Two billionaires have defended bitcoin when compared to gold, shortly after JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon revealed he personally believes the flagship cryptocurrency is “worthless.” Both billionaires, however, said Ethereum’s ether has more use cases.
As CryptoGlobe reported, Dimon said bitcoin is “worthless” and questioned the cryptocurrency’s 21 million supply cap while speaking at the Institute for International Finance event, saying he has “always been a skeptic of stuff like that.”
Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box the co-founder of Starwood Capital Group, Barry Sternlicht, who has an estimated net worth of over $4.4 billion and is well-known for his investments in the real estate market, said he believes gold is worthless and instead holds bitcoin because governments have been printing too much fiat currency.
The billionaire added he also sees silver as a worthless metal, before noting that while both have “some industrial uses,” he said they are “minor.” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, a known fan of cryptocurrency, echoed his sentiment.
Cuban, whose net worth is estimated to be about $$.3 billion, also defended that bitcoin is better than hold but claimed ETH has the most upside in the cryptocurrency space as an investment.
As Cointelegraph reports, Sternlicht also favored Ethereum over BTC, saying the flagship cryptocurrency is a “dumb coin” with “no real purpose other than a store of value.” Ether, on the other hand, is a “programmable Bitcoin and there are tons of other coins that are built on that system.”
Sternlicht noted he owns both BTC and ETH and has become very interested in blockchain technology, which he says is “going to change everything.” Not every billionaire is on board in the cryptocurrency space, however.
Larry Fink, CEO of $9 trillion asset manager BlackRock, has revealed he is “not a student of Bitcoin” and as such he is unable to tell whether the cryptocurrency is moving to $80,000 or $0 in the future. His firm, nevertheless, has taken significant stakes in two publicly traded bitcoin mining firms.
BlackRock invested $206.7 million to buy 6.71% of Marathon Digital Holdings and $176.1 million to buy 6.61% Riot Blockchain. The investments were spread across several of BlackRock’s mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including its iShares Russell 2000 ETF.
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