Nouriel Roubini. Image by: Spiegel DE
Nouriel Roubini, a popular US economist and well-known Bitcoin critic commonly referred to by the community as “Dr. Doom,” recently had another stab at the cryptocurrency. According to him, the most recent downturn happened without any particular reason, proving that Bitcoin is “rigged” and “totally manipulated.”
As CryptoPotato recently reported, on May 10th, Bitcoin’s price tumbled decreased from above $9,600 to below $8,000 in a matter of minutes. As it’s almost always the case, the movement spread across the entire market, and most of the altcoins followed in red.
This gave another opportunity to cryptocurrency critics such as Nouriel Roubini to express their frustration.
The popular US economist took it to Twitter to say that whales manipulate Bitcoin’s market:
“Bitcoin crashes by 15% in 7 minutes on NO news: a rigged, totally manipulated, whales-controlled market where most transactions (90%) volumes are false as exchanges pretend to have liquidity they don’t have. Massive pump & dump, spoofing, front running, wash trading! Total Scam!” – Said the economist.
Needless to say, it’s far from the first time Roubini bashes Bitcoin else the community wouldn’t refer to him as “Dr. Doom.”
But he’s far from being the only one who’s constantly criticizing the cryptocurrency. Last month, Peter Schiff said that Bitcoin would “crash back to earth.”
Wash-trading and market manipulation are indeed concerns that have been raised in the past. After all, the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization is relatively small compared to legacy markets, making it a lot easier for big players to move the price.
However, what Roubini failed to mention is the way Bitcoin handles the ongoing crisis in the global economy.
When the coronavirus began spreading in the Western World following China, economies tumbled. Major indices such as the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones marked declines they haven’t seen in ages, and they are far from being recovered, despite the trillions of dollars printed to bail corporations out.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, receives no official governmental support. There are no circuit breakers that allow traders to take a step back and assess the situation.
Yet, the cryptocurrency has more than doubled its price since its March lows, despite the most recent crashes. Unlike legacy markets, Bitcoin is actually marking an increase since the beginning of the year, while companies struggle to recover.