Jeremy Grantham Says Bitcoin Will Fade Away Quietly — Not Collapse Dramatically
Renowned British billionaire and GMO co-founder Jeremy Grantham has delivered a sharp and unsparing verdict on Bitcoin, dismissing the world's largest cryptocurrency as a fundamentally worthless speculative instrument destined for a slow, quiet death rather than a dramatic crash.
Speaking during a recent appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box, the veteran investor — widely respected for his ability to identify financial bubbles before they burst — minced no words about his views on BTC. "I think it's a useless, speculative mechanism," Grantham told the panel, adding that he believes the asset is ultimately on a path to zero value.
What makes Grantham's prediction particularly striking is not the destination, but the journey he envisions. Rather than forecasting a sudden, catastrophic collapse, the billionaire sees Bitcoin undergoing a prolonged and gradual decline. "Over years and years, decades and decades, it will dwindle away, I suspect — not with a bang, but a whimper," he explained, borrowing the now-famous phrase from T.S. Eliot's poem.
Grantham also pushed back firmly against one of the most popular arguments made by Bitcoin advocates — the idea that it functions as a reliable store of value or hedge against economic instability. In his view, Bitcoin's extreme price volatility completely undermines this narrative. "It's not a stable form of value," he argued. "It just halved for no particular reason in a strong economy, so you can't depend on it in that way." He further noted that gold delivered strong gains over the same period, implicitly suggesting that traditional safe-haven assets remain far superior alternatives.
Beyond its failure as a store of value, Grantham questioned the token's utility in everyday economic life. "People don't use it to make serious trades. They don't use it to buy their dinner and pay at the supermarket. So what the hell does it do?" he asked rhetorically, before answering his own question with biting sarcasm: "What it does is allows crooks to move money around without leaving a trace. Brilliant."
The GMO co-founder also directed criticism at Bitcoin's underlying technical architecture. The energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism, which requires enormous computational power to validate transactions and secure the network, drew particular scorn. "Proof of unnecessary work shouldn't be worth a bucket of warm spit, and it will not be," he declared bluntly.
Perhaps most damning of all was Grantham's characterization of Bitcoin as an entirely faith-based asset with no underlying financial fundamentals. "It pays no dividend. It doesn't represent an asset you can put your fingers on. There is nothing there, there," he emphasized. "It is just an idea that it will go up in price. If you trust me, it will go up in price. This is completely faith-based."
Grantham's comments come at a time when institutional interest in Bitcoin continues to grow, with major financial players and even sovereign wealth funds allocating portions of their portfolios to the asset. Yet for the legendary bubble-spotter, none of that changes the fundamental reality: Bitcoin, in his estimation, is a speculative illusion — one that will eventually dissolve not through a spectacular implosion, but through a long, quiet fade into irrelevance.
