According to Anthony Pompliano (aka “Pomp”), a co-founder of crypto-focused asset management firm Morgan Creek Digital Assets, CNBC’s Jim Cramer, the man who said two years ago that Bitcoin was “like an outlaw currency”, is now a Bitcoiner.
Former hedge fund manager Cramer is the host of CNBC show “Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer“. He is also a co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street“, as well as a co-founder of financial news website TheStreet.
On 7 June 2017, when Bitcoin was trading around $2,800, after being told on “Squawk on the Street” that Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget had predicted that Bitcoin would one day be worth $1 million, this is how Cramer responded:
I think it [Bitcoin] could [reach $1 million] because the European banks are frantically trying to buy them so they can pay off ransomware. It’s a short-term way to be able to deal with cybersecurity. It is the way to pay off the bad guys.
However, on 14 August 2018, at a time when Bitcoin had just fallen below the $6K level, we found out that Cramer had gone from being super bullish to bearish:
I think the tide has turned against it… I’m not saying its time has passed, but there is a notion that the sun seems to be setting.
Well, yesterday (September 10), Pompliano, who is also the host of “The Pomp Podcast” told his almost 370K followers on Twitter that he had convinced Cramer to buy some Bitcoin (apparently during a recent podcast interview with Cramer):
One CNBC colleague of Cramer who has been super bullish on Bitcoin for a long time is hedge fund manager and CNBC contributor Brian Kelly, who gave the following answer on July 27 when asked by Melissa Lee, who is the host of CNBC show “Fast Money“, which asset he was most bullish on — gold, silver or Bitcoin.”
Kelly replied:
“Well, for me, it’s going to be Bitcoin. You might say ‘well, BK, your are biased because you run a crypto fund’, but that’s not it.
“I also trade macro, which means I have a whole bunch of different things that I can invest in — currencies, stocks, bonds, precious metals — and when I look at precious metals versus Bitcoin, Bitcoin has better fundamentals, and with fundamentals, I’m talking about the stock to flow ratio.
“It’s better than gold at this point because we had the halvening, and when I look at the Bitcoin cycles, the bull markets tend to cluster around the halvenings, and so we’re tracking right along like the 2016 halvening cycle, and that would imply that sometime in Q2 2021 you’re looking at a Bitcoin price of $50,000.”
Another Bitcoiner CNBC colleague of Cramer is Joe Kernen, who is a co-anchor of CNBC’s morning news and talk program “Squawk Box“.
On May 12, Kernen casually disclosed (during an interview with billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya) the fact that he is a Bitcoiner.
During the interview, while Kernen was telling Palihapitiya about billionaire macro investor Paul Tudor Jones II’s apearance on the program a day earlier, he seemingly revealed for the first time that he owns Bitcoin:
“[we had ] Paul Tudor Jones on yesterday, and he was talking about, you know, QE infinity [and]… maybe the time will come when you need to have some type of asset that there’s a fixed amount of and he was referring to Bitcoin.
“I think maybe even Paul Tudor Jones…”
At this point, Palihapitiya, who is a big advocate for Bitcoin, interjected:
“Say the words! Say the words!”
Kernen then continued:
“I have to disclose that I I own… I mean, compared to you, I own like three cents out of a dollar or something… you know what I mean… but I have to disclose that I own it… but Paul Tudor Jones made the case yesterday, and you know yesterday was the halvening… so, the stock-to-flow has now gone up.”
Last summer is probably when Kernen started to become bullish on Bitcoin.
On 20 June 2019, he confessed that he had become “a Bitcoin bull”:
Then, on 29 July 2019, Kernen surprised his guest — Fairlead Strategies Managing Partner Katie Stockton — by asking her if she believed that the Bitcoin price could reach $55,000 by May 2020 (i.e. the time of the third halving):
And on 23 August 2019, Kernen explained to his fellow co-anchors why he did not like Facebook-led stablecoin project Libra “one bit”:
Featured Image by “SnapLaunch” via Pixabay.com
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
