Bernanke made the comment after bitcoin fell more than 55% from its all-time high in November while ether
ETHUSD,
-5.69%
is down more than 58% from its record high, according to CoinDesk data. The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-0.58%
has lost about 27% from its peak.

“If bitcoin were a substitute for fiat money, you could use bitcoin to go buy your groceries. Nobody buys groceries with bitcoin because it’s too expensive and too inconvenient to do that,” Bernanke said in the CNBC interview. “The price of celery varies radically day to day in terms of bitcoin and so there’s no stability either in the value of bitcoin,” Bernanke said.  

Bitcoin supporters have argued that the Lightning network, which is layered on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, could improve the speed and reduce fees for transacting on the network.

Key Words: Bitcoin’s future isn’t as a payments network, says FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried

Bernanke also said he doesn’t think bitcoin has the potential to serve as a “store of value” or “digital gold,” a narrative endorsed by many supporters of the cryptocurrency.

“Gold has underlying use value. You can use it to fill cavities. The underlying use value of a Bitcoin is to do ransomware or something like that,”…