it before it’s too late."

"People buy into bitcoin in expectation of handsome returns. That expectation is sustained by the profits of those who cash out. But there is no external source of income. As in a classic Ponzi scheme old investors cashing out only do so at the expense of new money coming in. Unlike, say, investment in shares and bonds, bitcoin makes no contribution to the greater economic or public good."

"If I write about the inevitable obsolescence of Bitcoin, I'll have to lock my account again, won't I."

"In a crash, the holders of bitcoin will collectively have lost what they have paid the miners for their bitcoin. This sum may be not far from the sum originally invested with Madoff, after accounting for inflation. But bitcoin holders will have no one to pursue to recover this sum: it will simply have gone up in smoke, a social loss. The holders of bitcoin would then only wish it had been a Ponzi scheme."

"Some of the newer cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology far more efficiently than bitcoin does."

"Simple game theory tells us that a process of backward induction should, really, at some point, induce the smart money to get out. And were that to happen, investors really should be prepared to lose everything. Eventually."

"I am pretty sure Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will continue to surprise us all, and that the greater fool is still to be found just around the corner. Cryptos have thrived because social media, the internet and connectivity have made it easy to disseminate the con around the global markets at incredible speed. They’ve succeeded because regulators haven’t stopped them – hat-tip to the Chinese for being ahead of the regulatory pack in that regard. Someday, the last greater fool will want his money back, and regulators will be exposed for not acting earlier."

"One thing I cannot understand is why the market (i.e. all the people speculating in cryptocurrency) does not yet recognize that there is no way that Bitcoin is going to be the winner of this technological race."

"In the absence of its use as a currency, though, the only thing supporting the value of crypto is the expectation that there’s always going to be someone else who’ll pay to take it off your hands. You’re betting, essentially, on being the last person holding the bomb before it goes off. With Squid coins, most people could see the wires sticking out and smell the cordite (let’s not even talk about the similarly ill-fated cryptocurrency Monkey Jizz). Bitcoin is heavy, shiny and attractive. But if you hold it right up to your ear, deep inside, I think you can hear something ticking."

"I personally think that Bitcoin is worthless."

"#Bitcoin’s volatility is its Achilles' heel and the reason it will never serve as a reliable unit of account or currency. Bitcoin is nothing more than a highly speculative asset with a fundamental value of ZERO."

"Many people believe that #Bitcoin is the "currency of the future." However, Bitcoin's volatility should punctuate the fact that it will NEVER be considered a currency. #BTC is just a highly speculative asset, and anyone who believes otherwise is living in fantasyland."

"The idea that #Bitcoin whales deliberately tank the market to shake out the little guys to get their coins is nonsense. The whales don't want the minnows to sell, they want them holding and hoping and buying the dip. The whales want out. They're fishing for dollars, not Bitcoin."

"And I would say that cryptocurrencies are a bubble. I would describe them as a limited supply of nothing. So to the extent there’s more demand than the limited supply, the price would go up. But to the extent the demand falls, then the price would go down. There’s no intrinsic value to any of the cryptocurrencies except that there’s a limited amount."

"Wildly volatile, highly speculative, and fundamentally worthless. #Bitcoin will NEVER be considered a currency. Are the #BTC evangelists and enthusiasts blindly digging their own graves?"

"I predict all these forms of cryptocurrencies that are not backed by central banks or backed by assets will ultimately go to zero. I can’t tell you when it will happen, but it’s inevitable that it will go to zero."

"Bitcoin investors seem to be relying on the greater fool theory — all you need to profit from an investment is to find someone willing to buy the asset at an even higher price."

"The BIS decision hopefully serves as a wake-up call for all of the happy bitcoin enthusiasts who actually believe that this penny arcade version of “money” could ever survive in a significant way in the government-centric world of money and banking."

"What just happened" Will be the most popular 3rd/4th quarter phrase of 2021."

"A few decades from now, Bitcoin and Ethereum will be collector items, not the currency of the global economy."

"So, what has bitcoin actually, you know, done? The answer, of course, is: basically nothing. And that’s why the world’s most-traded cryptocurrency is worth basically nothing."

"I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth, nor do I like just shuffling out of your extra billions of billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air."

"So, there’s these things called nerds and in 2008 one of them we don’t know who because this person or group of persons is still anonymous made up Bitcoin out of thin air using the fake name ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, which I think are the Japanese words for “monopoly money”."

"The cryptocurrency space today looks very similar to the internet space in 1997. In 1997, we thought Netscape Navigator was by far the most advanced sophisticated browser and there would never be anything to compete with that. And obviously here we are, Netscape is long [gone]."

"I realized it was not a currency without a government. It was just pure speculation. It’s just like a game ... I mean, you can create another game and call it a currency."

"Even if it does not amount to much in a practical sense, what Turkey’s move does represent is another nail in cryptocurrency’s coffin. Those nails have been hammered in at an accelerating pace; China has had a ban on Bitcoin trading in place since 2017, Nigeria banned cryptocurrencies in February this year, and India is preparing to impose what will be one of the world’s strictest bans on cryptocurrencies, including fines on those trading and holding assets."

"I don’t know where it will end or how it will end, but it will end. And when it ends, it will be ugly because there will be nothing there."

"Cryptocurrency is here to stay, but Bitcoin and its clones will be obsolete, probably within this decade. Once the fall starts, it will come hard and fast."

"Cryptocurrenies - A product of government malfeasance... These are false currencies, man made, another fiat. They have been given value by speculation caused be central bank unlimited printing & adoption of MMT... Government will have to kill them, just as India is doing. They’ll die"

"I think there is a good chance that over the next year the price of Bitcoin will drop towards its fundamental value, which is nothing... If Bitcoin were to lose half its present value — which is not unlikely, given its extremely volatile past behaviour — Tesla will lose around A$1 billion. As Elon Musk owns about a fifth of Tesla, he would then be down A$200 million. In contrast, I own no Bitcoin so I will lose nothing, which means I will have done A$200 million better than Musk."

"#BREAKING: another day, another record for #Bitcoin. Today, bitcoin broke $55,000/#BTC, which represents a 473% gain in the past 12 months. Remember, while the BTC bubble keeps growing, it’s fundamental value is zero."

"Bitcoin's current price is "unsustainable" unless the cryptocurrency's volatility dies down, according to JPMorgan."

"I've been getting rid of my BTC. Why? A currency is never supposed to be more volatile than what you buy & sell with it. You can't price goods in BTC. In that respect, it's a failure (at least for now)."

"Since the fundamental value of bitcoin is zero and would be negative if a proper carbon tax was applied to its massive polluting energy-hogging production, I predict that the current bubble will eventually end in another bust... Risky, volatile bitcoin doesn’t belong in the portfolios of serious institutional investors."

"Something with a long-term volatility of 80% can't be considered a medium of exchange. Just because everybody piles into an idea and talks it up doesn't mean it's a store of value."

"Bitcoin is nothing, it’s vapor, a concept of an idea. Transactions using bitcoin are few and far between. It’s not a store of value—anything that drops 30% in a week can’t play that role."

"Unlike governments, the closest Bitcoin gets to redistribution of wealth is celebrity-sponsored giveaways, which are at worst predatory hoaxes and at best promotional corporate stunts that offer $11 worth of cryptocurrency to people clearly desperate for far more. Help mine the stuff with a high-end computer and get the chance to heat your greenhouse as well."

"What is the future value of the dividend stream of Bitcoin? I can tell you that, that doesn’t take a prize winning mathematician. It is nil."

"Bitcoin’s recent 25% plunge illustrates why it will never be a true currency… The fact that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value (the way a stock or bond does) doesn’t mean it’s headed to zero. It just means that Bitcoin has become totally untethered from its original purpose. What was supposed to be a way to revolutionize people’s everyday financial lives is now mostly a way for people to get rich quick (or lose their shirts) or, in an ideal scenario, for people to protect their wealth against inflation. Bitcoin began as a cryptocurrency. It has ended as a cryptoasset."

"If you never sell your #Bitcoin, what difference does the price make? When it ultimately goes to zero, the percentage loss for all HODLers will be the same, 100%. The significant difference will be how much you pay, not the price. Those who “invest” the most will lose the most."

"Bitcoin was a good effort, it deployed some new ideas and technology, and showed that at some scale the “block chain” idea worked, but ultimately, although a successful proof of concept, failed to deliver. It doesn’t scale, except by becoming the very thing it was supposed to replace."

"The price of Bitcoin is totally manipulated by a bunch of people, by a bunch of whales. It doesn’t have any fundamental value,” he said. “We’re close to the point where the hyperbolic bubble is going to go bust."

"While I don’t disagree that a digital payments revolution is underway, or that blockchain could offer global financial and supply chain solutions, bitcoin isn’t the vessel that’s going to make this vision a reality.…History has proved that sentiment can shift at the drop of a pin in the cryptocurrency space. I’d suggest investors keep their distance from bitcoin."

"The bitcoiners and trolls are out in force because they are terrified this entire house of cards is about to collapse, and it will. Bitcoin is a Ponzi, and all Ponzi schemes ultimately collapse under their own weight."

"Sometimes there’s something so absurd that you hardly know where to begin to make the argument, for it’s so obvious and self evident that it should not have to be explained. Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are such a case."

"Bitcoin remains too volatile to be a long-term store of value like gold has traditionally done. Bitcoin’s arbitrary supply limit will severely hinder its future usefulness."

"Bitcoin has no role in institutional or retail investors portfolios. It is not a currency: not an unit of account, not a scalable means of payment & is a highly volatile store of value."

"“The blockchain itself will be critical to letting people move money around the world cheaper,” he said. (His bank made waves recently with the launch of its “JPM Coin” for wholesale banking payments). “We will always support blockchain technology.” But Dimon refused to give ground on his opposition to bitcoin. He repeated his longstanding belief that governments will ultimately more heavily regulate it (something echoed recently by fellow billionaire Ray Dalio). Oversight is inevitable for something so large, he said."

"Cryptocurrencies don’t belong in your portfolio. The reason is you can’t value them. An asset that doesn’t pay even a notional stream of cashflows — like bonds, which pay interest, or shares, which pay dividends, or property, which provides rental income — is just a gamble. By all means engage in it, like punting on a roulette wheel, for recreation, but be prepared to lose your entire stake."

"Bitcoin is over. #RIP"

"In contrast, bitcoin or other digital currencies are very likely worthless in the long term, and those are the kind of assets that investing legend Warren Buffet won’t touch. It’s these latter kinds of assets that have a greater chance to be in bubble territory because they don’t generate cash flow to support their valuations."

