Jeremy Grantham Calls Bitcoin 'Useless' and Predicts Its Long-Term Decline

Jeremy Grantham, the legendary investor and co-founder of GMO who accurately predicted both the 2000 dot-com crash and the 2008 housing market collapse, has delivered a scathing assessment of Bitcoin (BTC), describing it as "a useless, speculative mechanism" and forecasting that the leading cryptocurrency will gradually fade over the coming decades.

Appearing on CNBC's Squawk Box on June 26, 2026, Grantham outlined three core reasons why he believes Bitcoin is fundamentally flawed as a financial asset. According to the veteran market strategist, Bitcoin fails on three fronts: it generates no yield for holders, it cannot maintain stable value, and it lacks practical utility as an everyday currency.

**Energy Consumption With No Economic Return**

Grantham reserved particular criticism for Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism, arguing that the enormous amounts of energy consumed in the transaction validation process produce zero tangible economic benefit for society. He was blunt in his assessment: "Proof of unnecessary work shouldn't be worth a bucket of warm spit, and it will not be." In his view, an asset whose foundational process burns resources without creating value has no logical basis for a lasting price.

**No Utility, No Legitimacy**

Moving beyond the energy debate, Grantham challenged Bitcoin's credentials as functioning money. He pointed out that ordinary consumers cannot use Bitcoin at grocery stores or retail outlets, while major institutional players do not rely on it to settle large-scale transactions. Without a working payment layer integrated into everyday commerce, Grantham contends that Bitcoin cannot claim any genuine monetary legitimacy.

His critique extended to Bitcoin's widely touted role as a store of value. Unlike equities or real estate, Bitcoin distributes no dividends and produces no cash flow whatsoever. This absence of underlying economic output, he argued, leaves investors with no rational foundation for pricing the asset — making it purely a speculative bet dependent on the next buyer paying more.

**A Forecaster With a Proven Track Record**

Grantham's opinions carry particular weight given his history of identifying major market bubbles before they burst. His calls before the dot-com crash and the subprime mortgage collapse established him as one of the most respected contrarian voices in finance. More recently, he has warned of a potential 70% downside in US equities, which he believes are inflated by an AI-driven bubble.

That said, Grantham's timing has not always been perfect. His 2021 prediction of an "epic bubble" in US stocks proved premature, as markets continued rising before the 2022 correction materialized.

**Market Context**

Grantham's remarks come as Bitcoin trades near $60,500, a significant drop from its late-2025 peak above $126,000. Data through mid-June 2026 shows US spot Bitcoin ETFs recording net outflows of approximately $6.35 billion over a 30-day period, signaling a cooling in institutional appetite for crypto exposure.

Grantham is not alone in his bearish stance. Long-time Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff has consistently made similar arguments, insisting the asset holds no intrinsic value. Meanwhile, Coinbase CEO has also flagged AI infrastructure costs as a growing variable affecting capital allocation across the crypto sector.

Grantham emphasized that he does not expect Bitcoin's decline to happen overnight. Rather, he foresees a slow, multi-year — or even multi-decade — erosion of value. Whether Bitcoin can defend key price support levels in Q3 2026 may offer the first real test of who is right.