In the news again for his disparagement of Bitcoin, Robert Shiller described it at the World Economic Forum as just \"an interesting experiment.\" Shiller, the Yale professor who won a Nobel Prize for Economics in 2013, was speaking in Davos on January 26th at a panel discussion on cryptocurrencies. While acknowledging that it was a \"really clever idea,\" he emphasised that it\'s the underlying Blockchain technology that\'s of real interest for the future.

The panel, discussing the future of money and the potential for cryptocurrencies, was broadly divided. Cecilia Skingsley. Deputy Governor of Sweden\'s Central Bank gave her opinion that Bitcoin doesn\'t meet the criteria to count as currency, because \"they don\'t store value, they fluctuate, and they\'re not at a stable rate of exchange.\"

This could be borne out by the recent market volatility of cryptocurrencies, which over the last month have seen enormous price fluctuations. Bitcoin itself (BTC) is currently trading at nearly 50% of its pre-Christmas price, dropping back towards the US$10,000 level, and a vast proportion of the top 100 currencies are losing value.

Some of the panel members at WEF were more positive, however, especially on the tech side, and even Skingsley mentioning a possible transition to an \"e-krona\" to complement the physical currency.