The ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort has recently spoken out against Bitcoin as the product that is going to slaughter its innocent investors.

Belfort is best known as the penny-stock broker who did time for scamming investors . His story was recently depicted by Martin Scorsese, in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. Belfort warns that as a professional scammer, he made his living from fraud and believes what he saw during the 90’s is exactly what Bitcoin is doing today. According to CNBC, Belfort said:

“I was a scammer. I had it down to science, and it's exactly what's happening with bitcoin. The whole thing is so stupid, these kids have gotten themselves so brainwashed. This thing is going to evaporate like a mirage. There's a lot of really honest people who are going to get slaughtered."

If Bitcoin simply does evaporate, a lot of investors will be left strapped for cash. A lot of people have an awful lot of money in this so the use of the word slaughter probably isn’t as dramatic as it seems. It’s important to note that Belfort doesn’t believe Bitcoin itself is a scam, though overall he thinks that Bitcoin has allowed for a dangerous scam ridden climate to develop. Within Bitcoin, people are trying to rip each other off, in the same way Belfort did with penny stocks in the 90’s. It’s this culture, that will inevitably bring Bitcoin down. According to CNBC, Belfort has added:

"It's not that bitcoin's a scam but its nature allows scams to occur. It's a dark market, you can't see what's going on behind the scenes. People dive into that and use it to rip others off. It could go bust within the year, and when it does, it will be the bust heard around the world."

Of course, many do believe that adoption is something that could stop this happening, through regulation, Belfort disagrees though, as:

"Central banks don't want it, they've spent all this time trying to stop money laundering, why now allow something that's anonymous, and lends itself to making money-laundering easy? I don't believe there's any shot in the world they'll let that happen."

It would be wrong to ignore Belfort as he naturally has an eye for this sort of thing, but at the same time it is wrong to take the word of one person as gospel in this industry. A Bitcoin collapse would slaughter investors, but there are an awful lot of indicators to suggest that Bitcoin isn’t going to collapse anytime soon. Instead, you should take this advice as a part of your overall research, don’t take it to heart but indeed, take heed.

And if you’ve not watched The Wolf of Wall Street yet, go and do that, it’s a cracking film.

Belfort talks to CNBC