The value of the bitcoin comes in free fall. After surpassing US $ 19,000 in mid-December, the most popular of the cryptocurrencies traded this afternoon US $ 6,979, with a cumulative drop of more than 16% in the last 24 hours. The collapse is in line with the decision of 4 financial groups (the British Lloyds Banking Group and the Americans JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citi) that use their credit cards to buy that class of digital assets. It is not the only thing: last Friday, South Korea forbade anonymity in transactions with bitcoins on suspicion of laundering and other illegal activities.
The future of bitcoin, well, is uncertain, as much or more than its price. From its origin to date, its value suffered very sharp rises and falls for no apparent reason. There are already several countries that limit, regulate or directly prohibit their "free" circulation, among them Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ecuador, Iceland, India, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam. The last to swell that list was Korea. It is not the only thing: financial analysts, investors and experts warned that bitcoin has no logical basis. Recently, Nouriel Roubini, who has the latest financial crisis, believes that cryptocurrency "son like the small financial bubble" and that "until now, the only real use has been to facilitate illegal activities such as drug trafficking, tax evasion, the circumvention of capital controls or money laundering "
Launched in 2009, bitcoin was postulated as an alternative to traditional money. Strictly speaking, they are blocks of encrypted binary codes (blockchains) generated by programmers through a network, and which are bought and sold on the Internet. It is, say its promoters, a "technology free of regulations of central banks and governments, whose value is defined only by supply and demand.
With religious faith, its advocates say that bitcoin is the money of the future, that it gives power to users and that it emerges in parallel with disruptive businesses such as Uber and Airbnb. "Bitcoin is absolutely exciting," joked famous economist Yale University Robert Shiller: "You're fast. You're smart. You have discovered what no one else understands. You are with that. And it has this anti-government and anti-regulation sentiment. It's a wonderful story, if it's true, "he said. Harder and more concrete was the Nobel Prize for Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, who asked directly for his ban. "Why do people want bitcoins? Why do people want an alternative currency? The real reason is to participate in vile activities: money laundering, tax evasion. "
Jean Tirole, Nobel Prize in Economics in 2014, said similar things in a column published in the Financial Times: "Bitcoin may be a libertarian dream, but it is a real headache for anyone who sees public policy as a necessary complement to market economies. It is still used too much as a way for tax evasion or money laundering, "he said.
Bitcoin is just one of the more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies on the market. Regular source of controversies, for some the bitcoin is a means of transaction that eliminates intermediaries (banks). And that serves as a refuge of value against devaluations of currencies and other traditional assets. Gustavo Nefa, of Research for Traders, believes that "it is a means of payment that is being extended" and that "the world sees it as a reserve of value (fiduciary or virtual) and a medium payment". For others, it is a new speculative mania based on unprovable conjectures. Financial analyst Mariano Lebedinsky Rubistein, CEO of Banks Ventures Latin America, argues that "60% of bitcoins are in a few hands" and that their price is manipulated. "I think that many are realizing the meaning of the word bubble." The market has the last word.
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