Some Nobel laureates like Paul Krugman have sounded off against Bitcoin. Others have seemingly decided to lend their expertise and knowledge to certain blockchain and crypto projects, raising questions about how much influence their name and reputation really carries.
Despite the bear market in 2018, cryptocurrency and blockchain projects still remain popular. Many of them have been able to lure top talents from other leading companies, while some have even agreed to partner with Nobel laureates to attract attention to their work.
Bringing In Top Talent
Recently, Covee Network announced a partnership with Alvin Roth, who shared the economics Nobel Prize in 2012. Roth, who has a game theory and market design background, told Bloomberg how he was interested in joining Covee in a strategy role since the project was embracing game theory.
In August, blockchain economics and governance design company Prysm Group said they secured the work of Oliver Hart as a senior advisor. Hart was a 2016 co-recipient of a Nobel Prize for work relating to contract theory.
He is now set to work with Prysm on reviewing incentive structures to ensure clients are satisfied with the work by the company. Prysm co-founder Cathy Barrera said Hart would also consult on protocol-level blockchain agreements and ones inside of applications built on blockchain.
Questions Remain About Influence
Despite the notoriety a Nobel laureate can bring to a team, some question about how much influence these types of figures actually have aside from just lending their name and reputation to a project.
There are also some Nobel laureates who are still not exactly convinced on the viability of cryptocurrency and blockchain. 2008 laureate Paul Krugman famously asserted in 2013 how “Bitcoin is evil.”
The noted economist also wrote in July 2018 how a total Bitcoin collapse is a real possibility.
However, just a couple of days before Krugman’s July piece, another Nobel prize winning economist made some positive comments about the well-known cryptocurrency.
Current Yale professor Robert Shiller mentioned how Bitcoin was a “remarkable social phenomenon” even though he maintained it still was a bubble.
