NextFin News - Jeremy Grantham’s latest warning on bitcoin is less about one token’s day-to-day trading and more about the long arc of a market that still struggles to prove it has a durable use case. The co-founder of GMO said bitcoin is a "useless, speculative" asset without intrinsic value and predicted it will "dwindle away with a whimper" over "years and years, decades and decades." Bitcoin closed June 26 at $59,957.73 after opening the session at $59,706.75, leaving it below the $60,000 mark as Grantham argued it lacks stable value and everyday utility.
Grantham’s Critique Is About Utility, Not Just Price
Grantham made his case in unusually blunt terms. Speaking on CNBC’s "Squawk Box" on Friday, he said bitcoin does not function as a stable store of value, does not serve an obvious everyday payment role and has not demonstrated the kind of resilience that would make investors treat it like a productive asset. His comment that the token will "dwindle away" over decades was paired with a sharper critique: "It’s not a stable form of value – it just halved … for no particular reason in a strong economy, so you can’t depend on it in that way."
That framing matters because it shifts the debate from near-term price moves to the deeper question of why the asset exists at all. Bitcoin supporters have long argued that scarcity, decentralization and portability are the core of the investment case. Grantham’s response is that those features have not translated into broad utility. He said people do not use it "to make serious trades" or "to buy their dinner and pay at the supermarket," and argued that what it actually enables is the movement of money outside traditional oversight.
“[Over] years and years, decades and decades, it will dwindle away, I suspect – not with a bang, but a whimper,” Grantham said.
The quote echoes a long-standing critique of speculative assets that can survive for years despite weak fundamentals, only to fade slowly rather than collapse in one dramatic event. In bitcoin’s case, that critique has repeatedly resurfaced after each boom-and-bust cycle. But Grantham’s version is different from a simple price call. He is not saying bitcoin must drop to zero soon. He is arguing that the asset may gradually lose relevance if it cannot prove that it is anything more than a volatile trading instrument.
The Market Has Not Given Bitcoin A Durable Safe-Haven Premium
Bitcoin’s own price history still cuts both ways. The token has survived multiple drawdowns, attracted institutional adoption and, at times, behaved as if it deserved a place in diversified portfolios. Yet the latest close near $59,958 underscores how quickly those claims can weaken when risk appetite fades. The token opened June 26 at $59,706.75 and closed at $59,957.73, while the prior session had ended at $60,995.13. That kept bitcoin just below a round-number threshold that traders had been watching closely.
That backdrop is important because Grantham also dismissed the idea that bitcoin had proved itself in a broad bull market. If an asset’s strongest argument is scarcity, then its valuation tends to hinge on belief more than cash flow or usage. That is why large swings in price tend to matter more than the absolute level. When the token can move sharply in a strong economy, as Grantham put it, the case that it behaves like a reliable reserve asset weakens.
The latest move also matters because it comes after a steep pullback from June 22, when bitcoin closed at $63,952.11. By June 25, it had slipped to $59,721.68, and the June 26 close held only slightly above that level. That kind of volatility is part of the asset’s identity, but it is also the reason critics keep returning to the same point: if the price can swing sharply without any cash-flow anchor, then the market still has not settled the question of what bitcoin is supposed to be.
Why The Bear Case Keeps Coming Back
Grantham’s stance is not new, and that is exactly why it remains influential. He has built a reputation around identifying bubbles in advance, which means his bitcoin comments land differently than a generic skeptic’s. He is not merely saying he dislikes the token; he is placing it inside a broader framework in which assets without cash flows, usage fees or industrial demand must justify themselves through network effects and trust. In his view, bitcoin still has not done enough of that work.
The timing is also notable. Bitcoin has spent years moving between two competing narratives. In one, it is digital gold: scarce, borderless and resistant to monetary debasement. In the other, it is an efficient vehicle for speculation and transfers that are hard to trace. Grantham leaned heavily into the second interpretation. That is an uncomfortable position for a market that has tried to broaden its appeal beyond retail traders and crypto-native funds.
One reason the argument persists is that bitcoin has always depended on a delicate balance between belief and adoption. The stronger the network becomes, the more defensible the asset appears. But if usage remains limited and price remains the main attraction, then every cycle invites the same critique: there is no intrinsic reason the token should retain value over time beyond what the next buyer is willing to pay.
“It’s not a stable form of value,” Grantham said.
That line is the core of the bear case. It is also the hardest one for bitcoin bulls to rebut, because it does not depend on short-term trading ranges. It asks a more basic question: if the asset cannot hold its value through a strong economy, and if its practical use remains thin, what exactly anchors it for the next decade?
What Would Disprove The Whimper Thesis
To be fair, bitcoin has survived far more skeptical commentary than Grantham’s and has often done so by doing exactly what its supporters expected: recovering after crashes, drawing in new infrastructure and staying relevant as a speculative asset. That history is the strongest counterargument to any prediction of permanent decline. A market that has already survived repeated 70% drawdowns can hardly be dismissed on the basis of one veteran investor’s view.
But survival is not the same thing as maturity. For bitcoin to blunt Grantham’s argument, it would need to demonstrate more than price resilience. It would need more consistent real-world usage, broader transactional acceptance and a clearer institutional role beyond a high-volatility macro trade. So far, the asset remains split between those who treat it as a monetary experiment and those who treat it as a leveraged bet on scarcity.
That split is why Grantham’s comments resonate even when they do not move the market immediately. He is pointing to the unresolved identity problem at the center of crypto: is bitcoin a store of value, a payments network, a speculative token or a hedge against policy failure? The answer has changed depending on the cycle, and that uncertainty is part of the asset’s appeal as well as its vulnerability.
If bitcoin keeps trading like a risk asset while claiming the protections of a reserve asset, critics will keep calling that contradiction out. If it ever evolves into something more mundane and more useful, the bear case gets weaker. Until then, Grantham’s point stands: the market can remain loud for years, but if the utility case never broadens, it may still fade quietly rather than collapse all at once.
That is the danger for bitcoin bulls and the comfort for skeptics. The argument is no longer whether the token can survive another cycle. It is whether, after all this time, survival alone is still enough to justify a permanent place in portfolios.
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