If you watched the Super Bowl this year, it was hard not to notice that cryptocurrency had fully arrived. Even Larry David was hawking crypto.
But over the past several weeks, the crypto markets, like other markets, have been melting down. Some coins have completely imploded. Some crypto banks have shut their digital doors, refusing to give customers access to their money. And companies like Coinbase are laying off workers. Crypto winter has arrived.
Today: a debate. Is crypto really the future of money? And is this blip just a normal hiccup in an otherwise exciting, transformational technological advancement? Or was crypto always more hype than reality?
Anthony Pompliano is a crypto believer. He’s an entrepreneur and investor and a former lead at Facebook. He's also the host of the Pomp podcast and the writer of a crypto newsletter called Off the Chain.
Michael Green is a major crypto skeptic. He has been an investor for more than 30 years. He recently joined Simplify, where he's introducing new innovations in ETFs. He's previously, among other jobs, been at Thiel Macro, where he managed the personal capital of Peter Thiel.
Much more hype than reality. Plus it's a world destroying disaster for the environment since it wastes so much electricity. And it's extraordinarily volatile. If I wanted to gamble, which I do not, I'd move to to a tacky wasteland like Las Vegas long before I'd invest a penny in bitcoin.
And NFTs are beyond belief, the height of absurdity. The Bored Ape Yacht Club (Bored Ape Yacht Club???) which has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past couple of months proves there's a sucker born every minute.
We live in an insane time where the president of the United States, whom I made the mistake of voting for, thinks that men can be women. And people are afraid to state what was obvious over two years ago, that covid escaped from a sloppy lab in Wuhan. So it's not surprising that the whole world has jumped the shark.
While crypto is ultimately going to be a hollow failure, there is merit in the blockchain technology that enabled it. But even that has issues. I used to think that a non-managed system of financial settlement was an incredibly powerful thing.
But the fact that it relies on ever-increasing electrical usage (via mining) means that it is hard to imagine bitcoin lasting another 10 years let alone 100. Creative concept, but fatally flawed.