Chris Iggo: bitcoin is no currency

Bitcoin may be a phenomenal speculative punt, reckons Axa Investment Management's Chris Iggo. But a functioning currency it is not.

"Anyone following the price movements of bitcoin can't have been anything other than amazed at its recent performance," says Chris Iggo, chief investment officer of Axa Investment Management. However, it's hard to see the digital asset as a currency, he reckons. Money should act as "a store of value and a means of exchange" and it's "hard to see that bitcoin satisfies those criteria".

Indeed, "it is fair to conclude that with a market capitalisation bigger than some household-name corporations, we are witnessing a digital bubble". While "robots may be coming to take our jobs", Iggo thinks that "bitcoin might take people's wealth first".

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