Mark T. Williams

Mark T. Williams
Boston University Questrom School of Business
Born	(1963-08-19) August 19, 1963 (age 53)

Mark Thomas Williams (born August 19, 1963) is an academic, financial author, columnist and risk management expert. He is a faculty member in the Finance Department at Boston University where he teaches courses in banking, risk management and capital market activities. In 2015, he co-authored a report with Harry Markopolos, the Bernie Madoff whistleblower about the growing risks associated with the MBTA pension.

In 1985, he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of Delaware. He became a bank trust officer for Wilmington Trust Company and joined TD Banknorth in 1987. In 1993 he earned a Master of Business Administration from Boston University and joined the Federal Reserve Bank as an examiner in Boston and San Francisco. In 1997 he joined Citizens Power LLC, a Boston-based energy trading company and became a senior vice president, Head of Global Risk Management. Since 2002, he has been on the faculty of Boston University as Executive-in-Residence/Master Lecturer.

Williams is a member of the Standard & Poor’s Academic Council, a senior advisor at the Brattle Group and is on the advisory board of Appleton Partners, a Boston-based private wealth management firm.

Williams is a frequent guest contributor for the Financial Times,Reuters,Forbes.com, and Business Insider. He has also written articles for Bloomberg, the Boston Globe,Foreign Policy magazine and The New York Times

He said in the testimony, "to transform Bitcoin into a virtual currency would require regulation, centralization, creation of a legal framework and strong regulatory oversight." He raised concerns about Bitcoin, including lack of consumer protection, it being a high-risk virtual commodity, having an artificially inflated price, extreme hoarding, hyped demand, high potential for market manipulation, and fraud. On April 2, 2014, Williams provided congressional testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business discussing the 10 major risks associated with Bitcoin. On October 21, 2014 he presented on virtual currencies at The World Bank and on April 23, 2015 at the Bretton Woods Committee. The Bitcoin community remains critical of his concerns. Williams also continues to assert that the virtual currency is in a hyper bubble and will eventually suffer a price collapse. In 2013, after Bitcoin peaked at $1,200, Williams predicted that it was in a bubble and would trade for less than 10 dollars by mid-2014. On January 29, 2014, he provided risk testimony before the New York State Department of Financial Services hearing on virtual currencies. Bitcoin prices dropped by over 50% but bottomed out above $200 through 2014. Other academics including Robert Shiller consider Bitcoin a speculative bubble.