The co-founder of the largest free-content reference website has slammed bitcoin and the digital currency industry, saying that it is in a bubble that will eventually pop.
Speaking at the Blockshow conference in Berlin — Europe’s version of New York’s blockchain-focused Consensus conference — Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales said the crypto industry is in for a rude awakening.
In fact, he said, the sector is in need of some “real journalism,” according to Cointelegraph, which is hosting Blockshow.
Read:
Opinion: The bitcoin bubble is a bad omen for the U.S. economy
“There are a lot of these initial coin offerings, which are in my opinion absolute scams and people should be very wary of things that are going on in that area,” Wales said in an October 4 interview with CNBC.
Read:
The SEC created a fake ICO website to show just how easy it is to scam investors
The internet entrepreneur’s comments come as the No. 1 digital currency is in the midst of a dire stretch, coming off three consecutive weekly losses for the first time since September 2017, pushing bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.15% to a six-week low.
Despite his negative outlook for the industry, there is a reason Wales may hope he is wrong — in 2014, Wikipedia announced it had started accepting bitcoin as a form of donation, which it still does today.
See more from Marketwatch here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-is-definitely-a-bubble-says-wikipedia-founder-2018-05-29
Speaking at the Blockshow conference in Berlin — Europe’s version of New York’s blockchain-focused Consensus conference — Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales said the crypto industry is in for a rude awakening.
In fact, he said, the sector is in need of some “real journalism,” according to Cointelegraph, which is hosting Blockshow.
Read:
Opinion: The bitcoin bubble is a bad omen for the U.S. economy
‘Right now, we are in a bubble. The crypto world is absolutely, definitely in a bubble. I don’t think there’s many people who would deny that.’—Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia.It is not the first time Wales has piled on the industry. In an October interview, he warned investors of the risks around the popular, unregulated crowdfunding tools that raise money for cryptocurrencies.
“There are a lot of these initial coin offerings, which are in my opinion absolute scams and people should be very wary of things that are going on in that area,” Wales said in an October 4 interview with CNBC.
Read:
The SEC created a fake ICO website to show just how easy it is to scam investors
The internet entrepreneur’s comments come as the No. 1 digital currency is in the midst of a dire stretch, coming off three consecutive weekly losses for the first time since September 2017, pushing bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.15% to a six-week low.
Despite his negative outlook for the industry, there is a reason Wales may hope he is wrong — in 2014, Wikipedia announced it had started accepting bitcoin as a form of donation, which it still does today.
See more from Marketwatch here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-is-definitely-a-bubble-says-wikipedia-founder-2018-05-29
-
- 1
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst The time to call Bitcoin a bubble was some months ago, when prices started to sharply decline. I don't think anyone disagrees with the term bubble. But the conclusion should not be a negative one. Any new technology or its application will have a kind of bubble, which can be a positive thing as it happened with the Internet bubble in the nineties. I believe investors and start ups have been already warned to be careful on how to move around this bubble, not letting themselves to be blinded by hype.