Joseph Stiglitz: Bitcoin ought to be outlawed

Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has condemned Bitcoin as “successful only because of its potential for circumvention [and] lack of oversight,” and has called for it to be banned.

In a Bloomberg Television interview, he said the cryptocurrency doesn’t serve “any socially useful function.”

He believes Bitcoin is a bubble, that will give “a lot of people a lot of exciting times as it rides up and then goes down.”

Past the $10,000 mark

The value of one Bitcoin went past $10,000 for the first time this week – continuing the huge rises seen since the beginning of 2017.

At the start of the year, it was worth just $998.

Bitcoin's rapid increase in value has led many analysts – including Stiglitz and fellow Nobel Prize laureate Robert Shiller – to suggest Bitcoin's rise is unsustainable and a price collapse is almost inevitable.