Ex-US Treasury Secretary: Bitcoin is here to stay
Last Updated on 19 January 2021 by CryptoTips.eu
The infamous scene in The Social Network where the Winklevoss twins confront then Harvard Dean Lawrence Summers over Mark Zuckerberg’s setup of Facebook, an idea they claim he has stolen, will probably haunt him forever.
Allegedly, the former US Treasury Secretary Summers replied that the brothers should just come up with something else instead and that Facebook was probably not going to work out. The brothers started Gemini and traded crypto since.
Summers was asked about the Winklevoss twins and about Bitcoin on Bloomberg this weekend.
Never worth millions
The conversation that will probably make his Wikipedia page was his assessment that the idea for Facebook would never be worth millions. When one of the Winklevoss twins claims he is not in a position to make that call, Summers replies:
I was the US Treasury Secretary, I’m in some position to make that call.
The man who currently advises US companies as an economics analyst told reporters since that the scene was quite accurate in fact.
15 years on and Facebook is one of the richest companies in the world, worth billions of dollars and Zuckerberg is in the top ten of richest people on the planet.
Luckily for Lawrence Summers, the Winklevoss brothers did come up with something else, it was called Gemini and it’s a crypto platform.
Speaking on Bloomberg over the weekend, Summers was questioned about crypto and admitted that given the fact that institutions are now investing in it, Bitcoin and others are probably here to stay.
Raise prices
He said:
I think that having run up and then run way down, and then move back, it looks much more resilient, and therefore I think people are going to move towards it. And as people move towards it, given the finiteness of its supply, that’s going to be a factor working to raise prices.
A the same time, Summers also mentioned a clear warning, stating:
I think one thing that we’re seeing is the sudden interest in retail. We’re moving into a speculative frenzy.
It is of course just one opinion, but given his former position as Treasury Secretary under a Democratic President, and with everyone wondering how incoming Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will handle Bitcoin, Lawrence Summers’ opinion gives everyone in the cryptosphere a bit of hope.