'Dr. Doom' economist Nouriel Roubini slams crypto as a massive fraud - and blasts Kim Kardashian for promoting coins
- Nouriel Roubini slammed cryptocurrencies as a massive scam, with some coins worth less than zero.
- The "Dr. Doom" economist called out celebrities for promoting coins after Kim Kardashian's deal with the SEC.
Nouriel Roubini has torn into cryptocurrencies as an epic scam, declared the most speculative ones are worth less than nothing, and called out Kim Kardashian for promoting coins.
"Crypto is the biggest scam ever in financial history!" he tweeted on Monday, highlighting a Financial Times report that Celsius Networks' founder, Alex Mashinsky, withdrew $10 million from the crypto exchange before it filed for bankruptcy.
Roubini, an economics professor at NYU Stern, is nicknamed "Dr. Doom" as he often issues bleak economic diagnoses. He's also not shy about firing off colorful insults; he asserted in another Monday tweet that manure is more precious than some of the most ridiculous coins, given its use as a natural fertilizer.
"Their true value isn't 0; it is rather negative given their negative externalities," he said, meaning that the market doesn't price in the environmental costs of mining and trading the coins.
The economist also flagged the news that Kardashian agreed this week to pay $1.3 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The payment was to settle charges that she promoted a token on Instagram without disclosing that she was paid $250,000 to publish the post.
"100s of celebrities handsomely profited by peddling criminal shitcoins & crypto scams shafting suckers," Roubini tweeted. "The current fines are only a slap on the wrist. They should be prosecuted."
Roubini has repeatedly proclaimed that the crypto boom is a product of greed, speculation, criminal activity, and the exploitation of unwitting investors. Some of the hype has faded in recent months, sending the price of bitcoin down 70% from its November peak, and slashing the total market capitalization of crypto from a high of $3 trillion to less than $1 trillion today.
He's also told investors in crypto and other assets to brace for a historic market crash, and warned the US economy could soon tumble into a debt-fueled stagflationary spiral where output shrinks, unemployment jumps, and inflation remains high.