Bitcoin price THREAT: Cryptocurrency set for untimely demise BUT there is a BRIGHT SIDE

BITCOIN will not last a top economist has warned, but there is hope for blockchain technology.

Bitcoin does not have a future, but blockchain technology, which is utilised by other types of cryptocurrency like Ripple and ethereum should last, Jim Rickards said.

Speaking to RT’s Keiser Report, he said: “Bitcoin prices going up is a self-fulling prophecy, bitcoin going to $200 could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Mr Rickard added that the printing press was a perfect analogy of the blockchain technology.

He said: “The printing press is the perfect analogue because this is where bitcoin fans really confuse the public.

“You have to separate the coin and the technology.

“The printing press is a technology, the printing press can produce a bible or it can produce pornography.

“So one’s good and one’s bad but they all come off the same printing press.”

Host Max Keiser added that the two are still interlinked.

He said: “But you need paper and the press. Bitcoin and the blockchain.

“The validation of the chain through the coin are pari-passu. They are interlinked, they are one.

“It is the father son and the holy ghost, if you will, of the movement that is this currency.”

But Mr Rickards said while he would acknowledge that bitcoin was a currency, he did not think it had a future long-term.

He said: “I would say that bitcoin is a currency. I’ll agree it’s a kind of currency, it depends on the blockchain.

“Blockchain has a future, bitcoin does not.”

Bitcoin dropped 7.53 percent to $13,769.50 at 14:14 in London, according to Coindesk.

Ethereum was down 2.06 percent at $1,221.85 percent at 14:15 in London, Ripple fell 11.32 percent to $1.74 at 14:16 in London.