"Bitcoin is a terrible store of value and an equally terrible long-term investment. And the more bitcoin becomes mainstream, the more the most powerful governments in the world will make it their mission to undermine the cryptocurrency."

"Overall, bitcoin does not fulfill, or only partially fulfills the three functions of money. It is not a unit of account, nor is it a payment instrument, or a store of value."

"You can store #Bitcoin, but you can't store value as Bitcoin has no value to store. Sure Bitcoin has market value today as speculators still want to buy it. But there is no way to know if anyone of them will still want to buy it in the future."

"“Those who use cryptocurrency think they are smarter than their governments,” Rogers said to AERA dot. “In fact, I think they are correct. But their governments have something that crypto people don’t have. That is guns. The reason why I think cryptocurrency will be gone eventually is that it is not based on the armed force of governments’ power.”"

"BTC has no utility because software developers cannot build platforms and services with the BTC protocol. Therefore, it is not possible to create goods and services with BTC that bring real value to people’s lives and improve the world."

"The knee-jerk explanation from many financial experts for bitcoin's plunge was that cryptocurrencies had essentially lost their safe-haven status and were once again perceived as a risky asset. That's inconsistent with the basic investing thesis many cryptocurrency investors have in justifying their bitcoin holdings, and if it's true, it would potentially be a big blow to the idea that bitcoin offers a safe alternative to fiat currencies and assets that are tied to those currencies."

"If you wanna buy Bitcoin, be prepared to lose all your money. If you wanna buy it — buy it, but understand what’s you’ve got. It has no intrinsic value."

"Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don't produce anything. They don't reproduce, they can't mail you a check, they can't do anything, and what you hope is that somebody else comes along and pays you more money for them later on, but then that person's got the problem. In terms of value: zero."

"Particularly for bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, the bank said it is “too volatile” to be a “reliable” store of value. It referenced bitcoin’s sharp price fluctuations during 2017-2018."

"I know exactly what’s there, it’s a ‘Pyramid’ scheme. You only make money based on people who enter after you… It has no real utility in the world. They’ve been trying to create a utility for it for 10 years now, so it’s a solution in search of a problem and it still hasn’t found a problem to solve."

"Mark Dow, a former US Treasury and International Monetary Fund economist, says that there’s no recovery coming. “Bitcoin is dying,” he boasted on Twitter."

"All cryptos will disappear."

"#Bitcoin will be dead by 2030. Average currency life = 27 years."

"…we won’t be reading much about “decentralization” here anymore. That watchword for a generation of young men interested in building the future as developers, programmers and blockchain and crypto enthusiasts, is well, kind of dead."

"Not many are able to think long term and realize this, but the cryptocurrency markets have already topped. With summer ending soon, the next 50% price cut might be only a few weeks away. Good news! I was (finally) able to verify and unfreeze an account with a crypto exchange and cashed out most of my money out of this MLM scheme."

"Even the smartest dealmakers in the world have been fooled by hype, and overestimated an asset’s true value. Bitcoin will end up virtually worthless, just like Tumblr, because its true value is next to nothing."

"Bitcoin remains sparsely adopted even a decade after its birth. We demonstrate theoretically that this limited adoption arises as an inescapable equilibrium outcome rather than as a transient feature."

"I won't be talking about Bitcoin in 10 years, I can assure you that. […] I would bet in even 5 or 6 years I'm no longer talking about Bitcoin as Treasury Secretary. […] I can assure you I will personally not be loaded up on Bitcoin."

"Who let the fools out? The only plausible explanation was an article written as an April Fool’s joke reporting that the SEC had held an emergency meeting over the weekend and voted to approve two bitcoin-based exchange traded funds (ETFs). For true fools, it hardly mattered what sparked the rally. As long as prices are going up, fools will buy in hopes of selling to greater fools. At some point, the supply of greater fools will dry up and bitcoin’s second bubble will end just like the first."

"Cryptocurrencies are a pure gamble with no discernible fundamentals whatsoever. The cryptocurrency “markets” are rife with fraud, scams and manipulation. I’d love them if I were a con artist."

"I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air."

"I hope I am wrong and there turns out to be a bright future for Bitcoin. The facts say otherwise."

"Indeed Bitcoin is now down below 10k. Has lost a third of its value in less than a week. Still a long way to less than zero as its true value is negative not zero given its toxic externalities! It will get to zero in due time."

"To me, it's fool’s gold. There are no financial statements, no balance sheets, no revenues or assets. There’s not even a physical product! This is unbridled lunacy in which some astute techies take advantage of what will ultimately be some very unfortunate people."

"Bitcoin has no intrinsic value as an asset. Never had. It yields no cash, generates no income and serves no useful legal purpose. It is most useful for money-laundering. If you need to get your money out of the country, fast, bitcoin is a pretty good way to do it."

"I’ve witnessed several asset bubbles over the years and those trapped inside also say foolish things to rationalize the price rise. But none more foolish than what’s being said to rationalize the Bitcoin bubble. The bigger the bubble, the more foolish one must be not to see it!"

"People are going to wake up one day and not find that the value of their BTC investment is diminishing, but that it is zero."

"Despite the utopian claims of its proponents, Bitcoin is a right-wing nightmare which facilitates tax evasion, money laundering and environmental degradation."

"My position remains the same. #Bitcoin will likely be replaced by a new technology and it’s manipulated. It’s possible it’s built to last, but not probable, so keep your position to an amount you’re willing to loose For most, that’s 1-5% of net worth It will likely go to 0-$500."

"As I’ve said before, bitcoin is nothing more than a confidence game. It’s worth nothing if people suddenly lose their confidence in this fake digital currency. It’s backed by nothing. It’s the definition of a con. I’ve said the same thing when a bitcoin was selling for $20,000. And still was saying it when it plunged to $4,000. Its real worth: $0."

"Bitcoin will soon be worth zero. But until then criminals will still be able to use it and other digital currency to move money around the world without being caught."

"Don’t be fooled by #bitcoin’s recent bump. Buying bitcoin is a fool’s game."

"Bitcoin is essentially a “digital game” and is “worthless,” “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary told CNBC on Tuesday. “It is a useless currency,” O’Leary, chairman of O’Shares ETFs, said on “Squawk Box. "To me, it’s garbage, because you can’t get in and out of it in large amounts.”"

"“It’s a gambling device… there’s been a lot of frauds connected with it. There’s been disappearances, so there’s a lot lost on it. Bitcoin hasn’t produced anything,” Buffett told a group of reporters ahead of Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska. “It doesn’t do anything. It just sits there. It’s like a seashell or something, and that is not an investment to me,” he added."

"Bitcoin is up 6% to its yearly high of around $6,000. Don’t be fooled, a 6% uptick is nothing after its huge plunge. Bitcoin is unreliable and susceptible to fraud, it is not a currency, but nothing more than a highly-speculative asset"

"First of all, the cryptocurrencies don’t actually work as currency. That’s the big deal. They’re hard to buy because they are deliberately incompatible with the rest of the financial system. They’re incredibly hard to hold on to because, well, something goes wrong it’s “Sorry for your loss.” That’s a function of the irreversible design. And finally, they’re actually really hard to spend. Most merchants who accept cryptocurrency aren’t actually accepting cryptocurrency, they’re using a service that turns it into dollars."

"To be clear, Bitcoin is absolutely worthless by any real measure. It’s fake money that’s about as practical to use in the real world as Monopoly bills. Bitcoin is backed by nothing and requires tremendous amounts of energy to mine using computers. As it becomes more difficult to mine, it saps more and more energy, causing millions of tons of carbon dioxide to be pumped into the atmosphere and accelerating climate change. Bitcoin is little more than a speculator’s death cult at this point."

"The big fatal flaw is that it doesn’t actually work as currency. If you can’t use it as a competitor to all the other actual digital currency systems we have, like, oh, PayPal…. All of these payment systems are vastly more efficient than the cryptocurrencies, unless you’re interested in criminal activity."

"I know who's the guy behind Bitcoin and when that comes out Bitcoin is going to Zero."

"Cryptocurrencies are scams and anybody who puts any money into them and loses the lot only has themselves to blame."

"“Bitcoin has no unique value at all,” Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick in a “Squawk Box” interview Monday. “It is a delusion, basically.”"

"But that dream is now effectively dead, and blockchain is now fully into its boring phase. The latest and most telling evidence of this arrived this morning, when JPMorgan (JPM) said it had developed and tested a prototype of a digital coin."

"Decentralization requires a process of intensive validation in the consumption of resources, which reduces system efficiency. In contrast, centralized systems with an intermediary trusted by the parties allow the design of much simpler and cheaper systems."

"Honestly, cryptocurrencies are useless. They’re only used by speculators looking for quick riches, people who don’t like government-backed currencies, and criminals who want a black-market way to exchange money."

"Primarily all we do with bitcoin is that we trade it. That is awfully similar to tulips and Beanie Babies in their heydays ― and we all know what happened to them. So it is a not a question of if, but more a question of when bitcoin will go to zero."

"In conclusion, it is a dismal space. Private and permissioned blockchains are an old idea—a good idea—just with a new buzzword on it. The public blockchains are grossly inefficient. The cryptocurrencies don’t work to provide anything against drugs and ransoms and stuff like that. Smart contracts are an unmitigated disaster unless you like comedy gold. And the field is just recapitulating 500 years of failures. So in the end, the only winning move is not to play—unless you like playing with flamethrowers."

"“I do believe it will go to zero. I think it’s a great technology but I don’t believe it’s a currency. It’s not based on anything,” Jeff Schumacher, founder of BCG Digital Ventures, said during a CNBC-hosted panel in Davos, Switzerland."

"Does the subsequent price behavior of bitcoin mean my prediction was wrong? No. I still think that the long-run equilibrium price of bitcoin is zero. It just hasn’t bitten the dust yet."

"Ardo Hansson, the governor of Bank of Estonia, has claimed that cryptocurrencies would die as a complete load of nonsense while speaking at “5 Years with the Euro” conference in Latvia. The policymaker assured that the bubble has already started to collapse and it should continue to do unless the market reaches “a new kind of equilibrium.” “I think we will come back a few years from now and say how could we ever have gotten into this situation where we believed this kind of a fairy-tale story,” said Hansson."

"The simple truth is that there are virtually no investment strategies that are worse ideas than cryptocurrencies. “Investing” in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is pure, unadulterated speculation. I put investing in parentheses because this is not investing, it is speculating. Cryptocurrencies are the “Tulipmania” of the 21st century."

