The prominent economist and Bitcoin (BTC) skeptic, Peter Schiff, was quick to take to social media after the Trump family launched a series of meme coins to proclaim the world’s premier cryptocurrency no better than them.
The inciting incident and major source of inspiration, as Schiff himself explained in an X post, was Anthony Pompliano’s appearance on CNBC, in which the finance manager seemingly struggled to explain what meme coins actually are.
Based on the interview, the economist and gold bull concluded that a major reason for what appeared like dancing around the question is that Bitcoin is, itself, ‘a meme coin.’
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Pompliano uses Berkshire Hathaway to explain meme coins
As for the interview, Pompliano reached for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B) when asked by the host to explain the tokens launched by the Trump family ahead of the inauguration ‘like she was five.’
The finance manager, as it quickly turned out, attempted to explain the launch of cryptocurrencies, such as the ‘official Trump meme’ and the ‘official Melania meme’ as part of two greater phenomena.
The first of these is that few major assets are entirely rooted in reality. Along with Berkshire, which owes the majority of its success to a savvy business approach but also a non-trivial amount to the reputation of Warren Buffett, Pompliano explained that Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) is 50% a high-quality company and 50% a ‘meme.’
A ‘meme’ has become something of a catch-all term for online jokes of varying variety, though it was first defined in the 1976 Richard Dawkins Book The Selfish Gene as a ‘unit of culture’ that replicates itself through imitation or mimicry.
Donald Trump: America’s biggest brand, America’s biggest meme
The second phenomenon Pompliano described was that Donald Trump himself has become something of a meme.
The financial manager, for example, defended cryptocurrency traders as no worse than other investors as Trump Media (NASDAQ: DJT) behaves similarly to the meme coin – and was estimated as 80-90% meme – and people have been willing to buy things like Trump trading cards, whether physical or digital.
Why Schiff says Bitcoin is a meme coin
As for the Bitcoin connection Schiff made, it appears to have arisen from the CNBC host initially rejecting the Berkshire analogy and proposing one centered on BTC. The rejection was itself rejected by Pompliano.
Still, the economist has a point, at least to an extent, given Bitcoin’s recent performance. The world’s premier cryptocurrency has been trading on sentiment – whether it be fearful, optimistic, or hyped up by the ‘bullish’ internet meme.
Part of the reason is that the entire industry has somewhat devolved into another meme frequently seen on social media, such as X: calling the market a ‘casino.’ However, it is worth pointing out that the moniker has been widely applied beyond cryptocurrencies and is frequently used for the stock market.
Simultaneously, the fact that a concept or a technology is abused does not mean it is without a foundation and perhaps the bigger issue of cryptocurrencies is that they have decisively become risk assets without doing much to address the ‘currency’ part of their name.
Indeed, using them as payment vehicles remains, nearly two decades later, complicated due to various factors, such as a lack of accessibility or unreasonably high transaction costs.
Featured image via Shutterstock
