Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His comments come on the back of news El Salvador plans to make the crypto-currency legal tender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The price of Bitcoin has been falling steadily since early May and so far has not recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The falls were widely attributed to China banning banned banks and payment firms from providing services related to crypto-currency transactions, as well as electric car maker Tesla announcing it would no longer accept the currency a week before that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is Bitcoin actually a threat to currency? Here’s what experts we spoke to think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Bitcoin is a threat to all major currencies’
\nJustin Urquhart-Stewart, co-founder of Seven Investment Management and the Regionally investment platform, thinks Bitcoin does have a potential threat of destabilising currencies “because it has taken off in such a way that it’s created a popular appeal without any sound financial strength”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He blames the rise of Bitcoin on figures like Elon Musk “behaving stupidly”, which makes the general public perceive that the crypto-currency is credible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Bitcoin is dangerous because it’s trying to create a level of credibility to unreliable and wholly unfounded value,” he tells the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Quite often, unsophisticated punters are drawn in at the wrong time to something they think they can make a quick buck on – to them, it doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s Bitcoin or GameStop or AMC, it’s something you can bet on.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin, says Elon Musk
\n‘I lost millions through cryptocurrency addiction’
\nBitcoin dives as China cracks down on crypto
\nHe says that a rising trend of young people who are somewhat tech savvy, “like hobby technologists”, are taking huge risks because they haven’t been educated about finance properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Urquhart-Stewart strongly believes the national curriculum should include education on how to develop family finances over generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What we have now is a young generation of punters who have no knowledge of financial planning and development,” stresses Mr Urquhart-Stewart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They understand how to buy and sell things, but they have no concept of how to create longer-term wealth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No threat to the dollar
\nIn contrast, Neil Wilson, chief market analyst for Markets.com, thinks Bitcoin is definitely not a currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He says that to qualify as a currency, it must have the following functions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A unit of account
\nProvide a good store of value
\nBe a means of payment
\n“I call Bitcoin more of a security, like a stock or bond,” says Mr Wilson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Although it’s appreciated massively, it’s far too volatile to be a currency – it moves around more than most stocks do.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He says that with Bitcoin, people are mostly buying it to hold onto and invest, rather than spending it frequently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as to Mr Trump’s assertion that the crypto-currency is threatening the US dollar, he disagrees, although it could be a slight threat to gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The means by which America exerts influence over the world is predominantly by the dollar, and it’s not going to give that up, so I don’t see Bitcoin as a threat whatsoever,” he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Governments don’t like other people creating money – they’ve seemed to tolerate crypto-currencies for some time, but they will eventually get their own digital currencies established and will squeeze Bitcoin out into the margins.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar. “Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.” He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the … Continue reading “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3339,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338\/revisions\/3339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}