Comment incoherent arguments throughout (Score 2) 537
First, a brief correction: the author of the op-ed is not an economist. He's a journalist and former financial analyst who writes on economics topics for the NY Times.
Second, the op-ed makes a number of errors:
1. He asserts without evidence that non-government currency is inherently inferior to government currency, without defining the purposes for which it is supposedly inferior and in what ways. Medium of exchange? Unit of account? Store of value?
2. His argument relies upon his unsubstantiated belief that "no bank or bitcoin-emitter can be as public-minded as a government", and that "no private power can raise taxes or pass laws to unwind monetary excesses". This ignores the signficant body of research on the not-so-public-mindedness of public officials. It ignores the fact that the "monetary excesses" he needs to unwind are frequently caused by government monetary policy, rather than being inherent to currency. It also ignores the fact that Bitcoin's cap on supply was designed precisely to avoid such monetary excesses. Perhaps Bitcoin's design in this regard is deficient, but the author apparently could not be troubled to make any argument detailing how.
3. He criticizes "private money" such as Bitcoin for having uncertain value, and for its potential to lose value if users lose faith, despite these problems applying to state-backed currencies as well. It's not as if we've never seen runs on banks, unexpected inflation or even hyperinflation with government fiat currency.
4. He further criticizes Bitcoin for its alleged anonymity and thus a potential for tax evasion, neglecting the fact that Bitcoin is less anonymous than the goverment paper currency known as "cash".
5. He repeatedly makes the argument that because we've had state-backed currencies for a long time, they must be superior. This neglects the possibility that effective non-government currencies were not feasible at scale in the past simply due to a lack of technology (crypto and global instant communications). And it neglects the possibility that the future of currency is not either-or, but both.
This is what happens when the poltical-media establishment tries to shoehorn a story about technology and economics into the same tired left-vs-right, government-as-perfection vs. government-as-catastrophe narratives. You get an incoherent, poorly researched, poorly argued mess. The author may end up being right that Bitcoin won't last, but he's not given us any sound argument to support his claim.