World Wide Web Inventor Tim Berners-Lee Says Crypto Is 'Really Dangerous' but Can Be Useful for Remittances

World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee says cryptocurrency is “really dangerous” and “only speculative.” While claiming that crypto is for those who “want to have a kick out of gambling,” he noted that it could be useful for remittances.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee on Crypto

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist who is widely credited with the invention of the World Wide Web, shared his thoughts about cryptocurrency on CNBC’s “Beyond the Valley” podcast, published last week.

Berners-Lee called cryptocurrency “dangerous” and likened it to gambling. Claiming that “cryptocurrency can be 100% speculative” and “not linked to anything at all,” he opined:

It’s only speculative. Obviously, that’s really dangerous.

He asserted that crypto is for “if you want to have a kick out of gambling, basically.” He also compared cryptocurrency to the dot-com bubble, noting that people were valuing various internet stocks “because of what they imagined other people will value them in the future, so in other words it wasn’t based on revenue or anything real so the bubble came.” He further stressed: “Investing in certain things, which is purely speculative, isn’t what, where I want to spend my time.”

However, Berners-Lee said cryptocurrencies could be useful for remittances. He shared:

Having been using it for remittances, that seems to be the most useful thing, if you transfer stuff into blockchain because you can get that immediately to your family.

The British computer scientist emphasized: “Just don’t keep the currency … get rid of it, put it back into USD.”

What do you think about Tim Berners-Lee’s view on crypto? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.