We have all the usual arguments against Bitcoin. These have come from diverse groups of people in the financial community. One thing that many of them seem to share is that they were all born in another generation.
This is all according to the Billionaire investor, Mike Novogratz. Mike, who is a strong Bitcoin proponent, made the comment in a Bloomberg interview that focused on the recent rally in Bitcoin.
His comments also come at a time when a relatively older gentlemen, called Jamie Dimon, labelled Bitcoin a “scam” and “fraud”. Dimon, who is the CEO of JP Morgan, has been a long time sceptic and has railed against the cryptocurrency on many an occasion.
Could the fact that Jamie was born in 1956 be a reason behind his lack of interest in Bitcoin? Could his world view be shaped by general senile beliefs in new technologies?
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Novogratz Spots the Correlation
In the interview, Novogratz tried to explain why people had a genuine trust in Bitcoin. Born out of the 2008 financial crisis, it became clear that a large amount of people had lost faith in the banking system.
This is indeed true. People grew tired of hearing about banks such as JP Morgan that had to be bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars from the taxpayer's purse.
Novogratz also presented the view that many people had also lost faith in the central banks. This was particularly acute in countries such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe where hyperinflation and rouge policies have destroyed savings.
Talk of Hacks & Hazards
The hosts of the interview then went to the security and volatility of Bitcoin. They wondered whether the extreme price swings and high profile hacks could be a cause for concern for investors.
They raised the point of the Tether USDT hack of $30m that briefly sent Bitcoin down by 5% before it rallied back. Novogratz noted that it was still a “relatively” new technology and that
We are in the second or third innings of this revolution, these are all very young experiments..
Indeed, anyone who has been following Bitcoin from its inception knows how volatile it can indeed be. In the early days of the cryptocurreny, there were times which it had fallen by over 60% in a day and back up again.
On a percentage basis, the recent swings do appear to be relatively minor.
On ICOs and Forecasts
The conversation then shifted from the fear mongering on wall street to his predictions on the prices of various coins. Novogratz put a Bitcoin price prediction at $10,000 by the end of the year and a price of $500 on Ethereum.
He was also asked about his view on some of the latest ICOs and whether he had invested in any of them. He said that he had a stake in Wax, which is a start up that wants to create a digital marketplace for all things including gaming “skins”.
To the outsider with no knowledge of the ecosystem, this may sound extremely niche. However, he went on to say that
There are more people that buy and sell digital clothing than there are that buy and sell all the cryptocurrencies combined. It's a giant market.
“Interestingly Receptive”
Novogratz, who runs the Galaxy Digital Assets fund, claimed that his investors have been quite receptive to his cryptocurrency investment model.
He is well known for being one of the Hedge Fund managers who has taken a large investment of $500m in cryptocurrencies that has so far gone really well for him.
Perhaps he can try and share some advice about digital gold with the golden oldies on Wall Street…
Featured Image via Wall St Week
