Blockchain is "no better than an Excel spreadsheet"

Nouriel Roubini, a notorious crypto-currency critic, said the blockchain was "no better than an Excel spreadsheet" at a panel hosted by LaToken cryptochange on Jan. 25. .

Roubini is also known to have predicted the 2008 financial crisis and earned him the nickname of Dr. Doom.

Speaking at a panel at the Blockchain Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Roubini defined the blockchain as "the most overexpressed technology to date", while noting that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the mother of all the bubbles. He also pointed out during the interview that blockchain and crypto had nothing to do with fintech technology and private distributed accounting (DLT) technology.

The private DLT, according to Roubini, is nothing more than a sophisticated database, in that it is neither trustless nor decentralized. He also pointed out that, like DLT, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have nothing to do with blockchain and crypto. Roubini primarily sees CBDCs as a means of extending access to the central bank register to all individuals, instead of granting access to banks only.

In addition, Roubini has expressed his belief that CBDCs will dominate cryptocurrencies and radically alter banking. Moreover, even though he anticipates that financial technology will change funding and liquidity will disappear, he believes that blockchain and crypto will not play any role in this change.

Nouriel also severely criticized what he described as a "symbolization of everything," explaining that having a symbol for everything would be tantamount to returning to barter. He also pointed out how the characters of the famous cartoon Flintstones have a currency, which is shells, saying that the symbolization is worse than that.

Speaking of privacy, Nouriel pointed out that no government or regulator will allow the use of anonymity-based cryptocurrencies such as Monero. As Cointelegraph reports in June of last year, the Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA), a Japanese self-regulatory organization, has banned the trading of identity-based altcoins, such as than Zcash and Monero.

The negative position of Roubini on cryptocurrency is not a new opinion for him: in an interview with Cointelegraph last October, he said that, according to him, 99% of cryptocurrencies were worth zero.