Silver crypto linings? ‘Bitcoin will make it’, says Elon Musk; The ‘bottom is in’, reckons Kevin O’Leary

Coinhead Rob Badman
Elon Musk Bitcoin

"Oh come on now… Turn that crypto bro frown upside down." (Getty Images)

This is the year that’s “rekt” crypto FOREVER, if you believe the most nay-happy of the naysayers out there. There are plenty of voices that oppose that narrative, however, including Elon Musk and Canadian investor bloke Kevin O’Leary.

For the purposes of this article, we thought we’d round up a few of the most prominent crypto-gloom-countering takes we can find. But just for kicks and at least some token sense of balance, let’s first give the gold-plated conch to Peter “I’m Never Watching 60 Minutes Again” Schiff.

If you didn’t know, Schiff is, among other things, a prominent American stock broker, financial commentator, Bitcoin/crypto hater extraordinaire and one of the biggest gold bugs since Francisco Pizzaro. [Ed: Nice history lesson, but that’s three strikes on that wisecrack now.]

It’s interesting, actually, that Schiff seems to dig one aspect of crypto/blockchain that supports his gold-investment narrative – gold asset-backed cryptos.

The thing is, though, most of those sorts of cryptos, such as Paxos Standard’s PAX Gold (PAXG) for instance, are built on top of the blockchain Ethereum, which houses almost every other crypto Schiff thinks is going to zero, aside from Bitcoin.

Is this something he fails to see/recognise when he blithely predicts “crypto extinction”? Seems confusingly counter-intuitive.

But anyway conch grabbed back… onto some of those more positive soundbites.

 

‘My guess is it works out well’: Elon Musk

Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter boss Elon Musk is rarely out of the limelight and he hardly needs us to throw him some more, but what the hell – there’s no denying people take notice of pretty much anything he says or posts.

Here’s the latest, and it’s probably a welcome little gee-up for Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin investors.

Amid the context of the FTX exchange mess, Musk was asked about the future of cryptocurrencies during a Twitter Spaces event the other day:

“I would reaffirm that, if you have crypto, you should have it in a directly-accessible cold wallet,” he noted. “Not in an exchange. That would be wise,” he advised, adding:

I think there probably is a future for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and DOGE. I can’t really speak to the others. But if you’ve got one of those three in a cold wallet, and off an exchange, I think my guess is it works out well.”

The multi-billionaire is sometimes referred to as “The Dogefather” in crypto circles. He also said during the same Twitter Spaces call: “DOGE to the moon”. It’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.

 

‘Crypto bottom is in!’ Kevin O’Leary

Bitcoin and crypto-positive Canadian investor and co-host of US show Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary would have good reason to be down on the industry right now. He’s been a prominent and vocal supporter of the FTX and had a good deal of money tied up on the exchange itself, not to mention a lucrative, multi-year ambassadorial deal with the firm.

When asked about his reaction to the FTX implosion, he told CNBC that it’s:

“Obviously, one of frustration, there’s no question about it… I’m disappointed like many shareholders.”

O’Leary, however, also emphasised that he is still “a huge advocate for the potential of blockchains and cryptocurrencies,” adding:

“It’s not the first time I’ve made a bad investment, probably not the last time, but luckily I make more good ones than bad ones and I learn from my mistakes.

And here he is, this week, calling the crypto bottom.

It’s a call that he justifies by referring to a past thesis he’s made about how bottoms are formed in any market.

“You always need a big player to go to zero,” he said back in June.” It always gives you a good bottom when you get a large player over-leveraged that goes to zero, and that always tends to be the beginning of the rebuilding process.

“Someone is out there on the brink of zero. That’s okay. In fact, I would argue that’s a good thing.”

Continuing his conversation on CNBC, meanwhile, O’Leary added: “What’s going to happen now is there won’t be another situation like this for institutional investors ever again”, emphasising his belief that institutions will be unlikely to invest until the industry is regulated.

“What I’m going to be doing is I’m going to fly to Washington and I want regulation. I want it now. No more delaying. I think this puts tremendous pressure on the SEC.”

 

Feeling ‘the itch to scale back in’: Edward Snowden

American whistleblower Edward Snowden, who lives in Russia to avoid persecution in the US over leaked documents relating to the National Security Agency in 2013, has long been a strong Bitcoin advocate. No surprises there, really, considering Bitcoin’s narrative as an enabler of freedom from centralised control and financial slavery.

Today, he posted a tweet in which he indicated he’s considering buying back in to the market at this time, despite potential “trouble ahead”.

Snowden also posted a chart showing Bitcoin’s recent dumpy trajectory, as well as a point more than two and a half years ago, when he expressed a similar sentiment.

At that time, Snowden said: “This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying Bitcoin” and it was posted a day after BTC plummeted from US$8k to about US$3k due to the market dumping over Covid-19 news.

 

What do you reckon, CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer?

On Friday, Cramer told his viewers to “cash out on crypto” while they can. The jury’s out on that overly deterministic call, but he makes a fair point in the tweet above.

Related Stories