Bitcoin has skyrocketed from an idea on a blog to reaching the status of a financial safe haven in less than a decade. A couple of years ago bitcoin was worth a few hundred dollars, now it is trading at $10,000. Bitcoin’s performance has seen it surpassing traditional assets like gold, with people flocking towards the decentralized assets in times of political and economic tensions.
Traditional traders and investors have all kept a close watch over the flagship cryptocurrency and many of them have switched to trading digital assets. The crypto community has grown to include big names from the traditional market; one such investor is billionaire and venture capitalist Tim Draper.
Draper turned heads inside the crypto community when he went super bullish with his BTC price prediction of $250,000 back in July 2018. He became a prominent name in the crypto industry and is even a major investor behind the popular cryptocurrency Tezos, which has more than doubled since the start of the year.
Bitcoin – The currency of Choice
Now, Draper has confirmed that he has been out of the public stock markets and has moved the majority of his portfolio towards cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin.
In a recent interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Alley” team, Draper, flaunting a red and yellow bitcoin tie, claimed that he now holds “a lot” of his portfolio in BTC after leaving the traditional market six months back stating that BTC is a “safe haven.” When asked about his massive prediction about BTC and how much of it does he own, he responded “It’s a lot, it’s a lot, a lot,” adding:
“I’m just a believer — and I look and I say, ‘Hey, this is just better.’ Long term, people move to things that are better.”
Talking about where bitcoin is going from where it is now, Draper assured the viewers that he is still standing by his earlier prediction of $250,000 claiming that the target will be reached by 2023. Reasoning his claim, he said:
“I think the reason is Bitcoin will be the currency of choice…Right now Bitcoin is not as easy to move around, but eventually, it will be and then you’ll have a choice and you’ll say, hey! do I want to pay the banks 2.5 – 4 % every time I swipe my credit card, or do I want a currency that’s frictionless, open, transparent, global, and not tied to any political source [..] At some point people are going to make that switch and Bitcoin is going to be the big winner.”
Warren Buffet is threatened by the rise of Crypto
A part of the interview featured comments from Berkshire Hathaway chairman, Warren Buffett, who in his latest anti-bitcoin tirade claimed cryptocurrencies weren’t a productive investment. He said:
“Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don’t produce anything, So you can look at your little ledger item for the next twenty years and it says you’ve got X of this cryptocurrency or that — it doesn’t reproduce, it doesn’t deliver, it can’t mail you a check, it can’t do anything. And what you hope is that someone else comes along and pays you more money for it.”
Disagreeing with his comments, Draper retaliated:
“Of course he’s not going to like it. He sees a huge threat to his holdings.”
Explaining that Buffet has 50% of his portfolio built around investments such as banks and insurance companies, and this will change dramatically for the worse with the rise of a decentralized economy.
CNBC is boosting Bitcoin
CNBC has recently been airing some shows that have been really bullish about bitcoin. Last week, the popular show on CNBC dubbed “Fast Money” hosted five panelists who were extremely bullish about Bitcoin. The panelists managed to cover every popular bullish topic for Bitcoin in less than two minutes. Included in that, was a brief discussion about the impacts of the upcoming Bitcoin halving.
Google searches for the term “Bitcoin halving” also spiked last week. The seven day period during which the CNBC show aired saw interest in the term rise to half of what it was during the actual week of the 2016 halving.
