Billionaire Grantham Uses Extreme Words to Describe Bitcoin

• Bitcoin has fallen to $60,500 from its late-2025 peak above $126,000, a 52% decline in valuation.
• US spot Bitcoin ETF recorded $6.35 billion in outflows over 30 days through mid-June 2026.
• Grantham forecasts Bitcoin’s decline will extend over years or decades, not in a sudden crash.

• $126,000 Bitcoin’s late-2025 peak versus current $60,500 level in June 2026
• $6.35B Net outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs in 30-day period through mid-June
• 70% Downside Grantham now sees in US equities amid AI infrastructure cost pressures

Jeremy Grantham’s rare television appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box in late June 2026 crystallized a sharp institutional critique of Bitcoin at a moment when the world’s largest cryptocurrency faces measurable headwinds.

The GMO co-founder and chief investment strategist, whose prior warnings about market excess preceded the dot-com implosion and the 2008 financial crisis, articulated three fundamental failures he believes make Bitcoin unsuitable as an investment, currency, or store of wealth.

His comments arrive as Bitcoin has retreated 52 percent from its late-2025 high, and as institutional capital, measured by US spot Bitcoin ETF flows, has shifted into outflow territory for the first time in months.

Grantham’s intervention carries material weight in institutional circles because his long-range calls have proven accurate at major inflection points. He flagged the excesses building in technology stocks before 2000, and in US housing credit before 2008, establishing a reputation for seeing structural vulnerabilities that consensus initially misses.

His more recent prediction of a severe US equity correction, with downside of up to 70 percent, now extends that framework to artificial intelligence-heavy market valuations, which he views as bubble-adjacent.

Grantham Condemns Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work Model as “Unnecessary Work”

At the core of Grantham’s case lies a direct attack on Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism. He characterized proof-of-work mining as economically destructive energy waste that generates no tangible social benefit in return.

The computational resources burned to validate transactions and secure the network, he argued, amount to “proof of unnecessary work” that should command no premium in a rational market.

Proof of unnecessary work shouldn’t be worth a bucket of warm spit, and it will not be.

Jeremy Grantham, GMO co-founder and chief investment strategist

This line of critique distinguishes Grantham’s position from earlier Bitcoin skepticism focused on volatility or regulatory risk.

Rather than questioning whether Bitcoin will trade higher or lower, Grantham is questioning whether the underlying asset class deserves any valuation at all given the resources it consumes. The proof-of-work framework, which now underpins a network securing approximately $1.2 trillion in on-chain value, has long drawn fire from environmental advocates and energy-efficiency champions.

Grantham’s framing repackages that critique into a language institutional investors understand: sunk cost with zero economic return.

His skepticism on this point does not address whether mining remains profitable for individual operators, it does, when electricity is cheap, but rather whether society should price in legitimacy for an asset whose primary security mechanism destroys resources without productive output.

Bitcoin Fails as Both Functional Currency and Yield-Bearing Asset

Grantham’s second critique targets Bitcoin’s claim to serve as either a medium of exchange or a store of value. On the currency front, he noted that consumers do not settle everyday purchases in Bitcoin, and that institutional players do not use it to clear large transactions.

The absence of a functioning transaction layer, in his view, disqualifies Bitcoin from any monetary or payment-system role.

His third line of attack focuses on the absence of cash flow or dividend yield. Unlike equities, which generate earnings and distribute returns, or bonds, which pay fixed coupons, Bitcoin produces no income stream.

This creates what Grantham sees as a fundamental valuation problem: without anchor metrics, earnings multiples, dividend yields, or redemption dates, the only price discovery mechanism left is pure speculation. Fair value becomes unmeasurable, and price becomes untethered from any rational fundamental.

This argument resonates particularly with institutional allocators trained to model cash flows and discount them to present value.

Grantham’s framework mirrors critiques leveled by other heavyweight skeptics, including Peter Schiff, who has similarly contended that Bitcoin holds no intrinsic value. The difference is that Grantham’s pronouncements carry the weight of a decades-long track record and a platform inside institutional wealth management.

His messaging to institutional investors is clear: Bitcoin does not satisfy the criteria for legitimate investment, it is neither cash-flowing productive asset, nor currency, nor stable store of value.

Grantham’s Forecast Timeline Raises Questions About ETF Demand in Coming Quarters

Critically, Grantham did not predict a sudden Bitcoin collapse. Instead, he forecast a gradual decline over years or even decades, a thesis that sidesteps the precise timing trap that has occasionally caught his earlier calls off-guard. His 2021 warning of an epic US stock bubble did arrive ahead of the actual 2022 correction, reminding the market that even prophetic voices can be early.

His current framing avoids naming a specific inflection date, instead anchoring his case to structural failures he views as durable.

The timing question matters acutely to institutional capital managers because Bitcoin’s current price action already reflects weakness. Bitcoin has fallen to $60,500 from above $126,000 in late 2025, placing it near the bottom of its recent range.

US spot Bitcoin ETF outflows totaled $6.35 billion over the 30-day window through mid-June 2026, a reversal from the inflow-driven narrative that dominated late 2024 and early 2025.

Whether that outflow trend accelerates, stabilizes, or reverses will partly hinge on whether Grantham’s critique gains traction among the asset managers who have only recently begun allocating to Bitcoin via regulated ETF vehicles.

Complicating the outlook is Grantham’s own assessment of the broader macroeconomic environment. He now flagged AI infrastructure costs as a reshaping variable in capital allocation, a theme echoed recently by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.

If artificial intelligence computing buildout absorbs capital flows that might otherwise reach alternative assets like Bitcoin, institutional redeployment could extend pressure on Bitcoin-linked ETF demand regardless of whether Bitcoin itself deserves a valuation.

The critical test will come in Q3 2026, when institutional allocators will need to decide whether Grantham’s structural critique warrants reduced Bitcoin exposure or whether the 52-percent drawdown from peak already reflects his concerns. The pending question is not whether Bitcoin’s price will recover to $126,000, Grantham’s framework suggests it should not, but rather whether institutional capital, once it enters a regulated ETF vehicle, will treat his warnings as sufficient reason to exit, or whether the debate over Bitcoin’s role in portfolios will remain contested among sophisticated investors.

Original reporting: beincrypto.com