Dr Doom vs. Captain Crypto: Fight Over BTC ”Suckers” and ”Bulls**t”

A Wednesday panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference was billed as a sober discussion to a ballroom where every seat was filled, but soon turned to shouting, crosstalk and what seems like the perfect opportunity to see it as a superhero vs supervillain fight a la Marvel.

Nouriel Roubini is the famously bearish New York University economist, who predicted the 2008 financial crisis which earned him the nickname Dr Doom. He called Bitcoin fanatics as “suckers” and said repeatedly that its underlying technology was “bulls**t,” Bloomberg reported. In his opinion, the blockchain is a “glorified Excel spreadsheet” since “cryptocurrency holders still go through centralized exchanges to clear their transactions.”

Alex Mashinsky, a blockchain entrepreneur, told him, “Everything you just said is irrelevant.” Voicing the general confusion, Bill Barhydt, who worked on cryptography for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said, “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Mashinsky stepped up to the Captain Crypto role to defend the valiant cryptoverse, saying crypto assets will let people bypass banks, to which Dr Doom replied, “You’re just making stuff up.” It would seem Dr Doom was not informed that sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala does not change reality when you’re above six years old.

Mashinsky wasn’t backing down. “Why don’t you buy one coin, then you can tell us how it works,” he slammed the “evil” Dr Doom down. According to New York Post, Barhydt said of Roubini that this is, “like a horse salesman saying we don’t need combustion engines.”

Although many in the crypto space may seem younglings compared to all panelists, we feel compelled to tell you: this is not how grownups talk. Or they do?