Billionaire investor Sam Zell, founder and chairman of Equity Group Investments, has in a recently released interview questioned Tesla’s valuation and the price of bitcoin, pointing out negative characters in the crypto space while adding BTC “could be the answer.”
In a Real Vision interview filmed earlier this month and only recently released, first reported on by Business Insider, the billionaire investor claimed that the “single greatest risk that we are dealing with today” is the loss of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Per his words, if we “keep doing what we are doing right now, I think it is 10 or 15 years away.” The U.S. dollar losing reserve currency status, he added, would potentially lead to a reduction in our standard of living of up to 25%. Unlimited debt and “irresponsible activity” don’t lead to positive outcomes, he said.
Some believe that institutional demand has been pushing up bitcoin’s price, as the flagship cryptocurrency is seen as a hedge against dollar weakness and potential currency debasement and inflation, while others say speculation has taken over the market.
As for bitcoin itself, Sam Zell said:
I am very skeptical, frankly, of Bitcoin. Ultimately, it may be the answer or one of the answers. But right now, it’s a world that’s extraordinarily populated by chameleons and other fast-talking characters.
Zell added that he doesn’t believe “everybody involved in it are the kind of people I’d like to follow,” implying various influencers in the cryptocurrency space are not in it for the right reasons. The billionaire notably does not go into how BTC could be “the answer or one of the answers.”
The cryptocurrency is often seen as gold 2.0, however, a digital store of value that, unlike gold, can be easily transferred between two parties and is easy to store. The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), an index “of the value of the United States dollar relative to a basket of foreign currencies,” has seen its value drop significantly so far this year.
In response to the DXY’s decline, some institutional investors including Ruffer Investments and One River, bought BTC in a bid to hedge their portfolios against currency debasement and inflation.
Featured image via Pixabay.
