The co-founder of Bitcoin has sold all his bitcoins, calling them ‘as good as useless’.
Emil Oldenburg, chief technology officer of Bitcoin.com now believes it to be the ‘most risky investment you can make’ despite the recent boom in value.
Speaking to Swedish tech site Breakit, Oldenburg described why he no longer has faith in the cryptocurrency.
He said:
It is an extremely high risk. I’ve actually sold all my bitcoins recently and switched to bitcoin cash.
It costs a lot to transfer bitcoins to and from the stock exchanges. When I sold my BTC I had to pay $50 and wait 12 hours or the transaction to go through because of this.
He revealed Bitcoin.com had ‘stopped developing new services for the old bitcoin network’ and now primarily focuses mostly on bitcoin cash, which was launched in August.
The old bitcoin network is virtually unusable. It’s at bitcoin cash that the solutions are, that’s where I see a future.
Oldenburg claims the high transaction fees and delays in transactions being approved are the reasons for him ducking out of the currency.
In January, bitcoin cost approximately $1,000 per coin. Within 12 months they now stand at a whopping $18,000.
An anonymous expert, who has made a fortune in the coin and is now donating a huge chunk of their wealth to worthy charities, recently warned against putting money in Bitcoin for a long-term investment.
They told UNILAD:
I can’t directly answer [which coin to invest in], but I want to caution against investing without understanding the risks. Bitcoin has crashed by almost 90% before, and it is bound to crash again.
Cryptocurrency is not a piñata of free growth. I believe we are in a bubble, and many people who have invested recently (or invest from now on, at these prices) will be facing substantial losses.
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The expert, who has set up the Pineapple Fund with their fortune, thinks that anyone who plans to invest money in Bitcoin for a long-term holding stands to lose a lot of money.
They added:
Every single time we’ve seen a meteoric rise in the valuation of cryptocurrency, there has been a corresponding bloodshed.
This time may be different, or it may not be.
So far, the anonymous investor has donated millions to various causes, including The Water Project, internet privacy activists and technological charities focusing on universal healthcare.
The poster also called for any other suggestions at who would be worthy of a donation.
The donor told UNILAD they wish to remain anonymous, as even their friends and family do not know they have as much Bitcoin wealth as they do.
They continued:
I discovered bitcoin among the early years, back when the community was a group of like minded people wanting to build the first decentralized currency, powered by code and not human trust.
I undertook a variety of activities, from mining, trading, and even worked for bitcoins. I’m proud of how much bitcoin has came from its humble origins of a whitepaper and a SourceForge repository.
Have you invested?
