MICHAEL Novogratz, billionaire and CEO of Galaxy Digital Ventures LLC, has a quite interesting take on bitcoin’s future: “bitcoin is going to be digital gold.”
In a Bloomberg interview earlier today, the former Goldman Sachs partner expressed his confidence in bitcoin recovering from its fall from its 2017 all-time high market price. He recounts how painful it was for investors who saw the cryptocurrency bubble burst last year. After all, his company suffered a tremendous $136 million dollar loss in cryptocurrency trading when crypto prices plummeted.
Novogratz said:
“We had a fantastic bubble in cryptocurrencies.”
“Last year you realized just how painful popped bubbles can be. The market was down 90-odd percent depending on what crypto you’re looking at. I always laugh about the math of that. Like, you know, the market was down 90%, down 60%, and then another 65,” he stated in retrospect.
However, he sees a bright future ahead for bitcoin as he observes the architecture required by institutional investors are being slowly put into place with the “retail frenzy” having “washed out”.
Venture funds, hybrid funds, and other institutional investors are coming in. He cited Bakkt specifically, a company that raised $182 million dollars of funding last year to help it get started in the crypto futures contract business. International Exchange (ICE), the owner of Bakkt and the New York Stock Exchange, said that they will be spending between $20- to $25 million dollars on Bakkt this year.
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts however should not get their hopes up too soon. Just like any other financial bubble that’s burst, prices do not skyrocket to the moon. “We’re not going to bubble backup up, we’re going to grind back up,” says Novogratz.
–
(Jet Encila is a journalist, editor and freelance writer from the Philippines).
Published at Thu, 14 Feb 2019 04:00:39 +0000
