Billionaire investor Marc Lasry has said that he should have bought bitcoin when it was worth $300 a few years ago.
His announcement comes at a time when the digital currency has been enjoying a continued surge in value. So much so, that it rose to over $18,000 for the first time yesterday. As result, bitcoin’s market cap was valued at a staggering $307 billion.
This rise in price comes ahead of Chicago-based exchanges Cboe Global Markets and the CME Group launching their bitcoin futures later this month. This, in turn, has pushed the combined cryptocurrency market value over $400 billion.
Speaking to CNBC’s ‘Squawk on the Box‘ yesterday, Lasry said:
I wanted to start buying it personally. Then I was like … ‘I’ll just wait for it to take a little dip.’ And it hasn’t taken a dip. … I should have bought that thing.
He adds that unlike critics such as Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO, who argue’s that bitcoin is a fraud, or Stephen Roach, a Yale University senior fellow and the former Asia chairman and chief economist at Morgan Stanley, who said that it is a ‘dangerous speculative bubble,’ Lasry doesn’t think that’s true, but that it’s real, adding:
Look, I don’t understand it. I just sort of looked at it and said it seems like a new currency is being created.
According to him, increasing demand with the currency is helping to push it into the mainstream. Others who are more positive toward bitcoin’s future include entrepreneur William Mook, who tracks the price of the digital currency and price markets.
According to him, it will eventually replace fiat currencies as ‘each of these fail.’ Earlier this week, Mook stated:
It will do this because it secures honesty and value using the blockchain, without reference to trusted third parties. It is happening today.
Billionaire hedge fund manager and bitcoin bull Mike Novogratz is also projecting great things for the cryptocurrency. At the end of November, the former Fortress manager said that bitcoin could ‘easily‘ reach $40,000 by the end of 2018, with him adding:
There’s a big wave of money coming, not just here but all around the world.
Interestingly, while many critics are claiming that the bitcoin bubble is a bad thing, Novogratz doesn’t believe that’s the case. In fact, he stated during an interview that:
Historically, manias or bubbles happen around things that fundamentally change the way we live. If it’s the railroad bubble or the Internet bubble, it really changed the way we live.