Billionaire Investor John Paulson Calls Crypto A Worthless Bubble

Even though the crypto market has proved the test of times, some billionaire investors don’t consider it a place worth for retail investors. Billionaire investors John Paulson, who rightly predicted the subprime crisis a decade back, has called out on crypto investors.

Now, 14 years later the 2008 Financial Crisis, Paulson expresses concern over the excessive speculations in the crypto space. Speaking at an episode of “Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein,” Paulson, 65, said that cryptocurrencies are a bubble that will “eventually prove to be worthless”.

“I wouldn’t recommend anyone invest in cryptocurrencies,” he added. Well, it’s not the first time that crypto assets have been receiving flak from billionaire investors. Giants like Warren Buffett have also criticized digital assets to the core.

However, over the last decade, the crypto assets have outperformed traditional asset classes like Gold by a huge margin. Moreover, Paulson’s record since his “greatest trade” in 2008 hasn’t been much appealing.

Last year itself, Paulson had to turn his hedge fund into a family office with assets dropping to $9 billion in 2019, from a staggering $38 billion in 2011.

Preferring Gold Over Crypto

Despite the fact that cryptocurrencies have been outperformed Gold by a great margin, Paulson prefers to stay old school and pick gold over crypto. Maybe he could make very good friends with Peter Schiff.

Jokes apart, Paulson said that as inflation picks up, they ten to get away from fixed assets and cash, and the right place to be in is Gold. Moreover, pointing at the 25% surge in the money supply by theFed, he expects inflation to be coming in excess of the current expectations. And thus, Gold! When asked whether he believes in crypto, Paulson said:

“No, I’m not. And I would say that cryptocurrencies are a bubble. I would describe them as a limited supply of nothing. So to the extent there’s more demand than the limited supply, the price would go up. But to the extent the demand falls, then the price would go down. There’s no intrinsic value to any of the cryptocurrencies except that there’s a limited amount”.

He further added that cryptocurrencies will eventually prove to be worthless. And once the liquidity in the market dries, they are heading to zero, as per Paulson. When asked whether he’s shorting crypto at this stage, Paulson denied saying:

In crypto, there’s unlimited downside. So even though I could be right over the long term, in the short term, I’d be wiped out. In the case of Bitcoin, it went from $5,000 to $45,000. It’s just too volatile to short.

About Author

Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.