“I actually have been a critic of Bitcoin,” he said. “My principal reason is, guess what, it's not even good for money laundering! It is too traceable, you see. Gold you can re-melt bars, you can do something, but Bitcoin is a book entry somewhere that anyone with basic knowledge of statistics can triangularize.”
Taleb said he believes the crypto era will be short-lived. “It's a fad,” he said. “I mean the claims they make that they're a refuge are false, that they're good for transactions is false, they're not even attracting the bad guys anymore.”