Bitcoin critics have a new scoreboard thanks to Matthew Sigel, head of Vanek’s digital asset research.
That comes when the role of pioneer crypto in mainstream finance continues to grow and economists and investors begin to review their perspectives.
Economists and policymakers
Vanek executives have revealed “Bitcoin Hole of Shamo,” featuring the biggest detractor shift power rankings of the King of Crypto.
The list highlights the irony that many of its fierce opponents have only strengthened the lawsuit when trying to trust Bitcoin.
Twelve sits Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. Sigel dismissed the comment as an attempt to “ban mathematics.” This is a sign that we lose debate.
Former US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen criticized the recycling debate over Bitcoin’s inefficiency, speculation and criminal use cases. In 2022, she called for innovation in technology-neutrality and made it clear that regulations focus on minimizing risk.
Beincrypto also reported that Yellen called for stronger crypto regulations in his Congressional testimony in early 2024.
“Yelen doesn’t shape the Bitcoin debate, she repeats it… The Fed echo chamber is in human form,” Shigeru said.
European Central Bank (ECB) president Christine Lagarde also won the spot as he repeatedly claimed that Bitcoin has “no value” while moving forward with the digital euro.
Lagarde pushed the digital euro as a complement to cash rather than a replacement. She also emphasized that cryptocurrencies are not currency, but rather highly speculative assets.
Despite her temperament on cryptocurrencies, Lagarde was more open to stubcoins as it could promote central bank digital currency (CBDC).
“If you need to keep reminding people that something is unworthy, that’s probably true,” Siegel observed.
Wall Street Titan and Academic Heavyweight
Siegel put Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff in the ninth place in the 2018 infamous forecast, predicting that Bitcoin is likely to reach $100 than $100,000.
“Six years later, patients will be healthier than ever,” Siegel wrote.
According to researchers at Vaneck, Rogoff’s prediction was an early obituary. However, Rogoff later admitted that he misjudged the rise of Bitcoin and criticised the US for its lack of wise regulations.
Longtime critics of Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway were also featured prominently.
Munger is called Bitcoin aversion and sexually transmitted disease, and Buffett once labeled it as “a square of rat venom.” The Crypto community wanted Buffet’s successor Greg Abel to lead Berkshire Hathaway to Bitcoin, amid the latter’s silly dare to Crypto.
However, according to Vanek’s Sigel, Bitcoin adoption has only worsened since Manger and Buffet’s remarks.
In particular, Nasim Nicholas Taleb, author of Black Swan, also featured on Siegel’s embarrassment list, is also known as Bitcoin and non-contagious disease.
“He once wrote the foreword to Bitcoin Standard. He now blocks anyone mentioning Bitcoin. From early allies to the biggest exiles, Taleb is Bitcoin’s turncoat in chief,” he said.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon ranked sixth in 2023 for telling the US Senator that he would “close” if the government were to be in it. Dimon also has a history of calling Bitcoin smoking and the Ponzi scheme.
However, a few weeks after the Senate’s remarks, JPMorgan Traders were actively creating a market with Bitcoin ETFs (exchange sales funds). In particular, even US President Donald Trump acknowledged a shift in JPMorgan and Dimon’s perspective.
“Jamie Dimon was very negative and now all of a sudden he changed the song a bit,” Donald Trump said.
At the loudest voice, critics became promoters
At the top of Sigel’s list was some of the most relentless critics of Bitcoin.
He calls Stephanie Kelton, an MMT economist and author of The Defict Myth. Kelton reportedly built the brand by selling endless money prints as justice for the poor, and gave lectures on her posting from her coastal property and climate.
According to Sigel, Bitcoin is the antidote to the elite hypocrisy of Kelton and the printing of endless money it allows.
Paul Krugman, who once dismissed the internet as less important than fax machines, was labelled “the ultimate limosine liberal.”
Krugman chuckled bitcoin while ignoring its role in protecting the poor from inflation and censorship.
Long known as “Dr. Doom,” Nouriel Rubini was at the top of the rankings. Sigel claimed that his endless Tirad transformed Bitcoin criticism into a side hustle, and that he was “the loudest of them.”
Alongside Rubini there is Peter Schiff, whose attitude is that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and will eventually collapse.
“Bitcoin vs. Gold is his Super Bowl and he loses every year. He refuses to retire and becomes Bitcoin’s most reliable hype guy,” Siegel said.
In early 2023, Rubini and Schiff bet on money as mothers of all debt bombs and state that unlike Bitcoin, precious metals will become valuable and stable storage.
The broader aspect of Sigel is that critics, whether they are Nobel Economists or Wall Street legends, have consistently underestimated Bitcoin.
They unintentionally highlight the resilience of pioneer codes by repeating familiar debates about inefficiency, crime, or speculation.
“The league table of Bitcoin’s biggest critics is constantly changing, but everything is proven Bitcoin’s claim in its own way,” concluded Sigel.
Post Vanek places Bitcoin’s biggest detractors on the blast on the “Shame Hole of Shame” list.
