- Caesar, gold, and Pikachu
- Pro-crypto policies
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has launched a scathing attack on the cryptocurrency industry, labeling Bitcoin a "giant Ponzi scheme" in his latest Daily Mail column.
Johnson argues that digital assets lack intrinsic value and rely entirely on the "greater fool" theory, warning that everyday people are increasingly falling victim to crypto-related frauds.
He went as far as claiming that a vintage Pokémon card is a safer long-term investment than the world's largest cryptocurrency.
Johnson has compared the digital asset to traditional stores of value, fiat currency, and even children's trading cards. Fiat currencies depreciate due to government profligacy, but they are at least backed by the authority and military might of the state, which is a tradition dating back to the Roman denarius bearing Caesar's image. Decentralization, the core tenet of cryptocurrency, is actually its greatest weakness, according to Johnson.
"If no one is in charge, then there is no one to complain to if it loses value," he noted. "There is no central banker to sack, no government to vote out of office."
Johnson says that he can understand the historic allure of gold, and even the tangible playground appeal of a decades-old Pikachu card, but Bitcoin is merely a "string of numbers" highly dependent on a collective suspension of disbelief.
Notably, Johnson's own administration was instrumental in opening the UK's doors to the very industry he now claims is running out of greater fools.
Under Johnson's premiership, the UK government actually laid the groundwork to embrace the digital asset sector.
In April 2022, his then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, announced a major initiative to make the United Kingdom a "global hub for cryptoasset technology and investment."