Bitcoin guru Mike Hearn declares bitcoin a failure
One of bitcoin’s most long-standing supporters has lost faith.
Mike Hearn, who’s spent five years as a bitcoin developer and enthusiast, has had a very public break up with the digital currency, writing a long blog post on Medium about why it’s now a “failed experiment”.
Writing that bitcoin’s failure is a “now inescapable conclusion”, Hearn adds:
The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards.
I will no longer be taking part in Bitcoin development and have sold all my coins.
Hearn criticises the bitcoin community for internal fighting and politics that have stopped many technological problems with the currency from being resolved.
Bitcoin prices plummeted over four per cent on the news of Hearn's departure.
This blow comes just as bitcoin has been experiencing a bullish couple of months, with the digital currency’s price recently hitting a 2016 high around $450 boosted by market turmoil in China.
Last week, it was found to have been the top-performing currency of 2015, beating the US dollar by nearly 40 per cent.