Bitcoin [BTC] narrative is the real issue, says Civic CEO Vinny Lingham

Vinny Lingham, the founder and CEO of Civic, spoke about the current state of Bitcoin [BTC] in terms of price, in an interview with CNBC Fast Money. He also spoke about the original narrative of Bitcoin.

The CEO started off by speaking about the current price range of Bitcoin. He stated that Bitcoin, at present, is range bound between the $3,000 and $5,000-mark for the past couple of months. Additionally, Lingham stated that Bitcoin will not break through the $3,000 support level anytime soon. Nonetheless, if the bear continues to loom over the market for the next two to three months, then the $3,000-level can break, he said.

He also spoke about the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency bubble. Lingham said that he got into the space in the year 2013 and that he has been a Bitcoin bull for a long duration. However, the blog post that was published last year focused on the risks of another bubble in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency space, especially post the 2014 bubble. He went on to say:

“I’ve always been very consistent about: fundamental needs to the lead the market not speculation. But the community disagrees and everyone is very happy with the price movements sort of, you know, $1,000 to $10,000 to $20,000 in a year, then back down to $3,000 the next year.”

He further stated that this volatility does not make Bitcoin an investment grade asset. Lingham added that the volatility does not serve well, especially when the whole space is expecting institutional investors to step into the space and for a Bitcoin ETF to be approved.

The CEO also spoke about whether the price of Bitcoin hampers its development and the platforms build on top of the Bitcoin and blockchain. Lingham stated that the price will not hold back the development of Bitcoin but it will, however, slow it down.

He went on to say that the actual issue is the narrative of Bitcoin, which is the coin being a store of value. He added that investors who bought the coin when it was trading at $15,000 and $20,000 believed this narrative. According to him, the original narrative of Bitcoin is being a payment network that could compete with Visa, and Master Card at scale.

However, this has not been achieved yet as Bitcoin cannot get there yet. This is mainly because the community has blocked an increased capacity from 1 MB, he remarked.

The CEO further stated:

“Well, there are lots of other cryptos out there trying to tackle the payments problem. Bitcoin is being typecast as a store of value, government censorship resistant type of money, which has low transaction through put except for, you know, layer two as they call it.”