Billionaire Mike Novogratz blasted Ripple’s XRP and advised against buying dogecoin in a recent “Earn Your Leisure” interview with hosts Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings.
The CEO of crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital said he isn’t worried about bitcoin’s long-term health because institutions like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are entering the space.
He predicted crypto investments will make up 2% of global wealth within two to three years, up from its current slice of half a percent.
Here are Novogratz’ 10 best quotes from the interview, lightly edited and condensed for clarity:
1. “Over the years, the XRP army has built up a real community of people that really want to believe it. It reminds me a little bit of Trump supporters, they’ll believe you stole the election. You could tell them anything. It’s like 9/11 conspiracy theories. There’s a little bit of that in crypto. They just don’t look at the truth sometimes.” – On why Ripple’s XRP has been on a tear.
2. “I’ve never liked the XRP token because you’ve got one group that owns so much of it. Let alone you’ve got the SEC breathing down the necks of the CEO, the founder, and the company.” – On Ripple’s token being a ‘painful trade.’
3. “No, you shouldn’t buy dogecoin. You should sell dogecoin probably now that it’s gone up to 42 cents. But there’s a lot of uneducated investors that feel the energy of this moment and want to participate.” – On people asking for advice about buying the meme-based currency.
4. “I think crypto returns will beat the crap out of stocks, but not forever. They will hit an equilibrium, there’s no free lunch in the world. Right now, it feels like there’s a free lunch because the government’s losing everything.” – On crypto’s potential as a new asset class.
5. “People want insurance. Bitcoin is insurance, and the governments know that.” – On the potential debasement of the US dollar.
6. “What bitcoin is telling governments is ‘dude you guys are doing such a sh–ty job with your budget deficits. You are printing money.’ My mother used to say ‘money doesn’t grow on trees.’ Right now, money is growing on trees.” – On the long-term negative effects of massive US stimulus spending.
7. “I’m long Facebook stock. One of my favorite trades this year is that I sold a shack-load of call options on GameStop because the vol (volume) was so stupid, and I bought Facebook stock and Facebook calls. I bought it, because I know sometime in this next half year, they’re going to come out with this crypto wallet called Novi – unfortunately not named after me.”
“And so, Facebook’s going from $300 to $400. I think, I hope.” – On digital wallets expected to replace bank accounts.
8. “Ethereum is most likely the winner of the decentralized supercomputer that powers all these new businesses, all these new ecosystems.” – On which among the ‘hot’ cryptocurrencies are rationally solid.
9. “The only thing Republicans and Democrats agreed on is that they hated Mark Zuckerberg.” – On Facebook’s CEO defending his company’s proposed stablecoin, Diem, against privacy concerns.
10. “The macro markets have never been more interesting and crypto is macro on steroids right now. And so it’s a fascinating time to be a trader, it’s really volatile.” – On the explosion of interest in crypto ecosystems.