Nobel Laureate Ben Bernake, Cryptocurrency Scam Winner

JAKARTA Nobel award winner in the economic field in 2022, Ben Bernake recently criticized the concept of cryptocurrency. The statement was made by Bernake in an interview with one of the leading journals from Sweden, Dagens Nyheter, December 7, 2022.

Bernake, who is the former Chairman of the Fed, said that cryptocurrencies have not been proven to have economic value. He won an economic nobel award for his research on banks and financial crises.

This statement was made by Bernake after the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange last November. Then followed by the collapse of crypto-loaning company BlockFi. He assessed that this condition shows that cryptocurrencies have no real contribution to the economy.

In addition, he also noted that cryptocurrencies are not very threatening today's financial system. The reason is, there is no bank that makes crypto assets a backup or buy them.

"I believe that so far cryptocurrencies have not proven to have economic value at all," said Ben Bernake.

Launching Bitcoin.com News, Bernake's negative opinion on crypto is nothing new, as he has also made similar statements in the past. In May, Bernake said bitcoin was used "mostly for underground economic activity and often illegal or forbidden things."

The Nobel laureate also emphasized that bitcoin, apart from being used as a speculative asset, does not allow it to be an alternative money from fiat money. On the other hand, a number of experts have called for the importance of regulation for cryptocurrencies. Commenting on this, Bernake stated that cryptocurrencies are regulated or not, cryptocurrencies are destined to fail.

"Whether they (cryptocurrency, ed.) are not regulated and then they will collapse because people don't trust them or they are regulated and then they will collapse because they are mostly used for criminal activities," said Bernanke.

However, the Nobel laureate in the economic field had an open view of the concept of bitcoin and other crypto assets as a threat of fiat money. In 2017, he explained that if bitcoin had the same transaction tool as traditional money, then regulations would be issued to stop it.

"Finally the government will take whatever action they need to prevent it," he added.