Ray Dalio is adding Bitcoin to his holdings.
The founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates who has been called the king of hedge funds announced he has bought “some Bitcoin” during a panel that aired Monday during the Consensus 2021 conference. (The interview was filmed on May 6, the site says.)
“The more we create savings in it, the more you might say ‘I’d rather have Bitcoin than the bond’. Personally, I’d rather have Bitcoin than the bond,” Dalio said in a long-ranging discussion.
While many point to the volatility of cryptocurrencies as the biggest risk for investors, Dalio disagrees, saying government oversight is the thing to watch, saying Bitcoin’s “biggest risk is its success.”
“One of the great things, I think, as a worry is the government having the capacity to control almost any of them, including Bitcoin, or the digital currencies,” he said. “They know where they are, and they know what’s going on.”
It’s the latest curve in a change of heart for Dalio, who was somewhat bearish on cryptos as early as last November, when he said “I don’t think digital currencies will succeed in the way people hope they would.”
By late January, though, he was more optimistic about digital currencies, saying, “I greatly admire how Bitcoin has stood the test of 10 years of time, not only in this regard but also in how its technology has been working so well and has not been hacked. … Bitcoin looks like a long-duration option on a highly unknown future that I could put an amount of money in that I wouldn’t mind losing about 80% of.”
Dalio did not offer any indication whether his Bitcoin holdings were personal or through Bridgewater—and did not give any hints as to how much of the cryptocurrency he held at the time.