Renowned economist and cryptocurrency skeptic Peter Schiff has criticized US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration for supporting Bitcoin, saying it will weaken the United States economy.

Peter Schiff, head of strategic development at asset management company Euro Pacific Asset Management, believes it is wrong that the new US administration supports Bitcoin. In his opinion, because of this, Wall Street financial giants are irrationally allocating capital to Bitcoin and related investment products.

“When the government goes through the winners and losers, it usually labels the losers. The emergence of a Bitcoin superpower makes America weaker,” wrote Peter Schiff on the social network X.

Schiff’s comments caused a backlash among crypto enthusiasts. One of them is asset manager at Bitcoin for Family Officers Eric Weiss. He called Schiff himself the loser because he was only focused on investing in gold.

In his election campaign, Donald Trump promised to make the United States the world leader in cryptocurrency by supporting the idea of ​​​​creating a government reserve in bitcoins. Recently, Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis proposed that the United States purchase bitcoins through the conversion of US Treasury gold certificates. Lummis’ legislative initiative received the support of MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor.

Peter Schiff called Saylor’s strategy of using MicroStrategy’s capital to buy BTC a “cryptocurrency scheme.” The economist argues that the company could collapse if it is forced to sell bitcoins. As for the sale of US gold reserves, Schiff is confident that this move will also be a failure.

“If the US makes a huge mistake and sells its gold to buy Bitcoin, you should buy gold. And if you have bitcoins, then sell them to the US government,” said the crypto-skeptic.

Previously, Schiff said that Bitcoin corrupts people, and its growth is only an indicator of market speculation, and not the true value of the cryptocurrency.