"If currencies are fundamentally tribal, how can Bitcoin possibly become the “new gold standard”, as maximalists dream? Humans don’t take kindly to attempts by other tribes to eliminate their tribal symbols and impose those of another tribe. They have to be persuaded, not coerced. Currently, Bitcoin maximalists can’t even persuade other Bitcoiners to support their coin. The idea that they could persuade all the people of the world to throw away their tribal currencies and adopt their version of Bitcoin is laughable. When’s the next fork, by the way?"

"Bitcoin was never more than a vehicle for tax evaders and grifters to burn carbon in the hope of scoring a hot new Lambo. It represents all of our worst excesses, and it does so at a huge cost both to the people and our planet. Perhaps now that the investment has dwarfed the potential return, this collective hysteria will end. At least until the next one comes along."

"Bitcoin is literally worth nothing. Bitcoin has no chance of success because it’s worthless. It has nothing backing it but an illusion; no gold or silver or even a decree that it’s legal tender. It has no intrinsic value and no one needs it. Bitcoin doesn’t actually have any intrinsic value of any sort backing it – only vague assertions of its potential usefulness in the future. Your currency is only worth what other people believe it’s worth and I’ll present a few reasons why Bitcoin will never be generally agreed upon as something of worth."

"I’m afraid I am predicting it to go to zero value as it has no utility, it does not do anything and they intentionally are anti-scaling."

"Bitcoin is dead, it’s too fragmented, there’s tons of infighting I just don’t think it will last,” Finman told MarketWatch. “It may have a bull market or two left in it, but long-term, its dead."

"We’ve known bitcoin was dropping for a while, but the nails are really going in the coffin now. It costs $5,000 to make a bitcoin. But bitcoin is now only selling for $6,000. If this pattern keeps up, it’ll soon cost more to make bitcoin than bitcoins are actually worth, meaning nobody will bother making them anymore. Bitcoin is a colossal waste of energy that will soon be no more. Good riddance."

"Bitcoin also fails to meet the criteria of a currency. Its the price movements are too volatile to be a unit of account. The transaction capacity of the Blockchain is too limited for it to be a medium of exchange. Nor does it appear to be a good store of value. Since it produces no income, has limited scarcity value, and few people are willing to use Bitcoin as currency, it is even possible that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value."

"Cryptocurrencies are inherently a dumb idea. But aside from being a con, they also waste enormous amounts of energy in service of a pointless goal. The sooner Bitcoin crashes the better off the entire world will be."

"In my opinion, bitcoin is dead. It won’t go quietly, but the recent precipitous drop may be the beginning of its inevitable and inexorable death spiral. Or there could be a dead cat bounce. Either way, I see bitcoin as a dead man walking. Future generations may read about bitcoin in a finance textbook as a curiosity and wonder what all the fuss was about. There are still some die-hard adherents espousing the virtues of bitcoin, desperate to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Unfortunately for them, the end may not be pretty when it comes."

"Just one year has passed since bitcoin enthusiasts forecasted that the cryptocurrency would hit a price of $1 million. But that was then. With the price of bitcoin having fallen almost 80% from its peak, and now trading well-below the support level of $6,000, everyone is wondering where it goes from here. The answer is, a swift and painful drop to zero."

"The world’s premier cryptocurrency has bounced back from selloffs before but this time may be different. Regulators are cracking down and investors’ fear of losing everything is overtaking their fear of missing out. The route is a setback for people who hoped digital cash would challenge Visa and Mastercard. It vindicates Warren Buffet and others who have compared electronic currencies to a Ponzi scheme."

"The problem with bitcoin at the moment, despite Ohio, is just what its champions decry: It is not a government-controlled currency. And therefore, asks Merton, who is responsible for the value of our currency if tomorrow morning all the bitcoin screens go dark?"

"Bitcoin is down below $4,000./ BTC from nearly $20,000/BTC a year ago. Bitcoin is all about speculation. Don’t be tricked, buying bitcoin is a fool’s game."

"Bitcoin, while not officially a product of traditional Wall Street, is a pyramid scheme. A fraud. But it is best described as a “confidence game.” I’ve been calling it a “bitcon” for a long time. And now the pyramid seems to be collapsing because fewer and fewer people have confidence that the price of this inherently worthless “cryptocurrency” is going to continue to rise."

"Nothing on the Bitcoin label turned out to be in the bottle. As a means of payment, it is cumbersome, volatile and expensive. It has destroyed value rather than storing it. Its decentralized technology was sold to investors as being unique. It has been anything but."

"As history has proven on multiple occasions, most bubbles end with the majority of investors losing massive amounts of money as they hold and hope for the bubble to reflate. Regrettably, after bubbles pop, they can take decades to recover and “take out” the bubble price high, or, worst-case scenario, disappear. I think bitcoin will be a worst-case scenario situation."

"So much for Bitcoin, beloved of libertarians, drug dealers and, for a few golden years, the private sector currency that was set to displace the hated money of central banks. A week of sharp falls in its value has caused investors to question whether it is even viable as a financial asset, let alone a global currency that would one day replace the dollar or euro. Perhaps the next time you look at that Bitcoin ad, you should ask yourself: “What’s it worth in pet tortoise skeletons?” For everything else, there are euros."

"Where does Bitcoin go from here? Figuring out its price is more like going to Las Vegas and placing a bet. If you are good at reading market psychology, you might just make a profit trading in and out of the market. Just don’t hold it for the long term. It will continue to fall. Someday, it will be worth nothing."

"No serious institution would ever allow its transactions to be verified by an anonymous cartel operating from the shadows of the world’s authoritarian kleptocracies. So it is no surprise that whenever “blockchain” has been piloted in a traditional setting, it has either been thrown in the trash bin or turned into a private permissioned database that is nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet or a database with a misleading name."

"It is clear by now that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies represent the mother of all bubbles…"

"Bitcoin has failed because it doesn’t solve a problem that enough people have — except for criminals and country dictators who want an unregulated, anonymous currency with which to do business out of the public eye."

"Crypto-assets are not money or currencies. So people wishing to invest or speculate in crypto-assets should do so without harbouring the unrealistic expectation that they would one day become money or currencies that can be used as a means of exchange."

"Whether or not cryptocurrncies recover–and I doubt they will–it is clear that their volatility make them unfit to serve as a general medium of exchange. However this lesson will likely be lost on the promoters of cryptocurrency."

"But as things stand there is little reason to think that cryptocurrencies will remain more than an overcomplicated, untrustworthy casino."

"Bitcoin will continue to fall, because “there’s just no value there,” former PayPal CEO Bill Harris told CNBC on Tuesday."

"Actually my political and economic tweets get far more attention than my bitcoin tweets. Interest in Bitcoin and crypto currencies in general is waining, hence the price declines."

"Bitcoin is great to transfer, but not for buying stuff. The reason it’s so easy to transfer is that you are transferring nothing. Actual value is harder to transfer."

"“Cryptocurrencies… Their value depends entirely on self-fulfilling expectations — which means that total collapse is a real possibility. If speculators were to have a collective moment of doubt, suddenly fearing that Bitcoins were worthless, well, Bitcoins would become worthless.”"

"It is a mathematical fact that when the price of bitcoins goes to zero, this zero-sum game will have completed its circle. Every dollar of profit that anyone made trading bitcoins will be matched by the losses of other bitcoin traders."

"Unless Bitcoin is able to become more efficient at mining, and more stable overall, it is likely to die. These higher mining costs and the fact that more retailers are failing to accept bitcoin as payment – as they are unable to convert it as it is too expensive – will mean the end of it."

"I use the term “worth” cautiously because bitcoin is really worth nothing, since it’s backed by nothing or no one. It’s a confidence game that has value only because people are convincing other people that it’s worth something. Got it! Ponzi scheme. Confidence game. Fraud."

"“[Bitcoin] is all based on the Great Fools Theory,” Belfort says in a recent YouTube video. “I know this better than anyone in the world. I’m not proud of that, but I do.” Belfort says bitcoin’s price surges are thanks only to a belief by buyers that there will continue to be ‘greater fools’ who they can sell the asset to at a higher price."

"My instinct is that these cryptocurrencies will disappear in a puff of smoke. I just hope too many people are not too damaged when it happens."

"Speculation, hype and mania led bitcoin to become arguably one of the largest investment bubbles in history."

"Bitcoin miners are using as much electricity as Switzerland, while the computing power needed to deal with bitcoin growth would eventually overwhelm all computers, the Bank of International Settlements said"

"The historical record of Bitcoin suggests its greatest leaps are made thanks to speculation, rather than to any real progress in utility or technology. Bitcoin’s rise to $19,000 from $6,500 at the end of 2017 was fueled by the belief that the price was only ever going to go up. There was no evidence of any increased adoption in the real world — if anything, the heuristics of Bitcoin trading called for hoarding, or HODLing, to sit on the gains."

"“Over the past few months, I’ve gotten this question more than any other,” wrote Davis. “As for bitcoin the currency? I see a decent probability that its price goes to zero.”"

"It’s a telling social phenomenon of late capitalism that we are willing to construct elaborate computer networks to conduct secure transactions with each other — and in the process torpedoing our hopes at a clean energy future."

"If you and I buy various cryptocurrencies, they're not going to multiply. There are not going to be a bunch of rabbits sitting there in front of us. They're just gonna sit there. And I gotta hope next time you get more excited after I've bought if from you and then I'll get more excited and buy it from you. We could sit in the house by ourselves and we could keep running up the price between us. But at the end of the time there's one Bitcoin sitting there and now we've gotta find somebody else. They come to an end."

"Bitcoin is “probably rat poison squared."

"In my opinion, it’s a colossal pump-and-dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen. In a pump-and-dump game, promoters “pump” up the price of a security creating a speculative frenzy, then “dump” some of their holdings at artificially high prices. And some cryptocurrencies are pure frauds."

"Blockchain hype is an essential part of the crypto-craze, and its fading is cause to expect the eventual crash. The reason is a relationship between a beguiling, but wrong, idea about technology, and the value it has injected back into crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Break that cycle, and you unspool the loop that’s spun itself into a boom."

"If the price of bitcoin falls below its cost of mining, it will quickly go to zero.The real concern is that if the price of bitcoin continues to fall, mining will become infeasible, and without enough participants providing the computing power to record the transactions, the transactions will be infeasible and bitcoin will become worthless."

