Early bitcoin investors and founders of crypto-exchange Gemini, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, see bitcoin gaining more than 25 times its current value as more investors adopt the cryptocurrency as an inflation hedge.
“We think it will be the best performing asset of the current decade,” Tyler Winklevoss said in an interview with Seema Mody on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Monday.
“Our thesis is that Bitcoin is gold 2.0 and it will disrupt gold. If it does that it has to have a market cap of $9 trillion. So we think bitcoin could price one day at $500,000 a bitcoin. So at $18,000 bitcoin it’s a hold or if you don’t have any its a buy opportunity because we think there’s a 25x from here,” Tyler expounded.
The twins made similar comments to CNBC last year about the cryptocurrency.
The price of Bitcoin rose 5% on Monday to top $19,000 as investors continue to pile back into the cryptocurrency in 2020. The price of bitcoin was trading around $19,022, according to data from industry site CoinDesk. The cryptocurrency first climbed near the $20,000 mark in December of 2017. It collapsed soon after, and had not recovered to the $18,000 level until recent weeks.
The asset is up over 160% this year with interest from big-name investors such as Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller. Fintech giants Square and PayPal have lowered the barrier for entry into the asset.
“I think a lot of it is investors coming in and realizing that inflation, there’s a specter of inflation out there and how do you protect against that? I think there’s not much of a debate about all the debt that’s increased in the U.S., the money printing, so how do you defend against that?” Cameron Winklevoss added. “I think a lot of people are starting to realize that bitcoin is really the best defense and offers the opportunity for an asymmetric return of something like 25 to 40x from here. I don’t think there’s an asset in the universe that can credibly offer that kind of potential and protect against inflation.”
The Winklevoss twins said gold has historically been the classic hedge, but bitcoin is moving in as gold 2.0.
“It doesn’t really need to be a great medium of exchange, it just needs to be better than gold and it’s better across the board. So bitcoin, the supply is fixed at 21 million. Gold is scarce. Bitcoin’s software it can be sent through the internet, like email, gold is hardware and its hard to transport,” Cameron Winklevoss said.
The total number of bitcoins that will ever be produced is capped at 21 million. The digital asset underwent a key technical event in the spring known as the “halving,” which saw the amount of bitcoins rewarded to the so-called “miners” who add bitcoin transactions to its public ledger get cut in half.
The Winklevoss twins are not concerned about regulation headwinds for the digital asset.
“Back in 2013, there was a question about whether bitcoin was going to be outlawed. We’re way passed that. We believed in healthy, thoughtful regulation. We don’t see that not continuing. We think bitcoin’s here to stay, we think thoughtful regulation around it in the U.S. and other sophisticated jurisdictions is also here to stay,” Tyler Winklevoss said.
“Bitcoin is still the best performing asset of the year, even compared to equities,” he added.
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Source: Finance - cnbc.com
