The founder of the world’s largest hedge fund believes there’s a bubble in the bitcoin market.
Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, which according to recent rankings is the biggest hedge fund by total assets under management. Per its website, Bridgewater manages around $160 billion in assets.
Dalio, who appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning, said that he doesn’t think bitcoin is “an effective storehold of wealth”, comparing it unfavorably to gold.
He said in the interview:
“It’s not an effective storehold of wealth because it has volatility to it, unlike gold. Bitcoin is a highly speculative market. Bitcoin is a bubble.”
While he noted that bitcoin “could be a currency,” Dalio argued that a mix of market speculation and the lack of broader adoption is getting in the way
“It’s a shame, it could be a currency. It could work, conceptually, but the amount of speculation that is going on and the lack of transactions [prevent it],” he said.
Dalio went on to add that the privacy aspects of bitcoin make it difficult to accept as a currency as well, asserting “people won’t know what you’re doing.”
His comments come as cryptocurrency markets recover from regulatory developments in China, which have seen officials there increasing their scrutiny in the exchange space, trigging a raft of closures and policy changes. At press time, the price of bitcoin is trading at roughly $3,984, per CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).
Image Credit: Valeriano DiDomenico/World Economic Forum