"The rationale for these things is that there’s no central authority, which means no one can block or undo a transaction. And so far at least, it’s true that transactions aren’t blocked. But why do you need such a system? Because you’re doing a transaction that a central authority would otherwise block, like paying off a hitman or buying drugs…If that’s what you need money for, the cryptocurrencies are the only game in town. But if you don’t need to buy drugs or hitmen, the cryptocurrencies are vastly less efficient…if you want to buy something you don’t want people to know about, you can just use a pre-paid credit card. There’s still no need for Bitcoin."

"As the hype for cryptocurrencies continued to swell, so did the price. But this can only happen for so long, Barclays explains, much like the spread of an infection among a population."

"The greatest bubble in history is popping, according to Bank of America Corp. The cryptocurrency is tracking the downfalls of the other massive asset-price bubbles in history less than one year out from its record, analysts lead by Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in a note."

"Unfortunately, Bitcoin has totally failed to serve its purpose… The cryptocurrency is considered “digital gold,” and has regressive transaction fees that make smaller purchases more expensive compared to credit card…The point is that despite being created as a practical, superior alternative to current payment methods, Bitcoin is the inferior option with regressive transaction fees that render smaller purchases pointless, and longer processing times than credit cards."

"It’s a matter of when, not if, the Bitcoin bubble will pop, according to Allianz Global Investors. “In our view, its intrinsic value must be zero,” Stefan Hofrichter, the company’s head of global economics and strategy, wrote in a recent web post. “A bitcoin is a claim on nobody – in contrast to, for instance, sovereign bonds, equities or paper money – and it does not generate any income stream.”"

"They have no real value. The truth is that cryptocurrency advocates are misleading when they call these digital items a currency. Yes, technically they are currencies in that they can be used to buy some goods and services. But cryptocurrencies are fundamentally a speculation — people are buying hoping to sell later at a much higher price."

"In reality, blockchain is one of the most overhyped technologies ever. For starters, blockchains are less efficient than existing databases. When someone says they are running something on a blockchain, what they usually mean is that they are running one instance of a software application that is replicated across many other devices."

"That’s not the currency of the future—that’s a giant multi-level marketing scheme. Broadly defined, multi-level marketing schemes work by creating a structure where people are recruited and then incentivized to recruit new members…"

"Turnill noted cryptocurrencies’ high volatility, fragmented markets and lack of regulation. “We don’t see them becoming part of mainstream investment portfolios soon,” he said, adding that their volatility makes U.S. stock market turbulence during the financial crisis “almost look placid.”"

"Lesetja Kganyago, the incoming chair of the International Monetary Fund’s policy advisory committee, says cryptocurrencies pose no threat to the reserve currencies of the world."

"“When the history is written, cryptocurrencies will likely be described as one of the most brilliant scams in history,” Singer said in a letter to clients dated January, which was first reported by Business Insider."

"Bitcoin etc. are by no means currencies, because there is definitely no real value. These so-called cryptocurrencies are pure speculative objects."

"“While perhaps intended as an alternative payment system with no government involvement, it has become a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster,” he said. “The volatility of bitcoin renders it a poor means of payment and a crazy way to store value.”"

"Bitcoin is the “biggest bubble in human history” and this “mother of all bubbles” is finally crashing."

"Bitcoin, by contrast, has no intrinsic value at all. Combine that lack of a tether to reality with the very limited extent to which bitcoin is used for anything, and you have an asset whose price is almost purely speculative, and hence incredibly volatile."

"However, if it can’t be taxed, it can’t buy you a Mars Bar, and it isn’t backed by anything at all – and in fact is poorly viewed by certain authorities. It’s insulting to economists to call it an asset, an investment, or a currency."

"Though it once acted as the face of cryptocurrency and introduced the idea of distributed ledgers and digital assets, it’s time to usher in more promising technology."

"Since bitcoins are not useful as a medium of exchange, or desirable in themselves, their true value is zero."

"Slowing transaction times, skyrocketing fees, tighter rules and regulations, mining problems, loss of anonymity."

"Bitcoin in its current form, although there are planned upgrades to deal with capacity issues, we think that if the market basically turns its back on bitcoin this year it will really fall out of favour relative to other crypts that have much more utility and value add."

"Blockchain technology gives Bitcoin two crucial characteristics;— it can be exchanged peer-to-peer without the need for a trusted intermediary, and it lets transactions be anonymous. In both these ways, Bitcoin resembles physical cash. But whereas physical cash is the liability of a government, with a central bank controlling its value, Bitcoin is a liability of nobody. This is its fatal flaw as a currency. There’s nothing to stop its value from falling to zero."

"I think it’s a pyramid scheme. It makes no sense. I’m just surprised it isn’t even lower. There’s no fraudulent thing going on. It’s just a pyramid scheme. You’re betting that somebody is going to buy it. And some people have been right. The fundamentals make no sense."

"It is important to remember that Bitcoin is virtually impossible to value; it possesses no utility and has yet to be widely accepted as a currency, even by major e-commerce providers. This means sentiment is driving the price of Bitcoin, and any negative events that impact the confidence of investors could spark a full-blown flight, causing their values to collapse."

"The expectation that the price of Bitcoins will continue to rise in the distant future has a lot to do with the belief of many people that Bitcoin, and other “cryptocurrencies”, are the money of the future. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the Bitcoin is an archaic currency like gold used to be."

"In terms of cryptocurrencies generally, I can say almost with certainty that they will come to a bad ending. If I could buy a five-year put on every one of the cryptocurrencies, I'd be glad to do it, but I would never short a dime's worth."

"The central paradox of all these currencies is that we’re told they have eliminated the need for trust between humans and replaced it by mathematical guarantees; but all their tradeable value depends on blind faith and ignorance of computer code."

"But bitcoin and the like have the feel to me of beta-versions of the Model T Ford in the early days of motor cars. Fine for proof of concept, but too problem-laden to be useful to most of humanity."

"Having no clear fundamental value and largely unregulated markets, coupled with a storyline conducive to delusions of grandeur, makes this more than anything we can find in the history books the very essence of a bubble."

"It is hard to see bitcoin’s price surge as anything other than a bubble that will ultimately collapse. Bitcoin’s ostensible social function as an anonymous, nongovernmental means of payment carries big risks of its demise. And while blockchain, the platform that records bitcoin transactions, may well have staying power, there is no reason to believe it needs to rely on bitcoin for its success."

"Bitcoin has failed. The failures weren’t inevitable; there are solutions to these problems in the acdemic literature. But Bitcoin was deployed by enthusiasts who in essence let experimental code escape from a lab to the world, without thinking about the engineering issues—and now they’re stuck with it."

"The belief or hope that there will always be a greater fool wanting to buy is supposed to be underwritten by bitcoin’s “limited edition” status – a limited number can be produced. Which makes bitcoin buyers more like stamp collectors – or perhaps rare coin collectors."

"The only difference between Bitcoin No. ABC123 and $1 Bill No. L88793293J is that at the end of the day, the $1 bill physically exists and has a face value that is worth something. Fred could take the $1 bill and buy something off the $1 menu at McDonalds….By contrast, Bitcoin has no intrinsic value — it is just a number. The number may have an agreed value between two parties, but the number itself has no value."

"So when I ask “What is bitcoin good for?” the answer I come up with is “not enough to justify anything like these valuations.” There are all sorts of interesting applications for cryptocurrencies and blockchains. But unless they become a global currency, or a global payment system, I don’t see why, 50 years from now, anyone is going to be willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get their hands on one."

"Morgan Stanley analyst James Faucette and his team sent a research note to clients a few days ago suggesting that the real value of bitcoin might be … $0."

"So the next time the wizards of speculation produce yet another financial collapse, who ya gonna call? Bitcoin? Sorry, there’s nobody home."

"Everyone says the blockchain, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, is going to change EVERYTHING. And yet, after years of tireless effort and billions of dollars invested, nobody has actually come up with a use for the blockchain—besides currency speculation and illegal transactions."

"These currencies are going to trade to zero or pretty close to it when the bubble pops. Right now, the only reason why people are buying bitcoin is because the price is going up. When it turns around, they are not going to sell it for the same reason. There is no value in bitcoin, you can’t use it as money. It’s too slow, too expensive and too vulnerable."

"The old bitcoin network is virtually useless. Many bitcoin investors haven’t understood these risks because they have only been buying the cryptocurrency – but never sold or traded them. As soon as people realize that this is how it works, they will start to sell."

"It’s got this mystique about it, because it’s some fancy technological thing that nobody really understands. There’s been no demonstration yet that it actually is helpful in conducting economic transactions. There’s no anchor for its value. You know, unlike pieces of paper with dead presidents on them, those are anchored by the fact that you can use them to pay taxes. There’s not anchor for bitcoin. But bitcoin has developed this mystique."

"Bitcoin is the World’s first distributed, decentralised Ponzi scheme. No single operator is running it, and everyone has a chance to participate in it, but its value is determined purely by the weight of money coming into it and the willingness of holders to sell it. Like any Ponzi scheme, earlier participants came in at lower cost, and are now receiving much of the billions of dollars (yes, really) that newcomers are putting in."

"Few people use bitcoin to buy anything — but everyone pays for its environmental impact."

"Bitcoin has become a Ponzi scheme for redistributing wealth from one libertarian to another. Actually, I would like to amend that a little bit: Bitcoin has now graduated to being a Ponzi scheme for redistributing wealth from one person to another."

"Bitcoin and the like will quickly fade into financial history, just as tulipmania did, serving solely to remind future generations of the folly of gambling on illusions of value."

"Ultimately, I think bitcoin has really no value. In the market, it has plenty of value. As long as there’s buying, there’s value. But when the buying goes away, so does the value."

"Bitcoin is more like a limited edition toy than an investment. It has no value except for the sheer hope that it will one day become valuable."

"The CME futures may institutionalize bitcoin, which would be disastrous [for the environment]."

"Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC on Wednesday that bitcoin reminds him of currency issued during America’s Colonial past that ultimately proved worthless. “Humans buy all sorts of things that aren’t worth anything,” Greenspan said. “People gamble in casinos when the odds are against them. It has never stopped anybody.”"

"On Monday, the chairman of France’s market regulator denounced Bitcoin as a “dangerous illusion” and a tool for criminals. “It’s a way to purchase illicit goods, it’s a way to launder illicit income, it’s a way to develop and pay for cybercrimes and it’s a pure empty commodity,” Robert Ophele, chairman of the Autorite des Marches Financiers, said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Tokyo. “If it were a currency, it would be a very bad one.”"

