Share this article
Nouriel Roubini Says Facebook's GlobalCoin Has 'Nothing to Do With Crypto'
Noted economist Nouriel Roubini has said Facebook's soon-to-be unveiled cryptocurrency is not really crypto or blockchain.
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 9:19 a.m. Published Jun 17, 2019, 2:00 p.m.
Noted economist and cryptocurrency skeptic Nouriel Roubini has said Facebook's soon-to-be unveiled cryptocurrency, reportedly called GlobalCoin, is not really crypto.
In a conversation with CoinDesk, Roubini – also nicknamed "Dr. Doom" for his prediction of the financial crash in 2007 and 2008 – said:
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
"It has nothing to do with blockchain. Fully private, controlled, centralized, verified and authorized by a small number of permissioned nodes. So what is crypto or blockchain about it? None."
Indeed, according to recent reports, the social media giant has signed up more than a dozen backers for its GlobalCoin cryptocurrency, a stablecoin apparently to be backed by a basket of fiat currencies. Each of the new backers – which reportedly include Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber – will invest roughly $10 million in the project as part of a governing consortium for the cryptocurrency.
While he acknowledged that specifics of the project are not yet known (but are expected to be revealed in a white paper Tuesday), Roubini suggested that it is unlikely that GlobalCoin would use common blockchain technologies such as proof-of-work or proof-of-stake. "Why would they?" he said.
And while many in the crypto community have also criticized those calling Facebook's token a cryptocurrency, the economist denied that he shared any common ground with the "crypto faithful."
He told CoinDesk that he has gone on record as saying that "enterprise DLT [distributed ledger technology] is blockchain in name only ... so some crypto faithful may agree on that."
Roubini concluded by saying:
"But in my opinion, public decentralized trustless blockchain is a pipe dream ... so we disagree on 99% of [the] substance."
Click here to see our comprehensive guide to Facebook's GlobalCoin.
image via Shutterstock
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Asia Morning Briefing: BTC Steadies Around 90k With Liquidity Drained and a Fed Cut Fully Priced In
QCP notes participation has collapsed while Polymarket sees a shallow easing path, putting the focus on guidance and cross central bank signals.
What to know:
- Bitcoin remains around $90,000 as thin year-end liquidity leads to volatility and range-bound trading.
- Traders expect a shallow easing path from the Fed, with more focus on guidance than the anticipated rate cut.
- Global market movements are influenced by diverging central bank policies and macroeconomic signals.
Top Stories
