Alan Greenspan compares Bitcoin to Civil War Greenbacks and Continentals
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is the latest high profile financer to give his take on the controversial currency. In an exclusive interview on FOX Business Network’s “Mornings With Maria,” Greenspan said “Bitcoin is what used to be called fiat money.” He then compared Bitcoin to the currency issued by the Continental Congress after the American Revolution began.
“I would use the analogy of Continental currency. Continental currency in 1775 was issued with no backing and it sold at par in the marketplace for quite a while until they started to build up more and more printing of continentals.”
According to Greenspan, the perception of the cryptocurrency is not necessarily matching the reality, saying, “Human nature is such that if you get something such as Bitcoin, you think there is some value there whether there is or there isn’t. But that’s the same thing as a Continental, greenbacks in the Civil War, all of these currencies which didn’t have any backing.”
Unlike Greenspan, others including Warren Buffett, JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), have more direct opinions on Bitcoin. Earlier this month, Thiel told FOX Business while he’s skeptical of most cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is “very underestimated.” While Dimon, in September, said Bitcoin "is a fraud" and will blow up and Buffett, the world’s second richest individual per Forbes, told MarketWatch it is a bubble waiting to burst.
Despite Bitcoin’s many harsh critics, it has gained a fresh wave of credibility in the past few weeks. The CME (NYSE:CME) announced plans to launch Bitcoin futures in the fourth quarter of 2017. “We are bringing forth a contract on Bitcoin on the concept of people wanting to find different ways to do commerce, and we are going to put it on our regulated platform. We will have position limits, we will have different margining regime, we will have an auto trail function, we will have distribution and we will have our name behind it,” said CME CEO Terry Duffy during an interview with FOX Business’ Liz Claman on “Countdown to the Closing Bell.”
Bitcoin has surged to a record this year, up 500% and trading around the $7,100 level, as tracked by Coindesk, and some predict it could continue higher. According to Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), which publishes “The Charts That Matter Next Week,” it has the potential to reach at least $7,941, as reported by FOX Business.