In the next ten years, bitcoin will be more likely to cost $100 than $100,000, says a Harvard economist
Harvard University professor and economist Kenneth Rogoff said Tuesday that the possibility of bitcoin prices falling to $100 is greater than the price of the digital currency trading at $100,000 a decade from now.
“I think bitcoin will be worth a fraction of what it is now if we go out ten years from now … I think $100 is much more likely than $100,000 ten years from now,” Rogoff told CNBC’s ” Squawk Box .”
“If you take away the opportunity for money laundering and tax avoidance, its real use as a means of transaction is minimal,” said the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Many illegal transactions are linked to Bitcoin, whose valuations fluctuate in proportion to the use of the digital currency used in illegal activities. According to Shone Anstey, co-founder and president of Blockchain Intelligence Group, he calculated that the level of illegal transactions decreased to 20 percent in 2016 and was “significantly lower than that” in 2017.
Regulations introduced by the government will cause bitcoin prices to fall, Rogoff said, although he stressed that developing a global regulatory framework will take time.
“It needs to be a global regulation. Even if the US cracks down on it and China does, but Japan doesn’t, people will still be able to launder money through Japan,” he said.
Bitcoin traded around $11,242.61 during morning trading in Asia on Tuesday, according to industry website CoinDesk. The price of the digital currency has fallen this year from a record high of more than $19,000 in December last year.
Authorities have been passive about regulating bitcoin, Rogoff says, because of the anticipation of the technology behind the digital currency.
“They want to see technological advances,” Rogoff said, adding that the private sector has historically “designed everything” in the history of currency, from standardized coinage to paper currency.
Bitcoin is a significant area of growth as an application of blockchain technology that enables transactions to be maintained and recorded.
However, there have been claims of bitcoin prices falling in the past as well. Before bitcoin sold off last December, Rogoff said last October that valuations of the digital currency would “crash” amid attempts by governments to regulate the space.