Robert Schiller called Bitcoin a "social phenomenon"

Bitcoin is a social phenomenon, whose popularity differs by geographic regions, says Robert Schiller, an American economist, author of popular economic books, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

"The East Coast is less into it than the West Coast," Shiller said Tuesday in a Bloomberg Television interview with Tom Keene and Guy Johnson. "Silicon Valley is really into it. This to me shows that this is not a rational response to new information." he said.

 According to Schiller, innovations in the cryptocurrency sector attract disproportionately a lot of attention, mainly because of the desire of investors obsessed with the opportunity to quickly enrich themselves. The reduction in the price of Bitcoin, he associates with the close attention of world regulators trying to fight the spread of digital currency.

Comparing the excitement around Bitcoin with the tulip fever of the 17th century, Schiller said that tulips are still valued - there are very expensive tulips. Earlier, Schiller cited Bitcoin as an example of how reckless behavior drives the markets.

SOURCE