Cryptocurrency is a bit like a superhero movie in the sense that it has both its heroes and villains. Some of those heroes include Mike Novogratz and Tim Draper who are both bullish on Bitcoin, but then there are the ‘villains’ like Nouriel Roubini and Peter Schiff who are either sceptical on Bitcoin or purely hate it.
I’d personally class Schiff as a sceptic on BTC as the gold bug has debated the negatives of Bitcoin several times in the past. That being said, Schiff has recently boasted that he has cracked the case of the plunging Bitcoin price, in that he was the reason for it to drop.
The CEO of the investment company Euro Pacific Capital has advised a YouTube audience on Monday to buy silver and sell Bitcoin. As a result, the Bitcoin price went down as silver went up in value. Schiff claims that this is no coincidence.
On my Bitcoin challenge Live Stream on Youtube Monday I recommended selling Bitcoin and buying silver. Since then the price of Bitcoin has fallen by over 10% (even after a 10% rally from the low), and silver is up 3.8%, its biggest two-day gain in two years. Coincidence?
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) July 17, 2019
Whereas there are some famous figures that believe that they can certainly move the markets by just speaking their mind, this was clearly not the case since the prices of the two assets were already trending in the respective directions.
Bitcoin Surges
Schiff went onto argue that demand for Bitcoin was being generated by the irrational expectations of market participants who are only purchasing it because they expect to sell it to someone else at a later date at a higher price.
Furthermore, the CEO expressed his frustrations at Bitcoin maximalists. He argued that just because Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency doesn’t guarantee it a future.
In the past, Schiff has predicted that at some point in the future, the leading cryptocurrency will blow up, however, if it does succeed it will become a victim of its own success:
“I don’t believe that Bitcoin is actually a threat to the monetary system that we have now… I don’t think it’s a threat to the fiat monetary system ‘cause it’s going to implode on its own. But if I am wrong, if it doesn’t die on its own, the government will kill it because if the government actually thinks it’s a threat they are going to act to protect their monopoly on money.”