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- Chamath Palihapitiya has invested hundreds of millions in bitcoin, he told CNBC on Wednesday.
- The billionaire said it was difficult for regulators to kill crypto, calling it “the internet’s deepest iteration.”
- He was reluctant to repeat his previous bitcoin price prediction, saying it was difficult to do so.
- Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 things before the opening bell.
Chamath Palihapitiya has invested hundreds of millions in bitcoin and believes it is difficult to impose a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies, he said Wednesday in an interview with CNBC’s Scott Wapner.
Billionaire investor was asked what he thinks of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler saying the crypto market is “filled with fraud” and Ray Dalio saying regulators will try to “kill” bitcoin ‘he was really successful.
“I think it’s very difficult to kill,” Palihapitiya said. “So technically it’s very difficult. Just the way it’s structured, it’s the deepest iteration of the Internet we’ve seen.”
Google and Facebook dominated the first two versions of the internet by creating or organizing everything that exists now, while decentralized finance and cryptocurrencies are part of the next step in the evolution towards what the it’s called Web 3.0, he said. The problem with Big Tech’s dominance of the Internet, he says, is that they’re two companies.
The third version “rebuilds it all without an obvious leader. It’s completely headless. It’s entirely peer-to-peer. And I think it’s both scary and exhilarating,” he said.
Still, the SEC’s Gensler continued to step up calls for the regulation of cryptocurrencies and DeFi. This shows that Wall Street’s top regulator is keen to create a set of rules to monitor volatile markets while balancing the interests of innovators and US investors at the same time.
The founder of Social Capital said he has been studying the crypto market for the past 18 months in particular, making him a “huge intellectual bull” in space. But its holdings appear to be mostly limited to bitcoin.
“I obviously haven’t put a lot of money outside of bitcoin,” he said. “You know, tens of millions, hundreds of millions – like a little capital right now. It could get really big. But regardless of what I do, I will say we all need to pay attention to it, because I think that the implications are enormous. “
Palihapitiya has been a bitcoin enthusiast for about a decade now. He started investing in it in 2012, just a few years after its creation. Earlier this year, he predicted that the coin could reach $ 200,000 in five years. But on Wednesday, he said it was difficult to predict where the price might go.
“It’s very difficult for me sitting here to give you a price prediction,” he told CNBC. “But I can say with enough confidence that bitcoin, I think, has indeed replaced gold. And it will continue to do so. And so that market cap will just go up.”
Bitcoin was last trading 3% higher on the day at $ 43,073 per coin on Thursday, according to data from CoinDesk. It has grown by around 50% so far this year, according to data from Coinbase.
Read more: Compass Mining CEO explains why bitcoin is ‘incredibly profitable’ to mine right now – and how retail investors can mine the biggest cryptocurrency at home
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