Traditional Financial Analysts Don’t Understand Bitcoin (But Have They Even Tried?)

According to Business Insider, Gary Shilling, financial analyst and the president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., has outlined exactly why he won’t be investing in Bitcoin. Shilling states he doesn’t invest in things he doesn’t understand. This is a rational position — but it also appears he has made no attempt to understand the inner-workings of cryptocurrencies. Surely, as well as avoiding investing in things he can’t comprehend, he should also avoid talking about them.

Why Gary Shilling will not invest in bitcoin pic.twitter.com/MtSUhhWgwH

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) August 13, 2018

Shilling Not on Board

His naivety emerges when he refers to Bitcoin’s public ledger of transactions as a ‘black box,’ implying that the system does not promote transparency. Does this mean that Shilling is more suspicious of physical cash, which cannot be tracked by blockchain forensics firms? The analyst also recalls a conversation with a venture capitalist friend who was invested in cryptocurrency early on. Apparently, the fact that this unnamed friend could not say who was behind Bitcoin was an indication of a scam. However, if Shilling had researched the topic, he would quickly realize that the completely open source nature of Bitcoin renders the person or persons behind the network irrelevant. If all the code is freely available for any individual to verify then what does it matter if Bitcoin was created by an advanced AI, the US government, or even Craig Wright? Simply put, it doesn’t. After his anecdote about his venture investor friend, Shilling turns his attention to a famous historical scam that has absolutely no relevance to Bitcoin — the South Sea Bubble. He uses this comparison to imply that Bitcoin has been promoted as a fraudulent investment opportunity to benefit some central authority at the expense of naive investors. This comparison is more akin to the ICO market to Bitcoin. Many of those running initial coin offerings in recent years have made vague promises of a product or service, before disappearing with investors’ money without delivering anything.

Too Lazy to Research Bitcoin

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is completely open and voluntary. There are no secrets or empty promises since all the code, the whitepaper, and every transaction that has ever occurred is available for anyone to view. Having no central authority controlling the network, there is no one to orchestrate the kind of exit scam alluded to by Shilling. With vast sources of information readily available for those willing to learn, it’s a shame that some of those with the loudest voices against Bitcoin seem unwilling to do their homework before attempting to belittle it publicly. How do you think opinions like those of Shilling impact the public perception of Bitcoin? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.