Influential Investment Manager Scott Minerd: Most Cryptocurrencies Are Garbage, Going To Zero. Photo Credit: No-Mad
Guggenheim Partners Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd is generally not a fan of cryptocurrencies and went on record saying most are garbage, according to Bloomberg. However, bitcoin is the exception for the influential investment manager.
“Ultimately people say to me ‘Why are you so bullish on crypto?’ And … I gotta tell you, I think 70 percent of the coins out there today are garbage and will go away,” Minerd said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “The question is, just like the internet bubble, which of the companies survive?
Minerd made the comments while discussing how bitcoin is currently skyrocketing in the market. Considered the OG of cryptocurrencies, bitcoin was trading at $60,736 as of this writing but reached a record high of $66,999 on Wednesday.
While some financial experts and analysts have attributed bitcoin’s rally to inflation, Minerd advised people against short-selling the cryptocurrency.
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“Seasonally, stocks do very well between here and May. … And I think it’s spilling over into other asset classes like crypto,” Minerd said. “You see bitcoin and what it’s done over the last few weeks. I can’t tell you it’s a value, but I won’t tell you that you should short it because it’s likely to be higher in the coming months.”
Minerd isn’t the only one who believes most cryptocurrencies are garbage. Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari expressed similar sentiments in August.
“There are thousands of these garbage coins that have been created,” Kashkari said at the Pacific Northwest Economic Regional Annual Summit in Big Sky, Montana. “Some of them are complete fraud Ponzi schemes. They dupe people into investing money and then the founders rip them off.”
Again, for many, bitcoin seems to be the exception. Last month, legendary hedge fund manager Ray Dalio – who was once a bitcoin skeptic himself – shared he’d converted some of his portfolio to the coin. He expressed his opinion that the government would try to “kill” bitcoin if it becomes too successful.
“If it’s really successful, they’ll try to kill it,” Dalio told CNBC‘s Squawk Box in a discussion on the impact of Bitcoin regulation.
