Investing.com – Cryptocurrencies are on the decline as some of their biggest fans get excited about artificial intelligence instead, says Nassim Taleb.
“The cryptocurrency craze is starting to wane as a lot of those fancy young adults who love to play with computers in their mothers’ basement are now infatuated with artificial intelligence,” the “Black Swan” author tweeted on Friday.
“It takes another craze to displace a craze,” he added.
The has risen 79% this year to around $29,800, but has fallen 5% in the past seven days. Meanwhile, investors have invested in AI-related stocks this year as they expect the technology to boost productivity and boost supplier profits. For example, shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ:) more than tripled, bringing the graphics chipmaker’s market capitalization to around $1.2 trillion.
The value of Tesla (NASDAQ:) has also more than doubled as CEO Elon Musk continues to promise his investors self-driving cars and humanoid robots. Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:) stock price also jumped 45% to a record high, in part because the company invested $10 billion in OpenAI, parent company of ChatGPT, earlier this year.
Mr. Taleb, a former hedge fund manager, has repeatedly rejected cryptocurrencies as an investment. He described bitcoin as a “cult,” claimed it was not a safe-haven asset or useful medium of exchange, and joked that it wasn’t even good for money laundering because bitcoin transactions are traceable.
However, Mr Taleb also warned in February that stocks were grossly overvalued relative to interest rates, which have risen from near zero to more than 5% since the start of last year.
“I think we could see a lot of price collapse,” he told Bloomberg at the time. “Disneyland is over.