Cliff Asness, one of the most prominent hedge fund managers, remains a Bitcoin skeptic despite the cryptocurrency’s record-shattering rally.
During a recent interview with CNBC, Asness suggested that the crypto king could be a “bubble,” arguing that it had no legitimate use case.
With that being said, Asness said that he would refrain from shorting crypto due to its high volatility.
The American billionaire, whose personal net worth is estimated to be $2.1 billion, has long been a cryptocurrency skeptic
Back in 2021, Asness dismissed the idea of following cryptocurrency trends as a quant trader.
“You know you can trade anything as a trend follower and we have not done this,” he said.
He said that he was somewhat cynical that someone was going to come up with “a really good valuation model” for what the right price of the largest cryptocurrency is.
“I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but has anyone noticed Bitcoin and the crypto backup singers are pure risk-on bubble assets? Feel like I have. If a made-up pretend money could feel embarrassed it would,” Asness tweeted following the FTX-driven cryptocurrency market crash that took place in the fourth quarter of 2022.
As reported by U.Today, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon also recently stated that he did not “feel great” about Bitcoin, arguing that it was mainly being used for criminal activities such as money laundering.
Despite winning over such influential individuals as BlackRock’s Larry Fink and achieving signifincalty broader institutional adoption, Bitcoin still has a long way to go until more skeptical traditional finance players finally embrace it.