Former Fed chair Ben Bernanke says virtual assets have no underlying value

Earlier this week, CNBC hosted Ben Bernanke, the former chair of the Federal ReserveFederal Reserve, who said that virtual assets have no underlying value and are merely used for ransomware. The former chairman disagreed with the former chairman's statement thatBitcoin can be used as a store of value like gold. Bernanke said that gold has an underlying use value. You can fill cavities with it. The underlying use value of a Bitcoin is to do ransomware or something like that. The former Fed chair said cryptocurrencies were inherently volatile and lacked stability to use as a payment method.

If Bitcoin were a substitute for fiat money, you could use it to buy groceries, he said. Nobody buys groceries withBitcoin because it is too expensive and too inconvenient. He also highlighted the regulatory uncertainty affecting digital assets and privacy that could be hampered if a cascade of regulation goes into effect. One of the risks thatBitcoin has is that it could be subject to more regulation, and anonymity is also at risk, I think. Bernanke spoke about the accelerating inflation in the U.S. and lambasted the government for not tightening monetary policy, citing projections of an imminent downturn in the economy and rising unemployment amid high inflation. He said that it was called stagflation.