A few days ago, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, made a rather controversial statement about Bitcoin. He said Bitcoin is a "total failure" as a currency, and honestly, his argument makes quite practical sense.

What’s interesting is that he didn’t just say that casually. Wales explained with concrete examples—if he wants to transfer £10 in the UK through traditional banking, it’s instant and free. But try using Bitcoin? You have to buy crypto first, pay transaction fees, exchange back to pounds, and each step has its cost. So for small daily transactions, Bitcoin is not practical at all.

He also compared Bitcoin to gold. The difference is significant—gold has practical uses outside of being money, and doesn’t require ongoing maintenance. Bitcoin? It needs miners to keep it functioning. That’s a point often overlooked.

Regarding the narrative that AI will drive crypto adoption? Wales said that’s a misleading claim. “AI bots don’t adopt crypto in any meaningful way,” he stated. This challenges the story that’s going viral in the community.

But what’s most interesting is that he’s not entirely pessimistic. Wales admits there are real use cases—for transferring funds in countries with strict government controls. But he emphasizes that these use cases are too narrow to make Bitcoin a universal currency.

His long-term outlook? Wales predicts Bitcoin could survive, but its price in 2050, in today’s dollars, would be below $10K . Maybe much lower. So he’s not predicting total failure, but remains very pessimistic about its long-term prospects.

Wales has been skeptical of crypto for a long time—since 2020, he said he couldn’t find convincing reasons to use Bitcoin. But this time, his criticism is deeper, focusing on practical inefficiencies rather than ideology. This perspective is quite worth considering amid the ongoing hype cycle.