‘You might get fired if you don’t own Bitcoin’: CoinShares on CNBC

CoinShares chair and former JP Morgan commodity trader Danny Masters told CNBC that the financial landscape has changed to the point where not having exposure to Bitcoin could be a riskier move for portfolio managers than investing in it. 

Interviewed on Power Lunch, the head of the digital asset management firm referred to the fact that in the past it was seen as risky for asset managers working in institutions to put money into Bitcoin. But he claimed that 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 Bitcoin has shed its former negative stigma among mainstream investors and that it’s no longer a question of if companies will get exposure to the digital asset, but when and how much, citing investments from Square, Microstrategy, and Paypal.

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.”

In October, Masters stated that Bitcoin was increasingly resilient and in a very strong position as its price refused to falter despite news around charges being laid against the founders of major derivatives exchange BitMEX 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.