John Haar – a former member of the Asset Management division of Goldman Sachs – published an article detailing what he perceived to be common views on Bitcoin, sound money and the economy on Wall Street.

He listed several reasons why members of mainstream finance oppose or dislike Bitcoin’s potential as a global currency.

Ignorance of economic history

As explained in a blog post for Swan Monday, Haar said “hardly anyone” has spent time understanding the history or fundamentals of money. For example, they fail to grasp the characteristics that have made gold a historically dominant currency: durability, divisibility, recognizability, portability, and rarity.

By extension, this alters Wall Street’s understanding of Bitcoin – which is often referred to as “digital goldto possess these qualities even more strongly.

Haar summarizes the lack of understanding in education:

“To the extent that those working in traditional finance have opinions about the history or fundamentals of money, it is almost entirely shaped by Keynesian economics,” he said, “and can -be by MMT in recent years”.

Keynesian economic theory and modern monetary theory both advocate centralized control of a nation’s money supply to manage the economy.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is like a basic commodity currency with an absolutely fixed supply that no one can change. In fact, central bankers like Ben Bernanke and Christine Lagarde have a habit of talking badly about assets.

Despite their alleged ignorance, Wall Street investors were likely to “pretend” to be knowledgeable about Bitcoin and other financial topics. As such, they often took strong stances against Bitcoin that “simply repeated objections they had heard in the mainstream media.”

Closed mind and lack of perspective

Haar also described Wall Street types as “high-achieving consensus followers,” unlikely to be early adopters of new technology. “These are the people who have generally followed the rules throughout their lives…and they generally trust authority and presumed experts,” he said.

Also, the legacy finance worldview is generally contained in developed countries with relatively stable currencies and secure property rights. In such circumstances, the need for Bitcoin is less apparent than for Argentine citizens, TurkeyVenezuela, Nigeriaetc., where Bitcoin adoption is quite high.

Haar concludes that most people in legacy finance who oppose Bitcoin haven’t arrived at their position through extensive research or understanding.

For the few who understand monetary history, he suspects it may be people in leadership positions with a financial incentive to speak critically about assets. Theoretically, Bitcoin could allow people to store their wealth without “investing” their money, which means less business for investment firms.

“They would rather see global capital being forced into investments, which their companies justly provide access to and earn hefty fees,” Haar said.