Bitcoin: the end may not be pretty when it comes, Creative Planning boss

Bitcoin is a dead man walking, according to Peter Mallouk, President and Chief Investment Officer at US investment firm, Creative Planning.

In a article for Forbes, he says: “Future generations may read about Bitcoin in a finance textbook as a curiosity and wonder what all the fuss was about. There are still some die hard adherents espousing the virtues of Bitcoin, desperate to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Unfortunately for them, the end may not be pretty when it comes.”

Cryptocurrencies themselves will likely remain part of the financial landscape indefinitely. But there’s very little reason to believe that Bitcoin will be the one that stands the test of time. Other than the name recognition it carries in the market, it’s virtually indistinguishable from any of its counterparts, Mallouk argues.

“Someone came up with a cool name and way to mine it, and so it was born,” he says. “At some point, the world may well decide that it doesn’t really need the 2,000 or so active currencies out there, and the market will devour itself. Do you think that being early to market or having “brand name” recognition will save it? I suggest you talk to anyone who had a MySpace page or carried a PalmPilot about how owning the space early worked out.”

Blockchain, however, is the real deal and is fundamentally changing the way industries do business. “But just because blockchain technology is creating a new paradigm doesn’t mean that Bitcoin shares that same distinction. Television fundamentally changed the way the world received news and entertainment. However, it also gave us the likes of Manimal and My Mother the Car,” Mallouk states.