VanEck Puts Bitcoin’s Biggest Detractors on Blast With ‘Hall of Shame’ List

Bitcoin’s critics have a new scoreboard, courtesy of VanEck’s head of digital assets research, Matthew Sigel.

It comes as the pioneer crypto’s role in mainstream finance continues to grow, causing economists and investors alike to review their perspectives.

Economists and Policymakers

The VanEck executive revealed his “Bitcoin Hall of Shame,” featuring a shifting power ranking of the loudest detractors of the king of crypto.

The list highlights the irony that, in trying to discredit Bitcoin, many of its fiercest opponents have only strengthened its case.

At number twelve sits Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who once declared that “Bitcoin ought to be outlawed.” Sigel dismissed the comment as an attempt to “ban math”—a sign, he argued, of losing the debate.

Former US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen followed closely, criticized for recycling arguments about Bitcoin’s inefficiency, speculation, and crime use cases. In 2022, she called for tech-neutral innovation, articulating that regulations focus on minimizing risks.

BeInCrypto also reported that Yellen called for stronger crypto regulation in Congressional testimony in early 2024.

“Yellen doesn’t shape the Bitcoin debate, she repeats it…a Fed echo chamber in human form,” Sigel quipped.

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde also earned a spot, having repeatedly claimed Bitcoin is “worth nothing” while advancing the digital euro.

Lagarde pushed for the digital euro as a complement to cash, rather than a replacement. She also emphasized that cryptocurrencies are not currencies, but highly speculative assets.

Despite her disdain for cryptocurrencies, Lagarde was more open to stablecoins, as they could facilitate central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

“If you have to keep reminding people something has no value, it probably does,” Sigel observed.

Wall Street Titans and Academic Heavyweights

Sigel placed Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff ninth for his infamous 2018 prediction that Bitcoin was more likely to hit $100 than $100,000.

“Six years later, the patient is healthier than ever,” Sigel wrote.

According to the VanEck researcher, Rogoff’s predictions were a premature obituary. However, Rogoff has since conceded, acknowledging misjudgment of Bitcoin’s rise and criticizing the US for a lack of sensible regulation.

Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, long-time critics from Berkshire Hathaway, also featured prominently.

Munger, called Bitcoin disgusting and a venereal disease, while Buffett once labeled it “rat poison squared.” Amidst the latter’s disdain for crypto, the crypto community hoped Buffet’s successor, Greg Abel, would lead Berkshire Hathaway to Bitcoin.

Yet, according to VanEck’s Sigel, Bitcoin’s adoption has only compounded since Munger and Buffet’s remarks.

Notably, the Black Swan author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who is also on Sigel’s Hall of Shame list, also called Bitcoin a contagious, worthless disease.

“He once wrote the foreword to The Bitcoin Standard. Now he blocks anyone who mentions Bitcoin. From early ally to loudest defector, Taleb is Bitcoin’s turncoat-in-chief,” he stated.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, ranked sixth for telling the US Senate in 2023 that he would “close it down” if he were the government. Dimon also has a history likening Bitcoin to smoking and calling it a Ponzi scheme.

However, in an interesting twist, weeks after his Senate remarks, JPMorgan traders were actively making markets in Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds). Notably, even US President Donald Trump acknowledged JPMorgan and Dimon’s change in perspective.

“Jamie Dimon was, you know, very negative and now all of a sudden he’s changed his tune a little bit,” Donald Trump said.

Loudest Voices, Critics Turned Promoters

Near the top of Sigel’s list were some of Bitcoin’s most relentless critics.

He calls out Stephanie Kelton, an MMT economist and author of The Deficit Myth. Reportedly, Kelton built her brand on selling limitless money printing as justice for the poor, while posting from her shoreside real estate and lecturing on climate.

According to Sigel, Bitcoin is the antidote to Kelton’s elite hypocrisy and the endless money printing it enables.

Paul Krugman, who once dismissed the internet as no more important than the fax machine, was labeled “the ultimate limousine liberal.”

Krugman mocked Bitcoin while ignoring its role in protecting the poor from inflation and censorship.

Nouriel Roubini, long known as “Dr. Doom,” topped the rankings. Sigel argued that his endless tirades turned Bitcoin criticism into a side hustle, making him the “loudest of them all.”

Alongside Roubini is Peter Schiff, whose stance is that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and that it would eventually collapse.

“Bitcoin vs. gold is his Super Bowl, and he loses every year. Refuses to retire, which makes him Bitcoin’s most reliable hype man,” Sigel remarked.

In early 2023, Roubini and Schiff bet on gold as the mother of all debt bombs, saying that, unlike Bitcoin, the precious metal would be a steady store of value.

Sigel’s broader point is that critics, whether Nobel economists or Wall Street legends, have consistently underestimated Bitcoin.

They have unintentionally highlighted the pioneer crypto’s resilience by repeating familiar arguments about inefficiency, crime, or speculation.

“The league table of Bitcoin’s loudest critics is always shifting… but all proving the case for Bitcoin in their own way,” Sigel concluded.