Former U.S. Treasury Secretary: ‘Crypto Is Here to Stay’

IN BRIEF

  • Lawrence Summers says cryptocurrencies give investors an asset they can keep separate “from the day-to-day workings of governments”.
  • The former U.S. Treasury Secretary believes the May 19 price crash does not matter to the overall economy.
  • Summers joins the likes of Mark Yusko and Anthony Scaramucci drawing a parallel between crypto and gold.

Crypto has received words of confidence from a former U.S. Treasury Secretary, who says it could remain a permanent fixture on global markets as “a kind of digital gold.”

In an appearance on Bloomberg TV’s Wall Street Week, Lawrence Summers said that cryptocurrencies allowed investors an alternative asset that they could keep separate from “the day-to-day workings of governments.”“My guess is that crypto is here to stay,” he told David Westin on the program. “And probably here to stay as a kind of digital gold.”

His comments came just days after the catastrophic cryptocurrency price collapse on May 19. The event, attributed to a number of root causes including China’s ban on cryptocurrency services and Elon Musk’s tweets, saw a plummet in the price of many of the world’s top tokens.Westin asked Summers if this price crash mattered, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary remarked:“Does it matter to the overall economy […] the standard of living of Americans […] no, to all of those questions.” Summers went on to opine that crypto had a chance of “becoming an agreed form” in which people “who are looking for safety” can store their wealth.“My guess is that crypto is here to stay and probably here to stay as a form of digital gold.”Comparisons of crypto and goldSummers is not the only one to draw parallels between cryptocurrency and gold recently. Morgan Creek CEO Mark Yusko, for one. He told CNBC’s Trading Nation at the beginning of May that Bitcoin (BTC) could reach a value of $250,000 in four or five years. Equating it to “digital gold” in doing so.Yusko also praised Ether (ETH)’s potential to become the “www.” or toolkit to build applications. Applications that would then run on base-layer protocols like BTC. Furthermore, he reserved comments about the meme-inspired Dogecoin (DOGE), a significant high-flyer in 2021. The CEO said DOGE was like many altcoins in that it is “useless,” with “no underlying value.”Meanwhile, SkyBridge Capital’s founder Anthony Scaramucci said DOGE could be the silver to BTC’s gold. The investment advisor said he recommends his clients have a 1-3% holding in BTC.

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