Harvard economist corrects 2018 Bitcoin forecast
Kenneth Rogoff, a renowned Harvard professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), looks back on his earlier Bitcoin forecast.
Kenneth Rogoff, a renowned Harvard professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), looks back on his earlier Bitcoin forecast. In 2018 he told CNBC in an interview that Bitcoin was more likely to fall to $100 than rise to $100,000. Seven years later, reality has turned out differently: the crypto coin is trading around a record high of $124,500.
In a post on X, Rogoff is asking himself, "What did I miss?" Among the main reasons he cites for his underestimate are the lack of strict crypto regulation in the US and Bitcoin's role in the "global shadow economy".
The responses from the sector were swift. Matt Hougan, CIO of asset manager Bitwise, stressed that Rogoff couldn't have foreseen that "a decentralized project, drawing its strength from people rather than central institutions, would be successful on a large scale". Crypto analyst David Lawant added that Rogoff's book The Curse of Cash was so bad that it actually brought him to Bitcoin.
Ironically, Harvard itself has long had exposure to Bitcoin. For example, the university's endowment fund recently announced an investment of about $116 million in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF.
The lesson: even economists from top universities can be seriously off. And for those wondering how elite institutions like Harvard run their endowment portfolios—and what assets they're buying now—here are useful insights for your own investment strategy.
