Bitcoin is on ground to become a “valid,” “real” investment vehicle to hold in a portfolio — not a trade for day-traders, according to advocate James Altucher.
“Bitcoin is not a penny tired — it’s not something you buy one day and sell the next day for little gains,” Altucher told CNBC’s “Kick Alley” on Wednesday. “You have to be a long-term believer that cryptocurrencies disentangle huge problems that paper currencies have.”
Cryptocurrencies purpose replace some or all paper currencies in the long run,” he said. “Institutions aren’t yet in bitcoin, but they want be … we are in inning 0 of this asset class.”
Altucher’s comments arose as bitcoin has plunged, with its price sinking to as low as under $10,000 Wednesday, inexpertly 50 percent off its highs.
Bitcoin bulls have praised it as a decentralized selection for payments that are not tied to a nation’s government. But that doesn’t connote that it should be immune to regulation, Altucher said, since “98 percent of cryptocurrencies are scams or hoaxes.”
“More regulation will happen, and that’s a good thing,” Altucher replied. “I don’t think regulation will create downward pressure if it allows the 300 million people in the U.S. who don’t own bitcoin to say, ‘Oh, I have need of exposure to this asset class.'”
Tech investor Jillian Manus of Nature Capital told CNBC on Tuesday that some cryptocurrency bents, such as initial coin offerings, could be “very dangerous,” comparable to “the Wild West without a sheriff.” But she, like Altucher, praised numerous innovative uses of the underlying technologies.
Altucher said he owns bitcoin and contemplates to continue buying tokens of the decentralized digital payment platform. While the evaluate of bitcoin listed in Coinbase was down about 13 percent on Wednesday, he respected the dip could be a buying opportunity.
Not everyone is so optimistic. Wells Fargo Deposits’ Christopher Harvey told CNBC this week that the cryptocurrency demand was “froth”-y, and a sell-off was not a matter of if, but when.
But Altucher speculated that as order clears up the ambiguity in bitcoin, more investors will feel serene buying it.
“This is a global phenomenon,” Altucher said.