"With the price of bitcoin moving toward $12,000, a top economist on Tuesday sent a stark warning to investors: The cryptocurrency is in a “dangerous speculative bubble.” Roach suggested that exchange legitimization makes bitcoin “somewhat dangerous” for investors, given what he described as a “lack of intrinsic underlying economic value to the concept.”"

"Personally I’m very skeptical of bitcoin, I know where the price action is. It’s, you know, going up about 10% a day at this point. Although bitcoin could go up to 20,000, it can go to 30,000. It’s on it’s way to zero — somewhere between zero and 200. It’s a utility token for criminals, terrorists, money launderers, tax evaders — they’ll always find some use for it. So it might not go all the way to zero. It’s clearly a bubble — it looks like the second biggest bubble in history after tulip mania. Although at the rate it’s going it will pass tulip mania, you know, in a matter of days. [It’s] bigger than the south sea bubble, bigger than the Mississippi bubble, New York’s — the Dow Jones in 1929, the Nikkei in 1989 — name your bubble, it’s bigger than all of them."

"For those who may not recall, bitcoin upgraded its blockchain four months ago, boosting its capacity while lowering transaction fees and settlement times. This was done to attract big businesses, but there’s nothing to guarantee that bitcoin’s blockchain will be the preferred choice when there are so many other choices."

"The problem that cryptocurrencies face is that they fail the two key metrics of what makes a currency a currency,” Donovan said. “A currency has to be a widely used medium of exchange. Cryptocurrencies are never going to achieve that. Period.” “The fatal issue for cryptocurrencies is that the supply of them can only ever go up,” he said. “There is unlimited upside to the supply of cryptocurrencies.”"

"It has not transformed the economy of today. While the number of bitcoin transactions is growing every year, it’s nothing close to a mass-market consumer technology, like Google, or Netflix, or even PayPal. Bitcoin remains cumbersome to use (the typical transaction can take up to 10 minutes) and the price is extremely volatile. It is, for now, a frankly terrible currency built on top of a potential transformative technology."

"“So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed,” Stiglitz said Wednesday in a Bloomberg Television interview with Francine Lacqua and Tom Keene. “It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.”"

"Bitcoin is a fake and made-up scam. Can you articulate what it is? “Bullshit jargon that means nothing”-you. Hell no. All we can say for sure about this imaginary “coin” is that it is going to cost you a bundle (sucker)….. Then there are the idiots—like you—who say, “Where I can but some ‘Bitcoin’ to get rich, like all my ‘gamer’ friends?” A wise man once said “What goes up must come down” and another, wiser man once said “All This Bitcoin Stuff Is Fake.” It’s not real, folks."

"Central bankers say the success of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is just a bubble….The problem with bitcoin is that it could easily blow up and central banks could then be accused of not doing anything,” ….although technology is revolutionising banking, digital currencies will not replace physical money anytime soon. “It’s too far off.”"

"Even if they were widely accepted by legal merchants, it would at the moment be lunatic to exchange them for anything but real money. Bitcoin itself is trading at more than $8,000, more than 10 times its price a year ago, and more than double what it was three months ago. Since it is only widely used as a currency in drug deals or for ransom payments, there is either a huge boom in criminal activities outside the world of cryptocurrencies, or one within unregulated exchanges where these tokens are traded."

"Bitcoin is dead. It was split in two. There is bitcoin cash, and bitcoin core/legacy. Deal with it."

"We can predict the collapse of the value of Bitcoin, even when it may rise for a little while longer. The introduction of exchange-traded futures may signal the start of this process. Give it a year, maybe less. Bitcoin will become a case study for economics students, teaching them about irrational crowd behaviour."

"We see bitcoin as a bit of a Ponzi scheme,” David Gledhill, group chief information officer and head of group technology and operations at DBS, told CNBC on Wednesday."

"Blockchain technology is here to stay. Blockchain has plenty of uses outside cryptos (smart contracts embedded in Ethereum are one such example), but Bitcoin probably won’t be the reigning technology in the future. It’s overvalued with a limited chance of success, most likely be replaced by a better cryptocurrency."

"I can’t see a future of this when I see the attention played by all governments and regulators on anti-money laundering, on anti-tax evasion, on anti-terrorism financing. The anonymity of the transaction is a problem I think which would put pressure on bitcoin."

"It can hardly be viewed as a store of value. That requires at least a modicum of stability. Unlike the pound in my pocket, however, I can have no idea what a bitcoin will be worth tomorrow or in a year’s time. That, in turn, reduces its value as a unit of account. Why would another individual be prepared to accept my bitcoin for a good or service when its future value is so uncertain; for the same reason, why would I want to spend my volatile bitcoin rather than hoard it in the hope of further appreciation."

"From what we can identify, the only reason today to buy or sell bitcoin is to make money, which is the very definition of speculation and the very definition of a bubble,” he said at a news conference in Zurich on Thursday. He added that in the history of finance, such speculation has “rarely led to a happy end.”"

"People are buying Bitcoin because they expect other people to buy it from them at a higher price; the definition of the greater fool theory. …When the crash comes, and it cannot be too far away, it will be dramatic."

"People get excited from big price movements, and Wall Street accommodates…you can’t value Bitcoin because it’s not a value-producing asset.” It’s a “real bubble."

"One thing is certain: the current scenario is not sustainable."

"Digital currencies, in their current form, should be prohibited by law. And not because they are a Ponzi scheme (which they are), and not because they can help facilitate criminal activity (which they do), but because they incur colossal social waste…."

"I just don’t believe in this bitcoin thing. I think it’s just going to implode one day. I think this is Enron in the making."

"Bitcoin is a fad, just like bimetallism before it."

"I believe it’s not going to succeed in delivering the monetary utility that people expect. I do not think it’s going to be the money of the future. I think it’s the bubble of the present."

"I could care less about bitcoin….I don’t personally understand the value of something that has no actual value. You all can do whatever you want and I don’t care…..If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price for it one day. I’ve also told people that it can trade at $100,000 before it trades to zero. The only value of bitcoin is what the other guy’ll pay for it. Who cares about bitcoin? The world economy’s so big, JPMorgan alone, $6 trillion, we move all this money, and bitcoin in total, all these currencies, $50 billion dollars, maybe a billion dollars trades a day."

"It’s a black box and I’m not a believer in black boxes. I’m just very suspicious of things that are not transparent. If I can’t understand it, I don’t want to invest in it."

"My best guess is that in the long run, the technology will thrive, but that the price of bitcoin will collapse….it is folly to think that bitcoin will ever be allowed to supplant central-bank-issued money."

"Bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world."

"Cryptocurrencies are going up because they are going up; they are the Kardashians of the financial world; famous for being famous. But fame does not last forever, nor do market manias. Then the very same very wise, high profile and analytical financial observers will then try to convince us that they were the first to warn us!"

"The Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort thinks bitcoin is a fraud,….He expects a central bank to introduce a cryptocurrency of its own “and that’s what will take hold.”"

"Bitcoin has absolutely no value now, and it’s going to cost people a lot of money. Okay, it’s gone from 4,700 to 3,500 in a week, and it’s going to go from 3,500 to zero. Now, it might go from 3,500 to 10,000 first, but it’s going to end up being zero. Bitcoin is a pseudocurrency. It’s no more suitable as money than salt or big round rocks."

"Bitcoin is a sort of tulip. It’s indeed an instrument of speculation for those that want to bet on something that can go up and down 50% or 40% in a few days but certainly not a currency, and certainly we don’t see it as a threat to central banking or monetary policy, that’s for sure."

"Tocqueville’s Chairman John Hathaway doesn’t mince words when it comes to to talking bitcoin. When asked about the cryptocurrency craze, Hathaway, manager of the $1.2 billion dollar Tocqueville gold fund, simply said, ‘garbage.’ “It's an absolute bubble -there's no question in my mind that it's in a bubble."

"Bitcoin is a bubble."

"So is a single bitcoin worth $500,000, $5,000, $500 or $0? I’m inclined to say $0, especially if bitcoin’s value depends on it being adopted as a global digital currency to replace dollars. There is no chance whatsoever that bitcoin can displace the dollar, for the simple reason that it is badly designed. Bitcoin can handle a pathetically small number of transactions, and uses an inordinate amount of electricity to do so, making it entirely unsuitable to replace ordinary money."

"Will that totalitarian regime allow all their central banks and government currencies to be made obsolete by a libertarian cryptocurrency they don’t completely control? Of course not. And anyone who believes Bitcoin will overthrow the globalist money / debt cartels is naive and stupid. Trust me when I say a bunch of geeks aren’t going to overthrow centuries of globalist money domination that now rules our corrupt world."

"JPMorgan’s top quant strategist backed his boss this week in bashing bitcoin, warning that the cryptocurrency is likely a “pyramid scheme.”"

"Computer, biotech, internet shares and real estate, and all crashed when excessive optimism far outweighed the more rational expectations normally associated with prudent investing. So too will be the case with bitcoin."

"It’s just not a real thing, eventually it will be closed. It’s worse than tulip bulbs. It won’t end well."

"UBS and other banks, even some central banks, have adopted blockchain technology that speeds up transactions between the major banks of the world. But you need to separate the underlying technology, which is rather dull, from bitcoin itself, which might be exciting, but it’s not an actual currency."

"Bitcoin’s buzz is gone, for now. It was crushed by the heavy-handed intervention of the Chinese government, which is cooling off investor enthusiasm for the digital currency…."

"The sudden Chinese crackdown on the virtual coin fundraising of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that caused the plunge is either the end of the beginning for the crypto-party — or, more likely, the beginning of the end…."

"So here’s my short answer. No, I don’t feel silly, but vindicated. If the recent run-up in bitcoin price proves anything, it’s that the virtual currency is still a dumb investment."

"While we wait for Big Financial to take over this movement, if you own some Bitcoins, sell them now, please. Who cares if you miss some of the run up until it crashes?"

"So, for what it is worth, be warned. If you have investments in crypto currencies, you are invested in a Ponzi scheme. At the end of this, for every winner, there will have to be the same amount of losers. The only way to not end up on the losing side is, to sell before everyone else does."

"Bitcoin is a gigantic bubble ready to explode, according to Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff."

"Now enter crypto currencies. Not only will they never become money – a general medium of exchange – as gold and silver once were and will become once again, but cryptos lack the necessary requirements to be money."

"Despite being valued at more than $4,500, #Bitcoin is still just a speculative asset."

