TLDR
- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s co-founder, labeled Bitcoin a “complete failure” in its role as both currency and store of value
- Wales forecasts Bitcoin trading under $10,000 (in current dollar terms) by the year 2050
- Despite his bearish stance, Wales believes Bitcoin’s robust design will prevent it from reaching zero
- He characterized institutional involvement as purely profit-motivated rather than ideological, and rejected claims that AI systems are driving crypto adoption
- According to Wales, Bitcoin faces insurmountable obstacles including high transaction costs, price instability, and limited merchant acceptance
Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, sparked widespread discussion this week following a thread posted on X where he described Bitcoin as a “complete failure” in its intended role as currency.
Wales has maintained a skeptical position on Bitcoin for several years. In 2020, he stated that while he held no ideological objection to cryptocurrency, he found no practical reason compelling enough to adopt it.
His recent commentary emerged in response to X users who contended that Bitcoin’s fixed supply ceiling gives it advantages over gold, and that expanding digital environments would inevitably drive broader cryptocurrency adoption.
Wales contested both assertions directly. He maintained that Bitcoin has failed as a functional currency and described it as “a speculative asset at best.”
He also dismissed suggestions that artificial intelligence is fueling crypto growth. “AI bots are not adopting crypto in meaningful numbers,” Wales stated.
Yet despite his harsh criticism, Wales avoided predicting Bitcoin’s total demise. He suggested that those anticipating a complete collapse to zero are “likely mistaken,” citing the cryptocurrency’s fundamentally sound technical architecture.
Wales even speculated that if a significant network compromise occurred, the system would probably endure through a software fork.
This places Wales in a somewhat paradoxical position — deeply critical of Bitcoin’s prospects while simultaneously not forecasting its complete extinction.
His price projection for the long term remained decidedly pessimistic. “I’d suggest a 2050 price target of under $10,000 in today’s dollars. Possibly much lower,” Wales posted.
Wales Explains Why Bitcoin Can’t Function as Daily Currency
Wales constructed a pragmatic case against Bitcoin by using a straightforward real-world scenario. As someone living in the UK, he explained that transferring £10 to another person happens instantly via traditional banking with zero fees.
Attempting the identical transaction with Bitcoin, he noted, would require purchasing the cryptocurrency, absorbing exchange spreads, paying blockchain transaction fees, then converting back to pounds — incurring additional spread costs throughout the process.
He also responded to comparisons some users made between contemporary Bitcoin skepticism and historical doubts about the internet’s potential. Wales indicated he finds this analogy fundamentally flawed.
Wales Contrasts Gold and Bitcoin
Wales argued that gold possesses inherent differences from Bitcoin because it serves tangible purposes beyond financial applications and doesn’t require continuous network expenditures to maintain its existence.
Bitcoin, in contrast, relies entirely on miners and supporting infrastructure for operational continuity, which Wales identifies as a fundamental vulnerability.
He did concede one legitimate application for cryptocurrency — assisting individuals living under authoritarian regimes in transferring funds beyond governmental surveillance.
However, he argued this single use case remains far too limited to establish crypto as a widely-adopted currency.
Bitcoin was changing hands at $68,716 when the initial report was published, representing a 7% increase over the previous 24 hours. The cryptocurrency has since retraced and is currently trading beneath the $70,000 threshold.
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