Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff seems to think that bitcoin is likely to crash soon thanks to the downfall of marijuana stocks.
Schiff: Cannabis Falls, So Bitcoin Falls
Schiff explained his bearish sentiment in a tweet, writing:
Many of the speculators who were buying pot stocks were also buying #bitcoin. With heavy losses in the former, perhaps they will look to realize some gains on the latter or mitigate their losses before the bottom drops out of the crypto market, too.
This is one such case where the old “Tether replacement scheme” doesn’t seem to be in play. As we all remember, University of Texas finance professor John Griffin published a report not too long ago saying that in 2017, bitcoin’s price was being manipulated and falsely pushed to reach the $20,000 high that it hit in December of that year.
The report explains that every time bitcoin fell, someone used Tether – a controversial stable currency – to purchase bitcoin and boost its price, which tied it to fiat and caused the currency to rise quickly.
This is one case where such a scheme can’t necessarily occur. Bitcoin cannot be used to purchase stocks, so if marijuana stockholders are looking to boost the prices and potentially regain their losses back, doing so with BTC probably isn’t an option, which makes the situation even harder for those involved.
At the same time, it doesn’t look like this is an issue most investors even need to concern themselves with, as Schiff’s ideas and proposals have allegedly been discredited. Schiff is not tied to any stocks, and investors didn’t put more money into the stock market when it fell.
In addition, more institutional players have gotten into the crypto space, and bitcoin’s volatility has seemingly slowed down somewhat according to Skew Analytics. Thus, speculators don’t necessarily have a hand in how crypto or marijuana stocks are moving. Marijuana stocks have been falling since 2019 arrived, whereas bitcoin – despite a few bumps in the road – has managed to retain some form of momentum.
The currency rose to $5,000 in early April following a nasty drop to $3,500 during the previous year. At press time, BTC has shot up beyond the $8,000 mark.
Schiff is notoriously anti-bitcoin, and even referred to Bobby Lee’s prediction of bitcoin reaching $1 million as hogwash. Furthermore, he predicted that BTC would strike the $2,000 line not too long ago when in fact, it rose beyond the $10,000 mark.
It’s Not All Bad
However, he has said a few nice things in the past about crypto, including:
Privately issued cryptocurrencies, backed by real assets, would represent a major improvement over our current system of national fiat currencies. Consumers are best served by competition. Let capitalism restore the freedom, privacy and stability that governments have destroyed!