"There’s certainly a lot of bullishness about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and that’s the case with bubbles in general. The psychology of bubbles fuels it. You just become more convinced that it’s going to work. And the higher the price goes, the more convinced you become that you’re right. But it’s not going up because it’s going to work. It’s going up because of speculation…."

"This is why almost none of us should own Bitcoins. Bitcoin value has multiple weaknesses. Someone could hack the blockchain, create more Bitcoins and manipulate the value or sell the illegitimate Bitcoins and abscond with the buyers’ dollars. Or groups of users can place large buys and sells of Bitcoins, manipulating their value, because there are no controls. Or Bitcoin users could simply start using other crypto-currencies or traditional government-issued currencies and the market could fold completely, making Bitcoins worthless, as has happened to other crypto-currencies. Any one, or all, of these things could happen at any moment."

"How can you buy a house, how can buy a car, how can you buy Starbucks with bitcoin when price is going to fluctuate as dramatically as it has. This looks to me like… very much.. you can take the chart of bitcoin and apply it against the tulip bulb mania of the 15th century and the patterns look exactly the same."

"Friends don’t let friends hold bitcoin below $2,900, the line in the sand of sell-stop protection. Otherwise, in the near future, one could be wishing they’d sold this $3,500 zone, as bitcoin breaks under $35, with growing potential for $3.50."

"All these imaginary “digital currencies” are just made up fake things…. Laugh your haughty laugh all you want. Enjoy calling me ignorant. I have a burrito and all you have is “code.” Yeah—code for “idiot.”"

"For now, the development of this bubble is in the hands of a speculating public, who periodically see manias as a failsafe way to make money. But the answer to the question posed in this article’s headline is that cryptocurrencies are not money and never will be."

"Perhaps contrary to the traditional view, therefore, it is unlikely that, as currently conceived, cryptocurrencies will attain the status that the hype would have you believe. They will certainly be revolutionary, but most likely in a manner that will trigger their own demise, or at least relegate their use to those who want to operate outside the legal financial system."

"Howard Marks, billionaire investor and founder of Oaktree Capital Management is adamant about his stance on cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, Ether and others: “They’re not real.”"

"Digital currencies are nothing but an unfounded fad (or perhaps even a pyramid scheme), based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it...nobody has been able to make sense to me of these currencies."

"“People are comparing bitcoin to tulip bulbs. I think those comparisons are apt,” he said. “But at least with tulips, you had something tangible — a plant.”"

"A research note out Wednesday by a group of analysts at Morgan Stanley led by James E Faucette said “bitcoin acceptance is virtually zero and shrinking,” despite its impressive appreciation."

"I’ve seen enough cryptocurrency stories over the last few weeks to last me a lifetime, especially about Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not a store of value, and it’s not a reasonable investment candidate. You’ve been warned!"

"We now have enough information on cryptocurrencies to conclude that Bitcoin = Betamax, and Ethereum = VHS. One wins, but both soon obsolete."

"Cryptocurrencies, or cyber currencies, which have been in a massive financial mania until their sudden sell-off this week, have two actual uses: online gambling and money laundering. Neither is the heart of a major business model. But that’s it…. Online currencies are hardly a “store of value” when they have fallen about 30% in a week."

"This revolutionary digital infrastructure will soon be able to process billions more transactions than Bitcoin ever has. It may well be a Bitcoin killer or at best, provide the framework for how blockchain technology could be applied in the real world."

"I think it’s in a bubble. I just don’t know when or how much it corrects. When everyone is bragging about how easy they are making $=bubble"

"Cryptocurrencies do not belong in any investment portfolio. I say this as a Chartered Financial Analyst with 20 years experience who understands the underlying math and the economic issues involved. Fundamentally, Bitcoin has no value… Bitcoin acceptance by consumers is unlikely."

"Play it, own it, do what you like with it, but always remember that it is nothing more that an intrinsically worthless global pyramid scheme that could collapse at any moment."

"Some people will buy it as an “investment.” In my opinion, Monopoly money is safer."

"Similar to the disruptive technologies I listed above, Bitcoin will undergo the standard lifecycle of development… and I believe that will include swift, sweeping government regulation. Similar to gun control, car insurance, cyber regulation and more… However, unlike most of those other technologies, I don’t think Bitcoin will survive this deathblow of regulation."

"Bitcoin itself, it’s doomed. The end is near. Soon as Congress has a reason, they figure out how to shut it down. You mark my words. Too many banks have too much to lose. And if we know one thing, it’s that big banks and Congress are part of the same beast…."

"I used to be an avid trader years ago, and my co-founder is as hardcore of a crypto-anarchist as they come. I would love nothing more than for bitcoin to succeed, but I believe it will die a slow and painful death and something else will come along to be its successor."

"Bitcoin, with all the noise and talk of large scale acquisitions, is just a playground for those wanting a quick buck and will never be part of the genuine electronic financial markets economy."

"The problem with a finite asset is that the economy is not finite, and if you have a limited amount of money to match this almost unlimited capacity of people in the economy to do things, money doesn’t work."

"So if you are “holding” any Bitcoins (not that anyone can actually hold something so ethereal), your moment to exit and flee is rapidly approaching."

"But don’t let that big number fool you: this strange and controversial technology is no closer to becoming a mainstream currency. …Bitcoin is not something the average person will ever use to buy and sell stuff, they say, particularly in the US and other Western countries. The world just doesn’t need a dedicated digital currency."

"As a phenomenon bitcoin has all the attributes of a pyramid scheme, requiring a constant influx of converts to push up the price, based on the promise of its use by future converts. So the ultimate value for bitcoin will be the same as all pyramid schemes: zero."

"Bitcoin is a bubble that like Tulip, South Sea, Dot.com or Subprime will burst…"

"Circle is bailing on bitcoin altogether. The company announced on Wednesday it is focusing on other things, and that its bitcoin customers can cash out or else transfer their accounts to another company, Coinbase, if they wish to keep buying and selling the cryptocurrency. The move is not entirely surprising as the hype around bitcoin subsided long ago, and the digital currency remains a niche product for speculators or for clandestine online transactions."

"“I think Bitcoin has stalled out,” said Nathaniel Popper, a reporter for the New York Times who wrote a book about Bitcoin in 2014. What went wrong? The Bitcoin community has been hampered by a dysfunctional culture that has grown increasingly hostile toward experimentation. That has made it difficult for the Bitcoin network to keep up with changing market demands."

"“Our view is that we’re still in the really early stages of the technology and its development. It’s highly unlikely that any of us will be using Bitcoin in five or ten years. In the same way that – how many of us use NCSA Mosaic or Netscape Navigator?”"

"Bitcoin is quickly becoming a thing of the past."

"Bitcoin will expire the very day the first quantum computer appears…. It will be doomed, Tomlinson says. Any disruption needs the consensus of the bitcoin community and that can’t even be realized when it comes to the transaction limit problem. That’s a relatively simple problem compared to redoing the entire digital signature method. It’s probably impossible, so bitcoin has had it."

"Split by internal divisions while its most useful aspects are harvested by the very financial behemoths it once hoped to destroy, Bitcoin is fast becoming the tech world’s version of Waiting for Godot, wherein a hermetically sealed community squabbles and bickers over arcane points of code and law as their world slowly crumbles around them….Welcome to today’s Bitcoin—a phenomenon so internally focused that its advocates have barely noticed the battle has already been lost."

"The cryptoanarchists’ revolution is over. Condolences. The victorious cryptocapitalists’ advice is: Do what your parents did! Get a job, sir, at UBS, Deutshe Bank, Santander or BNY Mellon. Even JPMorgan Chase."

"The deadlock between competing corners of the Bitcoin community when it comes to hard forking, in contrast, spells doom for the currency, according to Tual. “As long as that’s true, Bitcoin will never evolve, and it will die, because what doesn’t evolve dies.”"

"But the rest of the world appears to have lost interest. That’s not great for the long-term use of bitcoin and the fans who want to see it become a widely-used medium of exchange. With the currency currently dependent on notoriously-fickle Chinese retail investors, they would surely swap a gain in global popularity over a short-term rally in value."

"The reasons for Bitcoin’s failure are many, including poor governance, a lack of technological infrastructure and infighting within its community. Besides, as I noted in my previous article, the fact that sovereign governments have the power to tax in their own currencies always made a Bitcoin takeover unlikely."

"If you ask Taavet Hinrikus, CEO of international-payments app TransferWise, “Bitcoin, I think we can say, is dead. There is no traction, no one is using bitcoin. The bitcoin experiment, I think we can say, is over.”"

"At this point in the bitcoin lifecycle, the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) and naysaying we’ve been hearing is mostly true. The network is abysmally slow. The use cases are half-baked and consumers will receive no implicit benefit from bitcoin over, say, swiping their Visa card. The bitcoin 1.0 experiment is, in short, over."

"The best analogy, although not perfect, for the demise of bitcoin vs. Ethereum and the other unlimited blockchain technologies being developed for commercial application is that of the experience of digital audio tapes (DATs) vs. the compact disk technology of the mid-1980s."

"Bitcoin will soon be dead, claims David Yermack, chairman of the Finance Department at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He blames the democratic process of decision-making in the Bitcoin community for the cryptocurrency’s problems."

"Bitcoins are a digital Ponzi scheme, not a digital cryptocurrency. Investors would be wise to steer clear of bitcoins and any other digital currencies."

"Still, based on recent developments, a bitcoin resurgence looks like a long shot. When the final history of bitcoin is written, the currency itself is likely to be just a colorful footnote in the tale of the emergence of a powerful new blockchain technology."

"There was a time when believers in bitcoin, the virtual currency backed by math instead of any government, thought that it might one day replace cash as a relatively anonymous way to pay for everything from groceries to your morning coffee. Now, that dream might be smack dab in the midst of crashing down, a function of the currency’s code playing out. At stake is nothing less than two competing visions for the future of bitcoin itself."

"Do not confuse Ethereum with Bitcoin. Bitcoin was never a viable blockchain platform for commerce. Ethereum is. I’ll not address here why Bitcoin is not viable…"

"…the Bitcoin failure does illustrate that human institutions must have politics in addition to technical expertise. Try to engineer around politics, and it will flood back in the most atavistic and unscrupulous forms."

"Let’s also bear in mind what it is that makes some venture capitalists Bitcoin zealots: pure greed. That is the reason clearest to me for Bitcoin’s failure. Intended as a level playing field and a more efficient transaction system, the Bitcoin system has deteriorated into a fight between interested parties over a pool of money. In the beginning, Bitcoin was a noble experiment. Now, it is a distraction. It’s time to build more rational, transparent, robust, accountable systems of governance to pave the way to a more prosperous future for everyone."

