For subscribers
How crypto became the new sub-prime
While cryptocurrencies won't threaten the financial system like the sub-prime crisis of the 2000s, the parallel is with risks falling disproportionately on people who don't know what they are getting into.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A motor repair shop that accepts cryptocurrency as payment in Aguilares, El Salvador.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Paul Krugman
Follow topic:
(NYTIMES) - If the stock market isn't the economy - which it isn't - then cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin really, really aren't the economy.
Still, crypto has become a pretty big asset class (and yielded huge capital gains to many buyers); by last autumn the combined market value of cryptocurrencies had reached almost US$3 trillion (S$4.1 trillion).
