Danny Masters, chair of CoinShares and former JP Morgan commodity trader, told CNBC that the financial landscape has shifted to the extent that not getting Bitcoin exposure could be a riskier option for portfolio managers than investing in it.
The head of the digital asset management company, interviewed on Power Lunch, related to the fact that it was considered as dangerous for asset managers working in institutions in the past to put money into Bitcoin. But he claimed that, as a portfolio manager, the “perceived career-risk for having Bitcoin in your institutional portfolio, as a portfolio manager, is fast migrating into a career-risk for not having Bitcoin in your portfolio, and that’s a really stunning development.”
CNBC host Kelly Evans summarized the statement: “That is perfectly well-stated, you’re not going to get fired anymore if you had some Bitcoin, but you might get fired if you didn’t.”
Masters believes that perceptions of Bitcoin as an extremely volatile asset had subsided because “the volatility of other asset classes has proved to be a lot more volatile than people expected.” He said that among mainstream investors, Bitcoin has shed its former negative reputation and that it is no longer a matter of when firms will be exposed to the digital asset, but when and how much, citing Square, Microstrategy, and Paypal investments.
These companies “are outperforming the market because they are going public with their exposure to Bitcoin,” and as a result: “Sentiment is electric, there is no doubt about that.”
Masters stated in October that Bitcoin was increasingly resilient and in a very strong position as its price refused to fall despite news of charges being laid against the founders of the major BitMEX derivatives exchange that would have driven a price reduction in the past: “Having been around crypto during MtGox, the China ban, Bitfinex Hack, Trump comments and many of the other market-smashing stories that punctuate bitcoin’s history I was struck by the lack of negative price movement, particularly around BitMEX,” The Fear & Greed Index is sitting at 92 out of 100, indicating a sentiment of extreme greed. These levels had not been seen since June 2019 when the index hit 95.