In the past two weeks, the American economist Nouriel Roubini has been in the spotlight because of his harsh statements about cryptocurrencies. However, students of New York University (NYU), where Roubini himself teaches, strongly disagree with him.
Nouriel Roubini, the economist known for foreseeing the financial crisis of 2008, was extremely derogatory of digital money before the U.S. Senate. At a hearing on Thursday, he called crypto “the mother or father of all scams and bubbles."
"Especially folks with zero financial literacy – individuals who could not tell the difference between stocks and bonds – went into a literal manic frenzy of Bitcoin and Crypto buying," Roubini added.
Also in early October, Roubini compared cryptocurrencies to North Korea and questioned their decentralization.
Decentralization in crypto is a myth. It is a system more centralized than North Korea: miners are centralized, exchanges are centralized, developers are centralized dictators (Buterin is "dictator for life" ) & the Gini inequality coefficient of bitcoin is worse than North Korea
— Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) October 8, 2018
He added that mining pools from Russia, Belarus, and China control 80% of bitcoin hash rate, so users are forced to trust miners from these countries. The economist stressed that no one uses decentralized exchanges, and 99% of trading platforms are centralized. Many people reacted to the sharp statements of Roubini with humor. However, his point of view also caused counter criticism.
In particular, students and famous graduates of New York University (NYU), where Roubini teaches, did not like his angry speeches. Max Keiser, a cryptocurrency investor and university graduate, said that students are unhappy with the latter’s unjustified aggression against digital assets:
“Many at NYU are in touch with Nouriel Roubini trying to get him to shut up. He’s known as a rage-aholic, egomaniacal, windbag. Students are really complaining. It’s becoming an issue with alumni fund-raisers like myself.”
He also stressed that he had already appealed to the members of the NYU board, asking them to curb the sharp economist.
As an active NYU alumni it pains me to see @nouriel act like such a horse’s ass. I’m in touch with the NYU board now, asking if they can get this embarrassing rage-aholic to control himself. It’s hurting student morale. https://t.co/S6kr0vHTke
— Max Keiser, tweet artist (@maxkeiser) October 16, 2018
Ari Paul, the co-founder of the Blocktower and crypto investor, also rebuffed the notorious professor. Roubini said that Paul supports price manipulations. This loud conclusion was made by an economist on the grounds that the entrepreneur simply noticed that wash trading and ponzi schemes were different things.
“This is pretty funny. Dr. Doom has created 4 threads today linking to random tweets or videos from me trying to make me look stupid. Ironically, I’ve written tons of stupid things, and made plenty of bad trades, but his 4 examples are all opposite of what he’s hoping for.”
Dr. Doom is the nickname of the economist that he received just for the pessian forecasts.
Many of Roubini's statements are based simply on personal dislike for cryptocurrencies. At the first check, his arguments fall apart. For example, Roubini said that the price for an ordinary latte in the popular Starbucks coffeehouse will rise to $63 if you pay it in bitcoin since the transaction fee alone is $60. However, the commission in the BTC network is less than 10 cents.
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