Tyler Cowen Weighs in On Bitcoin

Tyler Cowen

During a recent panel discussion on Bloomberg Opinion, George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen said that the major problem with cryptocurrencies today was that they were competing against various innovators in the payment space.

 He said that institutional investors did not necessarily have to adopt cryptocurrencies and that they could adopt cheaper ways of making transactions or handle assets. Tyler added:

Whether Bitcoin and cryptocurrency can outcompete that, well… Bitcoin is a highly flexible system, in some ways, until you have a fork, I suppose I would bet on the payments companies.

Tyler has a sound point but Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have many other problems.

-RW 

UPDATE 

More Cowen panel comments:

I think there's a 40% chance [that crypto] will be a niche thing for initially a-legal applications, a fifteen percent chance that blockchain really takes off and is a next big thing, because it organizes all different features of the economy as a new kind of governance; and then the rest of the probability is that it just dwindles and becomes a hobby. (via CrtptoGlobe)