"The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards. I will no longer be taking part in Bitcoin development and have sold all my coins."

"Nick walks Ben through what exactly Bitcoin is, answering whether the platform is really a financial opportunity of historic proportions, the massive criminal problem law enforcement officials have suggested, or something else entirely: a waste of everyone’s time and money. He also outlines some of the design flaws he sees in Bitcoin and why those flaws, which many in the Bitcoin community view as important features, will actually lead to the platform’s eventual downfall."

"So spare a thought for the companies scrabbling to jump off the bitcoin ship before it sinks. The currency’s value has been static for months (except for a brief boom and bust in early November when it was caught up in a Chinese ponzi scheme), but perhaps more damningly still, the hype has all but disappeared."

"I stand by my opinion that the Bitcoin is, in fact if not in intention, a fraud; it is an attempt to muscle-in on the enormous scam of universal fiat money, which is a curse upon mankind. And as a scam, it will go to the dust-bin of History, along with the world’s present fiat money system."

"Private currencies will fail to take off because there is no lender of last resort- there will always be boom and bust."

"This is my personal opinion, there will be no real, non-controlled currency in the world. There is no government that’s going to put up with it for long … there will be no currency that gets around government controls."

"“I’ll be surprised if bitcoin is here in five years,” he has told Fortune. “The value of bitcoin isn’t the currency, but the technology. I think once the world becomes more accustomed and attuned to the platform of bitcoin, the noise will go away, and the currency will go away too. The real transformation is the idea of taking all barriers down… Whatever currency or commodity you want to transact in, you can, and you can do it for free.”"

"“The main thing is that bitcoin network spends much more resources (electricity, hardware, human efforts) per transaction than current centralized systems,” Maclin wrote. “Bitcoin exists now, because of bubble-ponzi scheme.”"

"Fortunately, it’s unlikely that Bitcoin will survive long enough to generate the environmental disaster that would arise if it became a major part of the financial system. The same design feature that requires the use of so much electricity is the fatal flaw in Bitcoin as a currency."

"After analyzing the facts, it becomes apparent that Bitcoin is not destined to grow and mature beyond what it is today. Without a major overhaul of Bitcoin’s system and values, it is naïve to think that there will be widespread adoption. There are too many inherent problems and general complexities with the currency for it to gain mainstream traction."

"We have yet to see any meaningful adoption in the retail world and the institutional world seems quite lukewarm. . . . The deflationary quality of – by design and not by accident – is a major drawback. Deflation naturally encourages hoarding and delays spending, which is the behavior we are witnessing with BTC holders."

"Even in the unlikely event that it survives into the medium run, we would still rate its longer-term chance of survival as zero."

"In light of the above analysis, Bitcoin’s power usage per transaction isn’t remotely sustainable as a wholesale replacement for the conventional financial system. In the future, Bitcoin could massively gain popularity, pile on millions more transactions, and still be unsustainable due to the arms race between miners."

"It’s not clear what Bitcoin is or what it will be, but it is clear what it’s not. It’s not a currency. People don’t set prices in Bitcoin and, for the most part, don’t buy things with it either…. In the meantime, though, Bitcoin is still a little bit of a Ponzi—or is it a pyramid?—scheme that its libertarian early adopters are trying to cash in on."

"I don’t think Bitcoin is the correct technology to build these sorts of ideas on. I understand and strongly sympathize with the desire to move to decentralized systems and plan on eventually working in that space myself, but between Bitcoin’s efficiency problems and poor tolerance of network partitions, I do not think it’s suitable as a general purpose global decentralized database in the way people want to use it."

"Bitcoin, at its core, is an attempt to solve big socioeconomic problems through technology. But so long as it remains an overwhelmingly male domain, it’s going to continue to concentrate on the economic problems, while missing the big social problems. Which means that it’s going to continue going nowhere."

"“I’ll be surprised if bitcoin is here in five years,” he said. “It’s a means to an end. The value of bitcoin isn’t the currency, but the technology. I think once the world becomes more accustomed and attuned to the platform of bitcoin, the noise will go away, and the currency will go away too. The real transformation is the idea of taking all barriers down and having it be ubiquitous. Whatever currency or commodity you want to transact in, you can, and you can do it for free. That’s pretty revolutionary.”"

"The price of Bitcoin lost most of its value since its parabolic rise and speculators have lost a lot of money. The next electronic payment technology will be very large. We eagerly await the next version of electronic money to appear."

"Nevertheless, the chances of bitcoin, the most popular of this new breed of self-clearing financial instruments, making it as a mainstream currency are now zero. Prices have been floundering at around $350 a coin for months, escalating losses for those who invested at last year’s $1,200 highs. Add to this a stream of high-profile scandals over the past year, such as the collapse of Tokyo-based currency exchange Mt Gox in February, and you realise it is not a question of if but when the public loses interest in this experiment entirely."

"Bitcoin will fail, not for fans lack of trying, but rather its status will never be more than an interesting concept championed by those in the techie or libertarian camp. Holding Bitcoin is more of a political expression rather than a sound economic investment. . . . Ultimately, Bitcoin will be relegated to the history books unless structural changes are made. It will never be fully adopted in its current form, being nothing more than a neat concept for people to lose money on."

"“It’s not a currency now, it’s a pretend currency,” Robinson said. “It does not qualify or satisfy the requirements for a modern currency. The problem with disruptive technologies is that the disrupted has something to say about it. I say 10 years from now we will all have digital currencies – fiat currencies – and bitcoin will be remembered probably much like Pogs and Sinclair’s C5.”"

"One of the signs that Bitcoin is dying is that hardly anyone actually uses the currency. . . . The Bitcoin network is fading away and the price is destined to continue its downward march. This is likely to be the last year people take Bitcoin seriously (if last year wasn’t already). Whether Bitcoin disappears with a bang or a whimper, the end is coming."

"At this point, it’s merely a speculative commodity, just like tulip bulbs centuries ago or even Beanie Babies more recently. . . . Bitcoin has peaked and is very unlikely to escalate significantly in value again. . . . It’s basically an elaborate Ponzi scheme. . . . While I don’t relish anyone losing money, Bitcoin basically went out of the way to make itself vulnerable. For this reason, it is destined to fail."

"The Bitcoin is dead. Or is it? Well, not yet. But it will be very, very soon."

"Even if the price of Bitcoin doesn’t go to zero, the chances the Bitcoin community convincing the wider public, governments, and industry that Bitcoin really represents the future of the world’s digital economy will become extremely unlikely. . . . this grand technological experiment may have run its course."

"The virtual currency is looking increasingly beleaguered, and its price had been dropping steadily in recent months. . . . It is a reminder of the security issues that face any virtual currency seeking mainstream adoption, and it brings back memories of the infamous exchange Mt. Gox. . . . Combined with bitcoin’s reputation as an enabler for criminal activity, it is likely this public-image problem is hindering mainstream adoption. As one commenter on the discussion board Hacker News remarks, bitcoin is an “even worse” investment than gold."

"If Bitcoin were a currency, it’d be the worst-performing one in the world, worse even than the Russian ruble. But Bitcoin isn’t a currency. It’s a Ponzi scheme for redistributing wealth from one libertarian to another. . . . But in the long run, we’re all dead, and Bitcoin might be too."

"Even if the price of Bitcoin doesn’t go to zero, the chances the Bitcoin community convincing the wider public, governments, and industry that Bitcoin really represents the future of the world’s digital economy will become extremely unlikely."

"Bitcoins will go down in history as the most spectacular private Ponzi scheme in history. . . . The coins will never be the money of the future. . . . Bitcoins are too volatile in price ever to serve as a currency. . . . bitcoins are not money; dollars are money."

"We’ll sign off with the simple point that unless a massive amount of new capital is transferred into Bitcoin market sharpish — which is not impossible, since there are still a number of deep pocketed believers out there — it’s hard to imagine the asset class going any other way but south. Furthermore, it’s unlikely at this stage that either price rigging, mining cartels or lower energy costs will be able to reverse that trend."

"And that Bitcoin could only survive at the margins, where it would be isolated, and in no position to threaten Visa or Mastercard, or the underlying payment and messaging services that underpin the world financial system as it stands today. Then there’s The Oracle of Omaha who has one four letter word for bitcoin – joke."

"Bitcoin’s defects will hasten its demise in 2015 . . . Bitcoin’s flaws are becoming more evident, which may explain why prices more than halved in 2014. That trend should continue."

"A writer for The Washington Post argues bitcoin’s system is doomed to fail because governments have a lot of say when it comes to any financial system and can put pressure on those intuitions as it sees fit."

"But Bitcoin is doomed as a payments network. . . . But if I had to put money on it? I’d say Bitcoin is doomed in the medium-term future."

"Right now, Bitcoin is only mostly dead. As an investment, it was the worst of 2014. . . . The problem, though, is that Bitcoin will likely not survive to get to that level of innovation. Will Bitcoin enthusiasts support it after they realize it has ceased to be useful as a currency and is a terrible investment? Not likely. At some point they are going to realize that they are subsidizing Bitcoin for theoretical and emotional reasons so that it can be exploited by regulation-seeking venture capitalists. When that happens Bitcoin will shift from being mostly dead to being all dead."

"But Bitcoin is doomed as a payments network — the very point at which it looks as though it is likely to be widely deployed is the point at which governments, like that of the United States, will crack down on it."

"Bitcoin’s collapse comes as governments around the world consider regulating or prohibiting the virtual currency to prevent criminals from using it to trade contraband. . . . Ripple has gained 36 percent this year; eventually it could displace bitcoin."

"Now I dare say our message is a disappointment to Bitcoiners. I share that disappointment: it would have been great if Bitcoin could displace government money. However, Bitcoin is an experiment, most experiments fail – and Bitcoin is another failed experiment."

"And so the whole bitcoin system eventually becomes a house of cards, and anything – a scandal, a government attack, whatever – could trigger a loss of confidence leading to a run that brings it all down. . . . There will be a stampede for the exit, the price of bitcoin will drop to its intrinsic value – zero – and the system will collapse. The only question is when."

"Bitcoin is not [the future]. It is a step along the way and will eventually disintegrate. . . . As a currency [Bitcoin] is almost negligible against anything. It can’t stand toe-to-toe with the Cuban Peso. . . . With Bitcoin the pretend currency, what you see is not what you get."

