He worries that they enable illicit activity by making money transactions less transparent.
Still, he sees the value in digital payments systems and supports electronic use of government-backed currencies like the dollar.
Ive been a great advocate of moving to an electronic payments mechanism. There are a lot of efficiencies. I think we can actually have a better regulated economy if we had all the data in real time, knowing what people are spending, he says.
This guy spoke with both side of his tongue. If he acknowledged the better side of crypto currency, then his main goal as an economist is to propound measures that can incorporate cryptocurrency into the financial system. That will score him more points, perhaps more laurels.