Nouriel Roubini, an economist famous for predicting the 2008 financial meltdown and an avid critic of the crypto-verse, has decided to join the token industry.
According to reports, together with the Dubai-based investment firm Atlas Capital Team LP CEO Reza Bundy, he is developing the United Sovereign Governance Gold Optimized Dollar (USG), which will be tokenized in the future. Its purpose is to tackle devaluation and serve as a means of payment and potentially a unit of account.
Commenting on his initiative, Roubini tweeted “USG will be first an index, then an ETF & last a security token backed by real/fin assets with AML/KYC features. Hedge against inflation, pol/geopol risks; & with ESG features”.
To carry out the project, the Atlas has already partnered with Web3 developer Mysten Labs, spearheaded by Novi, the Meta wallet subsidiary that developed technology for the now-canceled Libra (Diem).
As per the plan, the USG token will be backed by U.S. Treasuries, gold, and real estate investment trust assets, with the latter acting as an inflation hedge.
In his 2018 address to Congress, Roubini lambasted crypto, describing it as “the mother or father of all scams and bubbles”. He also called out “scammers, swindlers, criminals, charlatans, insider whales and carnival barkers (all conflicted insiders)” who he said tapped into “clueless retail investors’ FOMO,” then took them for a ride with pump-and-dump schemes for “scammy crappy assets at the peak that then went into a bust and crash — in a matter of months — like you have not seen in any history of financial bubbles.”
This level of critique, however, did not stop him from acknowledging that digital money does have a future.
Earlier this month, Roubini also wrote in his op-ed for the Guardian titled “The world faces a growing stagflationary storm” that because the U.S. dollar is a central instrument in global sanctions enforcement, it will inevitably weaken over time.
Not only does it create severe friction in international trade in goods, services, commodities, and capital; it encourages U.S. rivals to diversify their foreign-exchange reserves away from dollar-denominated assets,noted Roubini.