"While the technology behind the cryptocurrency may represent a safer method of buying and selling over the Internet, the asset will never take hold as a currency due to its limited supply and speculator manipulation. The technology used to encrypt Bitcoin would be better applied to the current monetary system, rather than through the invention of an entirely new currency. Bitcoin is simply economic Esperanto. It's a solution without a problem. The currency in use works fine."

"We need to consider the distinct possibility that Bitcoin is dying"

"We’re going to stick our neck out at this stage and call this the end of Bitcoin. . . . We’re sure we may still see a few deep pocketed VCs or “believers” throw more money at defending the dream, but chances are we’ve now gone through the exponential break point. Time and money would probably be better spent trying to pump up Bitcoin V.2."

"“Bitcoin as a currency doesn’t make any sense."

"This combination of encryption, mining, and decentralized verification makes Bitcoin potentially powerful and difficult to control, but governments do have tools at their disposal that could make it all but impossible for Bitcoin to become widely adopted. . . . And so Bitcoin may very well die."

"Bitcoin is not a currency. . . . There’s nothing that Bitcoin allows anyone to do that they can’t already do in the regular banking system."

"Neither Satoshi Nakamoto nor Bitcoin ever stood any chance of operating outside the bounds of conventional society. There will be regulation, there will be consumer protection, there will be rules and taxes, and criminal prosecutions for those who break the law. Bitcoin isn’t cyberpunk fantasy and it isn’t a Thomas Pynchon novel. It’s dull. The thrill is gone. And that’s why people are so mad."

"Opinions are still divided, but the evidence that Bitcoin is doomed to failure piles up almost every day. . . . Of course, we Bitcoin doomsayers have been waiting for the bubble to pop for some time now. We also tend to think that every new drop is a sign of it’s impending doom. . . . Anyone still willing to bet a Bitcoin on the future of Bitcoin?"

"With the future of money in the hands of Satoshi Nakamoto’s brilliant protocol, inexact central planning would be replaced by algorithmic decentralization. Of course, none of that has happened. And it’s exceedingly likely that none of it will."

"Bottom line: Bitcoin’s days are numbered. Literally. Williams predicts that Bitcoin “will trade for under $10″ by June 30, 2014. A bold prediction, no doubt. But the point is clear – Bitcoin doesn’t stand a chance at ever gaining widespread adoption."

"Bitcoin’s market cap on paper by far exceeds that of the competition, but the ability to translate Bitcoin wealth to wealth in other forms is very limited. There are many Bitcoin holders heavily invested in Bitcoin’s success and it has a first mover advantage. However as a store of value, its only value is reputational, and recent developments have shaken that reputation."

"Bitcoin does not yet have enough users to continue its survival. . . . it will go the way of laser discs and eight-track tapes."

"All of which is why I’m convinced that while bitcoin (or something like it) is likely to hang around as a niche commodity for certain kinds of gray- and black-market transactions, Mt. Gox pretty much assures that the average consumer will never use it. Because there is no way for you to ever ensure that your bitcoins are completely safe. . . . The speculators may not realize it yet, but you can stick a fork in bitcoin. It’s done."

"“It is a bubble, there is no question about it…. It’s just an amazing example of a bubble.” He added that he’s “amazed by how people are so excited about it” and that he tells his students that “No, it’s not such a great idea."

"Bitcoin is the wrong answer to a good question: what can be done to make the monetary system less crazy? . . . Bitcoin is not over yet. But the pseudo-currency is close enough to collapse to merit an early retrospective. . . . Bitcoin is neither a relatable store of value nor a helpful unit of account."

"Bitcoin is evil… so far almost all of the Bitcoin discussion has been positive economics—can this actually work? And I have to say that I’m still deeply unconvinced."

"Bitcoin is not a legitimate currency but simply a risky virtual commodity bet. . . . Bitcoin lacks the essential attributes that are needed to support a widely recognized transactional currency. If Bitcoin was allowed to proliferate as a currency it would produce greater economic uncertainty, reduced trade and lower individual standard of living."

"It's a bubble. You have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is. I haven't been able to do it."

"The developers of bitcoin are trying to show that money can be successfully privatized. They will fail, because money that is not issued by governments is always doomed to failure."

"And, in the greater scheme of things, bitcoin is small: even at a roughly 10 billion dollar market capitalization it is almost irrelevant in financial terms. This is probably roughly the peak market capitalization achieved by Beanie Babies in 1999. There are indeed important and valuable ideas that exist in bitcoin’s design. But bitcoin itself? I believe its volatility and built-in irreversibility will doom it to the ash-heap of history."

"The federal reserve comes out with their own version of the bitcoin, let’s call it the “USDcoin”, they make a .001 (or some other arbitrary number) USDc the equivalent of $1 and they make it very easy to use. You can have these deposited into your existing bank account and they are immediately converted to dollars and when you send dollars out of your account they are immediately converted to USDc. Then the government also implements anti-bitcoin laws that make using bitcoin difficult or impossible to use. Of course they will claim bitcoin was being used for illegal purposes and money laundering. This will be the end of bitcoin."

"To the extent using Bitcoin has any benefits now — convenience, cost-efficiency, putative anonymity — it’s because authorities haven’t been taking it very seriously. As officialdom becomes more assertive, Bitcoin will become more difficult and expensive to use, and less anonymous."

"But make no mistake, Bitcoin is not the currency of the future. It has no intrinsic value. . . . Bitcoin? Nada. There’s nothing keeping it being a thing. . . . Again, Bitcoin might go up a lot more before it ultimately ends. That’s the nature of bubbles. The dotcom bubble crashed a bunch of times on its way up. Then one day it ended. The same will happen with this."

"In theory, bitcoin could become a lawful virtual currency if the bitcoin community gave up anonymity and therefore incorporated the identities of bitcoin senders and receivers as part of the currency. But that would eliminate the cash-like feature that makes bitcoin attractive and vastly decrease the demand for bitcoin. That does not seem like a viable path forward. . . . While I praise the sheer ingenuity of bitcoin and its payments innovation, it should be buried."

"It's not anonymous, it's not free, it's not instant, and it's not convenient. It's extremely difficult to make money on it, mining is useless, and it's literally impossible that it will ever go into widespread use. Unless you have an ideological stake in the concept of Bitcoin (or want to buy drugs and/or child porn), there is literally no reason to get involved in it."

"All of which is to say that doing anything legally with bitcoins — and especially converting them into fiat currencies — is going to get harder and more expensive as governments involve themselves. So hard and so expensive, I’d argue, that any advantages the crypto-currency may have over normal means of exchange, like credit cards, will soon disappear."

"The problem, as I see it, is that bitcoin only value is it’s medium of exchange, without any real effort. It is ripe for fraud and manipulation, but what fiat monetary system isn’t. The automatic systems of growth to a finite number of units along with the division into smaller increments are intended to eliminate the problems of past monetary failures but cannot control human nature. As the medium of exchange and perceived value increases, hording will occur."

"Bitcoin’s path to the grave has always been fairly clear to me. . . . You can’t seize a Bitcoin like you can seize a dollar, since it’s simply an alphanumeric string. But people need to be able to get their money in and out of the Bitcoin economy in order for it to be a useful alternative. With Mt. Gox and other Bitcoin go-betweens having such a hard time staying afloat, it probably won’t be long before even some Bitcoin diehards consider packing it in."

"Ultimately, it’s greed – not a genuine interest in a fundamentally stronger alternative to the status quo – that’s driving Bitcoin prices. So forget Bitcoin being a contender as an alternative currency. At best, it’s a speculative investment."

"Everyone agrees that Bitcoin is an amazing proof of concept from a technical standpoint, and has succeeded in raising much awareness for the current flaws of the monetary system. But does Bitcoin really address these flaws? More and more prominent economists and net activists say no."

"So to recap: Bitcoin has swung from $265 to $60 in less than a week. Useless as a store of value, seriously broken as even a txn currency."

"Now here we are in a world of high information technology — and people think it’s smart, nay cutting-edge, to create a sort of virtual currency whose creation requires wasting real resources in a way Adam Smith considered foolish and outmoded in 1776."

"Well it has finally happened. We looked at those charts of ever rising price of bitcoin and said this cannot last, and it hasn’t. The bitcoin bubble has finally peaked and now all that is left is to watch its steady and inexorable decline. So what now for bitcoin? It will crash and disappear like Pets.com, Leheman Brothers, and Anglo Irish Bank, existing only in the memories of economists."

"Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme—the Internet’s favorite currency will collapse."

"The very reasons why Bitcoin has taken off today will be major reasons why its value is likely to collapse tomorrow. . . . [dramatic price instability] will cause the ultimate failure of the Bitcoin experiment. . . . Bitcoin will fail because a small number of hoarders control most of the supply."

"Beyond the most hardcore users, skepticism has only increased. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that the currency’s tendency to fluctuate has encouraged hoarding. Stefan Brands, a former ecash consultant and digital currency pioneer, calls bitcoin “clever” and is loath to bash it but believes it’s fundamentally structured like “a pyramid scheme” that rewards early adopters."

"So Bitcoin, we’ll remember the good times, like the time that one guy who got heat stroke while mining Bitcoins. Or the time there was the great heist caper that shut down trading site Mt Gox for an entire day. The lulz were abundant. But frankly, it’s time for you to go. Farewell."

"Although I think that Bitcoin is ingenious and fascinating in many ways, I don’t believe that it will succeed as a currency. The problem is that a Bitcoin is unlikely to ever be a good store of value (a primary function of any widely accepted currency) because the (eventually) fixed money supply will cause the purchasing power of a Bitcoin to be extremely volatile."

"Bitcoins aren’t secure, as both the recent theft and this password problem show. They’re not liquid, nor a store of value, as the price collapse shows and if they’re none of those things then they’ll not be a great medium of exchange either as who would want to accept them? . . . It’s difficult to see what the currency has going for it."

"Because, by design, there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins in existence. And thanks to hoarding and attrition, we can be sure that it will eventually serve as nothing more than as a collector’s item. . . . I would like to call upon the Bitcoin community to stop referring to it as a digital currency. This is misleading and harmful."

"Like the gold standard, a successful bitcoin would send our economy back into the dark ages. . . . Even if it became popular, governments would squash it because of #1 and because they like being in power. . . . With bitcoin, a single failure of the cryptosystem could result in an utter collapse of the entire financial network."

"Negative feedback loops like this are basically homeostasis. In nature, positive feedback loops like exist with Bitcoin are lethal; the only thing that’s even kept Bitcoin alive this long is its novelty. Either it will remain a novelty forever or it will transition from novelty status to dead faster than you can blink."