Bitcoin lacks market integrity, says former Trump economic adviser

Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs and former chief economic adviser to Donald Trump, believes that Bitcoin may not hold long-term prospects for investors. 

In an interview with Bloomberg released today, Cohn said that the crypto asset “lacks some of the basic integrity of a real market” due to its lack of transparency. He said that investors might question a system “that does not have an audit trail.”

“For all the reasons it’s a strong developing asset class, it may fail,” said Cohn regarding Bitcoin. “Part of the integrity of a system is knowing who owns it and knowing who has it and knowing why it’s being transferred.”

The former Goldman Sachs president has spoken about Bitcoin (BTC) and blockchain following his resignation from his position in the Trump administration in 2018. He has since joined the board of advisers of blockchain-related tech company Spring Labs.

In the months following the 2017 bull run, Cohn said that he was “not a big believer” in Bitcoin but still saw the potential of blockchain technology. At the time, Cohn believed crypto will play a role in the future of finance, but it would likely be a global token “more easily understood” than Bitcoin, citing mining costs as a potential source of confusion for investors.

Cohn’s comments come the same day BTC officially passed its previous all-time high price of $19,892, according to Coinbase. After reaching this critical price, some whales sold off their holdings, potentially causing the slight subsequent drop. BTC is priced at $18,920 at the time of publication.