Emil Oldenburg, the co-founder of Bitcoin.com, has blasted the cryptocurrency as the “most risky investment you can make” after he recently transferred to Bitcoin Cash.
He said: “An investment in Bitcoin right now I would say is the riskiest investment you can make. It is an extremely high risk.
“I’ve actually sold all my Bitcoins recently and switched to Bitcoin Cash.
“As soon as people realise that this is how it works, [they] will start selling.
“The old bitcoin network is virtually unusable.
“It’s at bitcoin cash that the solutions are there, that’s where I see a future.”
Mr Oldenburg went on to described the process of transferring Bitcoins as “completely unreasonable” and detailed that his website now focuses “mostly on Bitcoin Cash”.
He added: “It costs a lot to transfer bitcoins to and from the stock exchanges.
“When I sold my bitcoin I had to pay $50 and wait 12 hours for the transaction to go through because of this. It’s completely unreasonable.
“We have actually stopped developing new services for the old bitcoin network now and focus mostly on bitcoin cash.
“There it only costs 10 öre (£0.01) to send and no waiting times. The only downside is that bigger hard drives are required, but it’s not a problem for most.”
Mr Oldenburg has been paid in bitcoin for the last three years and detailed that his 60 employees also receive their pay packets in cryptocurrency.
He went on: “We pay all our 60 employees in bitcoins. All my salary over the last three years has been in bitcoin.”
Bitcoin Cash is described as a “hard fork” in the cryptocurrency that took place in August this year.
The website co-founder went on to skewer Bitcoin as a “technical experiment” rather than a currency that can “run companies”
Mr Oldenburg declared: “It’s a group of fanatic bitcoin Talibans who themselves do not use bitcoin everyday who want it like this (Bitcoin Cash).
“They see bitcoin like digital gold and a technical experiment, not something you should actually use.
“It will never be a currency used in everyday life or for people who run companies.”
Bitcoin almost hit the £15,000 milestone on Sunday, according to CoinDesk’s price index, after almost tripling in value over the past month.