Joseph Stiglitz has joined forces with fellow economists Nouriel Roubini and Kenneth Rogoff in attacking bitcoin. The trio claim that the digital currency will be "regulated into oblivion" as authorities clamp down on money laundering. "You cannot have a means of payment that is based on secrecy when you're trying to create a transparent banking system," Stiglitz tells Financial News. Indeed, "if you open up a hole like bitcoin then all the nefarious activity will go through that hole, and no government can allow that". A major crackdown has not happened yet because the market for cryptocurrencies is still relatively small, but "once it becomes significant they will use the hammer".
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