In an interview with Fusion, a television network, former United States Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said to program host Jorge Ramos he wouldn’t acquire bitcoin, in what is perhaps the surprise of the century.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said, when asked by Ramos whether he would put his money into it.
The answer came immediately after Ramos put Geithner on the spot by asking him to describe what bitcoins were.
“I’m the wrong person to ask – I don’t think I really understand it,” he said with a seemingly nervous laughter.
When the host tried to get his reasoning as to why he wouldn’t be interested, Geithner responded with:
“It depends on what your object is. As a way to save money, as an investment vehicle? No, it’s a very volatile thing,” he said. “As a way to make payments? It’s got some risk because the value fluctuates hugely over time.”
In the opinion of Geithner, “it’s got a lot of challenges.”
And it’s true, bitcoin does have many challenges. Volatility being one of them. Of course, bitcoin also offers a number of advantages, too.
But here’s a little something we take issue with. Fusion posted the video with the headline “Tim Geithner Can’t Explain Bitcoin, But Says Don’t Buy It” — but we didn’t see anywhere in the video where he said to not buy it (unless there’s more that’s been cut from the posted video).
So – is it wrong that Geithner says he wouldn’t invest in bitcoin?
We don’t think it was. What he said was that he wouldn’t invest or put his money into it. And for a good reason: he doesn’t understand it. After all, why would anyone throw their money into something they don’t understand.
The spin here is just a bit too much, we think.