Question A:
A bitcoin has a fundamental value of at least $1,000.
Responses
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
7%
14%
14%
19%
42%
2%
2%
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
29%
20%
43%
2%
6%
Question B:
The best forecast for the value of one bitcoin in 2 years is its current price.
Responses
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
7%
9%
5%
14%
40%
26%
0%
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
6%
25%
35%
34%
0%
Question A Participant Responses
Participant |
University |
Vote |
Confidence |
Bio/Vote History |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Daron Acemoglu |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Alberto Alesina |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Joseph Altonji |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Alan Auerbach |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 David Autor |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Katherine Baicker |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Abhijit Banerjee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Marianne Bertrand |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Markus Brunnermeier |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Money is by definition a bubble since it derives its value from resale option. Bitcoin serves more a speculative role than one 3 classic ro
|
||||
 Raj Chetty |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
|
|
||||
 Judith Chevalier |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 David Cutler |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Angus Deaton |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Darrell Duffie |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
For many reasons, the market price does not reflect fundamental Bitcoin value, which in any case is mainly related to avoiding detection.
|
||||
 Aaron Edlin |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Barry Eichengreen |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Liran Einav |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Ray Fair |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Amy Finkelstein |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Pinelopi Goldberg |
Yale | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
|
|
||||
 Austan Goolsbee |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
‘Fundamental’?
|
||||
 Michael Greenstone |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Robert Hall |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Conceptually, the fundamental value is the present value of its transaction services. Depends on competition in the private currency mkt
|
||||
 Oliver Hart |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
I don't understand bitcoin. Economic theory tells us that it should be worthless but it is not. I still think it's a bubble that will burst.
|
||||
 Bengt Holmström |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Caroline Hoxby |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Hilary Hoynes |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Kenneth Judd |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
I don't see any "fundamental" value. It is like paper money where the value is determined by some social consensus.
|
||||
 Steven Kaplan |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Anil Kashyap |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
many ways to compute fundamental value (eg total black market spend/ # of bit coin), but an AML crackdown could also crush the value
|
||||
 Pete Klenow |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Jonathan Levin |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Eric Maskin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Bitcoin has a fundamental value of $0
|
||||
 William Nordhaus |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Bitcoin may be the focal “reserve currency” for illegal transactions and money laundering. Perhaps price will end up much higher.
|
||||
 Emmanuel Saez |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Larry Samuelson |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Unlike assets such as stocks that are backed by substantive economic activity, I see no way to define a "fundamental value" for bitcoin.
|
||||
 José Scheinkman |
Columbia University | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
The fundamental value of bitcoin is zero. Prices wholly dependent on forecasts of what others would be willing to pay in the future.
|
||||
 Richard Schmalensee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Carl Shapiro |
Berkeley | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
|
|
||||
 Robert Shimer |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Bitcoin has no fundamental value. It's value comes from the belief that it has value.
|
||||
 James Stock |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
I know of no reliable way to calculate its fundamental value
|
||||
 Richard Thaler |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
 Christopher Udry |
Northwestern | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
This market is too new and too thin to know how to judge.
|
||||
Question B Participant Responses
Participant |
University |
Vote |
Confidence |
Bio/Vote History |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Daron Acemoglu |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Alberto Alesina |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Joseph Altonji |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Alan Auerbach |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
David Autor |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
But there is infinite variance around this forecast
|
||||
|
Katherine Baicker |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Abhijit Banerjee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Marianne Bertrand |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Markus Brunnermeier |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Extrapolative expectations and speculation play an important role in determining the price. Also, it is not easy to short underlying bitcoin
|
||||
|
Raj Chetty |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
|
|
||||
|
Judith Chevalier |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
David Cutler |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Angus Deaton |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Darrell Duffie |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
This market is so speculative and inefficient that the current price is only weakly related to the expected price in 2 years.
|
||||
|
Aaron Edlin |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Barry Eichengreen |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Liran Einav |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Ray Fair |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Amy Finkelstein |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Pinelopi Goldberg |
Yale | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
|
|
||||
|
Austan Goolsbee |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Or zero
|
||||
|
Michael Greenstone |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
jlots of speculation about fundamental use value built into the price currently, which makes predictions very difficult
|
||||
|
Robert Hall |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
The price of a security is not a random walk--it is derived from its dividend (transaction services) and the asset-pricing kernel.
|
||||
|
Oliver Hart |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
I don't understand bitcoin. Economic theory tells us that it should be worthless but it is not. I still think it's a bubble that will burst.
|
||||
|
Bengt Holmström |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Caroline Hoxby |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Hilary Hoynes |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Kenneth Judd |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Significant deviations from that prediction would imply that current holders are ignoring arbitrage opportunities.
|
||||
|
Steven Kaplan |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Bitcoin will be valuable, but will be worth less than $17,000 in two years.
|
||||
|
Anil Kashyap |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
no clear intrinsic value and lots of risk that regulators move to limit its value, but that does not guarantee a crash
|
||||
|
Pete Klenow |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Jonathan Levin |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Eric Maskin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
I wouldn't be surprised if Bitcoin collapsed within 2 years
|
||||
|
William Nordhaus |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
How could it be other?
|
||||
|
Emmanuel Saez |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
Larry Samuelson |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
But the current value is such a noisy forecast as to be of virtually no use.
|
||||
|
José Scheinkman |
Columbia University | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
Shorting is more costly than going long - prices reflect more the optimists' views. BTC prices could suffer from incr. supply of other CCs.
|
||||
|
Richard Schmalensee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
This is the textbook answer, but I'm not confident that it is correct here.
|
||||
|
Carl Shapiro |
Berkeley | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
|
|
||||
|
Robert Shimer |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
|
||||
|
James Stock |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
My understanding is that shorting bitcoin is difficult so standard eff mkt theory might not apply
-see background information here |
||||
|
Richard Thaler |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
The price seems stupidly high but could go up!
|
||||
|
Christopher Udry |
Northwestern | Bio/Vote History | ||
|
If only I understood the psychology of people's expectations about each other's future beliefs about bitcoin... Sadly, I don't. Does anyone?
|
||||
