‘Dr. Doom’ economist Nouriel Roubini says bitcoin is not a hedge against inflation and investors are ‘feeding the bubble’

‘Dr. Doom’ economist Nouriel Roubini says bitcoin is not a hedge against inflation and investors are ‘feeding the bubble’

Nouriel Roubini, an economist known as "Dr. Doom" for his bearish views, said bitcoin is not a hedge against inflation and investors are "feeding the bubble" in an interview with Yahoo Finance on Monday.

 "If people were really worried about inflation they would diversify in a wide range of assets that are historical good hedges against inflation. That's not happening," Roubini said.

"People say bitcoin's a store of value against tail risk, but in February, March of last year when US stocks went down, say 35%, bitcoin was not a hedge, it went down by 50%" the economist added. "The reality is that no one knows what the value of this pseudo-asset is."

Roubini has long been a critic of digital currencies, but after bitcoin hit a $1 trillion market cap last week the NYU professor has renewed his bearish calls. 

Roubini said he sees the digital currency as a volatile "pseudo-asset" and argued much of the price movement "is driven not by worries about inflation or debasement of fiat currencies," but rather by "massive manipulation."

The economist said that there are a number of schemes used by digital currency whales to push the price of bitcoin higher. In particular, he highlighted the stable coin