The former hedge fund manager of Fortress Investment Group believes that institutional investors will adopt bitcoin in the next six months.
Mike Novogratz, a retired Wall Street macro fund manager, firmly believes that financial companies will start offering bitcoin as an investment option. So much so, that he thinks it will be as simple as ordering over the phone, reports CNBC.
Speaking at the Reuters Global 2018 Investment Outlook Summit in New York, Novogratz, who owns 10 percent of his net worth in bitcoin and ethereum, said:
When it’s that easy, the price of bitcoin or ethereum is going to go much higher. And that is a lot closer than people think.
Novogratz, who is chief executive of Galaxy Investment Partners, a firm that bets on cryptocurrencies, claimed last month that Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO, was a ‘rent-taker‘ and that he’s going to lose the fight against cryptocurrencies.
At the time, Novogratz was speaking out against Dimon’s ‘bitcoin is a fraud’ remark, stating that as a banker Dimon had no choice, but to belittle the digital currency. Yet, despite critics voicing their opinions about the market, the former hedge fund manager’s confidence with the cryptocurrency remains. So much so, that in October he was reported as saying that it would reach $10,000 in six to 10 months, claiming that institutional investors had already begun investing in bitcoin.
However, while he believes that financial institutions will accept bitcoin in the next six months he failed to name any specific company, adding:
The institutionalization of this space is coming. It’s coming pretty quick.
During bitcoin’s recent fall in value, which saw it drop to $5,500, Novogratz is reported to have bought $15 million to $20 million worth of the digital currency. One of his regrets was not purchasing more cryptocurrencies before when prices fell. He is now focused on creating what he hopes will be the biggest crypto-hedge fund.
In September, Bloomberg reported that Novogratz started his own $500 million crypto-hedge fund to invest in digital currencies, ICOs and related companies. He is putting $150 million of his own money toward the fund and is planning on raising the remaining $350 million by January.
Such is his support toward the digital currency market that Novogratz firmly believes that in five years the combined market value of all cryptocurrencies will be worth $5 trillion. However, for this to happen companies have to develop business principles that satisfy regulators. At the time of publishing it’s worth over $206 billion.