It is held by Lebanese-American essayist and statistician Nasim Nicholas Taleb Condemned Bitcoin as a “technical tulip” refused to leave his long-standing criticism of major cryptocurrencies.
Four years ago I wrote Bitcoin black paper. It’s about the lack of fitness in becoming a trading currency.
Four years later, it is not yet used as a currency as a technical tulip. pic.twitter.com/gcfhkpsgm4
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 3, 2025
Best known as the author of “The Black Swan,” Taleb has published a poignant anti-Bitcoin paper. Famous statisticians argued that Bitcoin did not function as a cryptocurrency without government support, and that the prices of major cryptocurrencies were essentially zero. Taleb assumed that the flagship coin cannot be used as a hedge against systemic risk due to its extreme volatility.
Many prominent Bitcoin critics become hated early, sticking to hostility (Peter Schiff) or gradually warming up to cryptocurrency (such as Larry Fink). The most powerful Bitcoin evangelist, Strategy’s Michael Saylor was extremely critical of cryptocurrency in 2013.
However, Taleb’s trajectory is different as he is a former Bitcoin advocate who previously described BTC as the “first organic currency.” However, in 2021 he broke away from the Bitcoin community and turned sour with major cryptocurrencies. Some speculate that Taleb’s U-turn was caused by a personal feud with Saifedean Ammous, author of the book The Bitcoin Standard. In particular, Tabeb argued that Bitcoin is a “insurance” insurance for the government, which was flooded with preface for the aforementioned book.
For the past few years, Taleb has been consistently hostile to Bitcoin. He in 2023 I slapped it The top-level cryptocurrency as “Imbeciles detector.”
Despite the fact that Bitcoin had a very successful year, Tabel continues to see BTC as a failed currency.