Speculating on the future performance of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is, naturally, a favourite pastime of participants of possibly the most speculative market around. And even Jordan Belfort’s got a crystal crypto ball.

 

Bitcoin and Ethereum will be ‘a lot higher’ in five to 10 years

In a new video posted to his YouTube channel this week, Belfort revealed he’s planning to buy more Bitcoin and Ethereum at these levels, while cautioning that the two leading crypto assets could fall further in the short term.

“I think it’s a pretty good bet that right now, down here, if you buy Bitcoin or Ethereum, chances are [they] will be substantially higher in five to 10 years — actually a lot higher, I believe.”

The former stockbroking hot shot, whose memoir was famously adapted into the Martin Scorsese flick The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio, knows a thing or too about being “a lot higher”.

And we say that based, of course, on the antics portrayed in the film, but also some of the comments he’s made publicly, e.g:

“I was like a human Petri dish… Twenty drugs and you’re trying to find the perfect mixture to get to a stage of toxic poise, where I was, like, high as a kite but only I knew it,” he told The Brilliantly Dumb Show a couple of years ago.

 

Convicted scammer labels FTX a scam

Belfort, who’s set himself up now as something of a market analyst and motivational speaker, is a convicted fraudster related to market manipulation and a long-term penny stocks scam that may have ended up costing investors as much as US$200 million. You’ve probs seen the film.

At his sentencing in 2003, Belfort was ordered to pay $US110.4 million in restitution and other penalties.

He served four years in jail for his white-collar crimes, so he’s an interesting figure to now comment on the crypto space, especially in the wake of the FTX implosion, which has its own major fraud implications.

In fact, here’s what Belfort says about BTC and ETH in relation to the FTX debacle:

“Just because FTX itself was a scam, that doesn’t mean that you can disregard Bitcoin completely and say it’s worthless or going to zero. The same thing goes for Ethereum.”

The self-proclaimed wolf also said that, aside from the two main assets he’s mentioned, he “literally would not be touching crypto right now with a 10-foot pole”.

Not sure that’s literally possible, unless it’s a digital pole in the metaverse or something, but we get his point.

 

‘A very, very, very tough industry right now’

Regarding other cryptos, Belfort advised his followers to essentially do their own research on the coins they’ve bought, and remind themselves why they bought in the first place, before urging them to consider selling.

“Anything outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum, I would take a petty close look at it and consider maybe selling it,” he said, adding:

“If you are buying Bitcoin or Ethereum, it should represent a very small portion of your overall investment portfolio,” Belfort advised, adding that he would limit crypto investments to “under 10%” of his overall holdings. “That’s the money that you can essentially speculate with. You can afford to lose it.”

Belfort, who is rumoured to still owe a substantial amount of the restitution and penalties also recently claimed that he lost more than US$300,000 in a crypto hack last year.

Without specifying too many details about the exploit, he told Yahoo Finance Live:

“So I got hacked, actually. I lost about 300-and-something thousand dollars on [crypto wallet] MetaMask last year.

“I don’t have any of my money in any crypto on exchanges. It’s all off […] in a cold storage wallet, so to speak, with [crypto wallet] Ledger.”

Belfort added that it’s “a very, very, very tough industry right now… literally like the Wild West.”

He then spat some tobacco into a spittoon and did some fancy finger-twirling tricks with his Smith & Wesson six-shooter. Possibly.