Citadel CEO Advises Younger Generation ‘Do Something More Productive than Invest in Digital Currencies’
The CEO and founder of the Citadel hedge fund still hasn’t changed his position and insists that Bitcoin has many in common with the “tulip bulb mania”.
By Julia SakovichUpdated
3 mins readPhoto: Citadel / Facebook
While the social interest in digital currencies is growing and more and more institutional investors are paying their attention to crypto assets, Ken Griffin, the CEO and founder of the Citadel hedge fund, still hasn’t changed his negative stance on Bitcoin.
In November 2017, Ken Griffin compared all this hype around Bitcoin with the tulip bulb mania that was observed hundreds of years ago in Holland. He considered blockchain to be a very interesting technology but didn’t believe that this technology that backs the cryptocurrency could be valid.
This year, speaking at the Delivering Alpha Conference in New York, he confirmed that he has just the same point of view. He said that he “still scratch[es] [his] head” about Bitcoin and emphasized that the youth population shouldn’t go into this sphere and “do something more productive than invest in digital currencies.”
To prove his point of view, he stated:
“I don’t have a single portfolio manager [of mine] who has told me we should buy crypto, not a single portfolio manager. I have a hard time finding myself wanting to be in the position of being a liquidity provider to a product that I don’t believe in.”
Though Griffin declared that his company is experiencing not the best period in its history, he said that it couldn’t be a reason to turn to cryptocurrencies. “There’s no need for cryptocurrencies. They’re a solution in search of a problem,” commented it.
Being founded by Griffin in 1990, Citadel hedge fund is one of the oldest hedge funds in the world ranking among one of three percent of hedge funds that have been working for more than 20 years. Now it manages over $30 billion of assets. According to official sources, Griffin himself has a net worth of $9 billion.
It is obvious that now Griffin is quite firm about his position in regards to cryptocurrencies. Nevertheless, today more and more traditional financial institutions are becoming more and more interested in the concept of digital assets and are considering different ways to apply this new type of assets to their businesses.
For example, just recently, the world’s largest exchange-traded fund provider BlackRock has announced its plans to form a special working group that will investigate the crypto market and estimate the company’s potential involvement in Bitcoin.
Another industry’s giant multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs has also expressed its interest to cryptocurrencies. The bank has appointed a new CEO and now it is expected that the bank will add more bitcoin and other crypto services to its portfolio.
Among other richest financial organizations the owners of which have shown their interest to cryptocurrencies and their usage we can name JP Morgan Chase, Soros Fund Management, Venrock and Rothschild & Co.
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