George Soros called cryptocurrencies a bubble in January. Now his $26 billion family office is planning to trade digital assets.
Adam Fisher, who oversees macro investing at New York-based Soros Fund Management, got internal approval to trade virtual coins in the last few months, though he has yet to make a wager, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokesman declined to comment.
Soros, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said digital coins cannot function as actual currencies because of their volatility. But he didn’t predict the hard tumble that some observers had forecast at the time.
“As long as you have dictatorships on the rise you will have a different ending, because the rulers in those countries will turn to Bitcoin to build a nest egg abroad,” Soros, 87, said on Jan. 25.
Since the billionaire investor made his comments, Bitcoin has fallen more than 40 percent.
Soros has already been indirectly betting on crypto. The firm amassed a stake in Overstock.com in the fourth quarter, making it the third-biggest shareholder of the discount e-commerce company. In August 2017 it became the first major retailer to accept digital currencies. The company had also planned to start an exchange for cryptocurrencies as well as offer digital coins that could trade on the platform.
In March, Overstock.com disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its proposed ICO. Shares have sunk about 40 percent in the wake of the disclosure.
Source: Bloomberg
Anders Olofsson – former Head of Payments Finastra
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
