Bill Harris, former CEO of Intuit and co-founding CEO of PayPal has called Bitcoin a scam in an opinion piece published on Recode.

“In my opinion, it’s a colossal pump and dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen.”

The arguments Harris made were not original and fail to point out how Bitcoin is a scam. In his post, Harris argued that Bitcoin is a useless means of payment, volatile and holds no true value.

“Bitcoins are accepted almost nowhere, and some cryptocurrencies nowhere at all. Even where accepted, a currency whose value can swing 10% or more in a single day is useless as a means of payment.”

More businesses are adopting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a means of payment transfers. While today it may appear to be inefficient, Harris does not seem to be looking at the bigger picture as to how transfers work and will work in the future. Harris seems to forget that this is new technology which will improve over time.

Much emphasis was also put on criminal hacking and criminal activity.

“Cryptocurrency is best-suited for one use: Criminal activity. Because transactions can be anonymous — law enforcement cannot easily trace who buys and sells — its use is dominated by illegal endeavors.”

This has been stated time and time again. Still, how does pointing out criminal use make it a scam?

Criminals are criminals and they will use whatever currency works best for them, it’s just not a valid argument against cryptocurrency. Fiat is used by criminals every day. Harris saying that it’s best used for criminal activity also contradicts his statement that the currency is useless.

“All of this would be a comic sideshow if innocent people weren’t at risk. But ordinary people are investing some of their life savings in cryptocurrency. One stock brokerage is encouraging its customers to purchase bitcoin for their retirement accounts!”

This puts to mind the time Abe Simpson angrily raised his fist to a cloud.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrenices are still in development. It’s sad to see a high profile person in the finance world not willing to look at the capabilities of cryptocurrency and what could be offered. In a survey conducted by Thomson Ruters, One in five financial institutions will consider trading cryptocurrencies in 2018.

Currently, 1 Bitcoin is trading at $8,828.14 USD  and the 17th million bitcoin was mined approaching the cap of 21 million.

 

Photo courtesy: Pexels-David-Mcbee

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.