Bitcoin is a ‘tumour’, says ‘Black Swan’ author Nassim Taleb

Crypto fan-hater Nassim Nicholas Taleb wants you to know that Bitcoin is a “tumor.”

In an interview with CNBC‘s Squawk Box Thursday, the author of The black swan argued that everyone under 40 – Millennials and GenZ – doesn’t understand how the economy works because of the federal interest rate environment they grew up in.

“I think that we’ve had 15 years — 14 and a half years — of Disneyland basically destroying the economic structure,” Taleb said. “Think about it – no interest. So anyone who says 40 years old […] have no experience from markets. Zero. They don’t know what the time value of money is.”

Taleb’s best-selling book, The black swan, explores luck, risk, uncertainty and probability. It is based on the concept of a “black swan arrangement,” which is unpredictable, has massive impact, and is rationalized in retrospect to be less random and more predictable.

In his Thursday interview, Taleb argued that the US federal government lowered interest rates far too much, and that society will eventually have to bear the consequences.

“Zero interest for a long time, you hurt the economy, you create bubbles, you create tumors like Bitcoin,” Taleb said.

Just a few years ago, Taleb was interested in cryptocurrencies and owned some himself. Back in April 2020, he told Lebanese to “use cryptocurrencies!” to navigate the country’s financial system.

A few months later, he complained about Coinbase’s customer support on Twitter and then shut down its Coinbase accounting.

In February 2021, Taleb declared Bitcoin “an error” due to the volatility and said he sold his Bitcoin. Last April, he continued his downward spiral into no-coinerdom, claiming that Bitcoin “has characteristics of an open Ponzi.”

While Taleb is now urging society to “return to normal economic life”, he also argued that “we are still far from stressors”.

“Bitcoin is still being used, it’s still at $20,000. It’s not at, you know, at $1,000 or zero.”