Peter Schiff Calls Bitcoin a 'Meme Coin' After Trump Family Launches a Series of Meme Coins

The prominent economist and Bitcoin (BTC) skeptic, Peter Schiff, was quick to take to social media after the Trump family launched a series of meme coins

Economist Peter Schiff has claimed that Bitcoin is no better than meme coins after the Trump family launched their own crypto tokens.

The inciting incident was an appearance by Anthony Pompliano on CNBC, in which the finance manager was asked by the host to explain what a meme coin is “for someone who's five.”

The host then suggested that the tokens launched by the Trump family could be explained in a similar way. However, Pompliano pushed back on this suggestion, arguing that the host was trying to get him to say that Bitcoin is a meme coin.

“It's funny watching @APompliano on CNBC trying to explain what a meme coin is,” Schiff wrote in an X post. “The reason it's hard for him to do that is there's no real difference between $TRUMP and #Bitcoin. So it's a fine line to walk when explaining a meme coin without exposing the same fraud about Bitcoin.”

Schiff's comments appear to be based on the fact that Bitcoin has also been trading on sentiment to a large extent, with the world’s premier cryptocurrency rising or falling sharply depending on whether the internet is feeling fearful, optimistic, or hyped up by the latest “bullish” meme.

Part of the reason for this is that the entire industry has devolved into another meme frequently seen on social media: calling the market a “casino.” However to be fair, this moniker has been used for the stock market and other financial markets long before cryptocurrencies came along.

At the same time, the fact that a concept or a technology is abused doesn't mean it's without a foundation, and perhaps the bigger issue with cryptocurrencies is that they have become definitively risky assets without doing much to address the “currency” part of their name.

Indeed, using them as payment vehicles remains, nearly two decades later, complicated due to various factors, such as a lack of accessibility or unreasonably high transaction costs.