Valuation, investing, and finance education by Aswath Damodaran

Aswath Damodaran is a Professor of Finance at NYU Stern School of Business and a globally recognized expert on corporate valuation. He has authored 12 textbooks and maintains a valuation database used in over 90 finance courses worldwide. In July 2025, he updated his crypto valuation framework, which includes a multi-scenario discounted value model for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Despite that, he maintains a cautious stance: in May 2025, he published a widely read critique titled “Bitcoin: Currency That Nobody Uses,” viewed over 1.2 million times on his blog.

Damodaran argues that Bitcoin lacks stability, liquidity for corporate use, and measurable intrinsic value—a view echoed by CFOs of multiple S&P 500 firms in recent surveys. His risk-premium calculators and capital structure tools are used by at least 70 investment firms evaluating crypto-related IPOs and ETFs. Yet he distinguishes between cryptocurrency as an asset class and blockchain as a technology, offering conditional support for decentralized ledgers in banking and compliance systems.

His academic rigor, combined with methodical skepticism, provides structure to the often hype-driven valuation landscape in digital finance.