Outlaw Bitcoin Now! Says Nobel Prize-Winning Economist

December 4, 2017         By: Steven Anderson

Bitcoin has been nothing if not controversial of late, especially given its recent second explosion in value. Yet even in the midst of this explosion, some have called for a complete end to the cryptocurrency. One of bitcoin’s newest foes is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, who recently noted to Bloomberg Television that bitcoin “…ought to be outlawed.

Stiglitz’s motivation for calling for the outright banning boils down to one oddly subjective point: “It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.” While the value of bitcoin is spiraling ever upward—it recently cleared the $11,000 mark—Stiglitz posits that the only reason bitcoin is doing this well is a combination of its “…potential for circumvention (and) lack of oversight.”

Stiglitz also reported noted that “The main use of bitcoin has been to circumvent tax authorities and regulation. I think the US government did the right of thing of shutting or trying to shut it down and I think effectively…it has done that.” Yet at the same time, Stiglitz notes that the introduction of digital currency has “…benefits that outweigh the costs.”

Far be it from me to consider the opinion of a Nobel Prize-winning economist to be dangerously wrong-headed, but I can’t help but note not only how many stores now accept bitcoin, but also how increasingly easy it is to get hands on bitcoin. The notion that bitcoin isn’t doing anything of “socially useful function” is kind of off to begin with—it’s serving not only as an alternate currency but also an investment vehicle, if a particularly volatile one—but that this is reason to ban it outright seems downright unsupportable.

Perhaps, if viewed through the lens that there should be an official digital currency rather than the unofficial multinational currency bitcoin essentially represents, Stiglitz has a point. Yet even here, does Stiglitz actually believe that governments are less likely to engage in “circumvention” or evading “oversight” with a digital currency?

It’s also worth pointing out how the Greeks put bitcoin to work in the midst of their own economic crisis, and how African nations are using bitcoin to more readily engage in cross-border economic exchanges. These things may not be “socially useful” to men like Stiglitz, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re good enough for me.