Nobel Laureate Economist Robert Shiller Calls Bitcoin ‘Sort Of A Bubble’

(DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 28JAN12 - Robert J. Shiller, Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics, Yale University, USA is captured during the session 'Pundits, Professors and their Predictions' at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum at the congress centre in Davos, Switzerland, January 28, 2012. Copyright by World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo by Moritz Hager).

👉 Robert Shiller, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, called bitcoin a “sort of bubble,” which is not to say it will burst.

Shiller, the 2013 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in “Trendspotting In Asset Markets,” made his comments on an interview for CNBC

Shiller made his remarks shortly after bitcoin recorded a 15.94 percent increase in value, from $6,900 to $8,000. The price rose by $1,100 within a 30-minute window, as massive buy volumes emerged.

“It may be with us for a while,” Shiller said. “To me it’s another example of faddish human behavior.” He called it glamorous, but said he doesn’t mean to dismiss it.

“But it’s a story that I think goes way beyond the merit of the idea,” he said, adding that the reason people are excited about bitcoin is more psychological than something that can be explained by the computer science department.

‘Part Of It Is Political’

“I think that part of it is political,” he said, noting that it’s an area that economists tend to neglect. “There’s a big element of people who don’t trust the government anymore, and they like the idea that this didn’t come from the government. It came from some real smart computer scientists.”

“It’s a great story for today’s markets,” he said.

Shiller’s comments are consistent with others he has made in the past. In 2014 he called bitcoin an “inspiration” because of the computer science, but as a currency he said it would return us “to the dark ages.”

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