Crypto Skeptic 'Dr. Doom' To Launch Tokenized Dollar Replacement With Payment, ESG Features

Prominent economist and crypto skeptic Nouriel Roubini, who is also called Dr Doom, has reportedly said that he is developing a suite of financial products, including a tokenized asset, called the United Sovereign Governance Gold Optimized Dollar (USG), intended to be a more resilient U.S. dollar.

“Our goal is to create a global store of value … This is something akin to a substitute for Treasuries, or a digital asset that has payment features in it," Roubini told Bloomberg this week.

This came as a surprise to the crypto community as Dr Doom is a longtime crypto skeptic who called Bitcoin "the mother of all bubbles."

According to the report, Roubini has been associated with Dubai-based real estate investment and management firm, Atlas Capital Team, for over two years to create new products.

Roubini further opined that the dollar could be in jeopardy as the U.S. “prints too much money and adversaries start de-dollarizing," adding, "We recognize that America’s dollar reserve currency could be at risk and are working to create a new instrument that’s effectively a more resilient dollar."

Taking to Twitter Monday, Roubini said, “The digital rail will have super strict AML/KYC features so it will be digital asset-backed security with serious ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance] features — ie sustainable real estate. So the digital option is only one of the three and it is an endpoint, not a starting point,” he tweeted.

As per the economist, the new dollar would be backed by “a mix of short-term U.S. Treasuries, gold and U.S. property (in the form of real estate investment trusts, or REITs)." Roubini added that the new dollar would be less likely to be affected by climate change.

Roubini expects his new product to catch the attention of large investors who are looking for an alternative to the usual mix of stocks and bonds.