CNBC

Crypto needs ‘adult supervision’ and turmoil to ‘grow up’ — MicroStrategy co-founder

The bankruptcies of once high-profile crypto players are “painful” but helpful, according to Michael Saylor, but industry oversight is still needed.

High-profile crypto bankruptcies and a hearty price crash are necessary evils to help the industry grow, while greater regulation is a must, according to MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor.

In a Feb. 3 interview on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Saylor opined on potential incoming United States crypto regulation after the bankruptcy of FTX, saying:

“The crypto meltdown was painful in the short term, but it’s necessary over the long term for the industry to grow up.”

He added the industry “has some good ideas” — implying one was Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network — but added some in the space “implemented those good ideas in an irresponsible fashion.”

Saylor said the crypto space needs direction from entities long-involved in the traditional financial markets and input from regulators — in particular the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“What [the industry] needs is adult supervision. It needs the Goldman Sachs and the Morgan Stanleys and the BlackRocks to come into the industry. It needs clear guidelines from Congress. It needs clear rules of the road from the SEC.”

This “meltdown,” according to Saylor, educated many on crypto while simultaneously revealing that it’s “time for the world to provide a constructive, transparent framework for digital assets” so the financial system can move “into the 21st century.”

Saylor on Munger’s crypto criticism

Saylor also responded to criticisms leveled by Charlie Munger, the vice chair of insurance and investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, saying the 99-year-old investment veteran should take time to study Bitcoin.

On Feb. 1, Munger opined that crypto is “not a currency, not a commodity and not a security” instead calling it “gambling” and arguing that the U.S. should “obviously” bring in laws to ban crypto.

Related: Film review: ‘Human B’ shows a personal journey with Bitcoin

Saylor agreed Munger’s crypto-criticism wasn’t “totally off” but there are “10,000 crypto tokens which aren’t gambling,” adding:

“Charlie and the other critics, they’re members of the Western elite and they’re continually prodded for an opinion on Bitcoin and they haven’t had the time to study it.”

He added if Munger “spent 100 hours studying” Bitcoin then “he would be more bullish on Bitcoin than I am.”

Saylor pointed to emerging markets such as Lebanon, Argentina and Nigeria which have high crypto-use rates and use cases spanning from inflation hedging to remittances.

“I’ve never really met someone […] that spent some time to think about it that wasn’t enthusiastic about Bitcoin.”

Daring drive-by at SBF’s: 3 men drove into barricade and fled: Lawyers

The lawyers didn’t specify the date or time when the incident took place, and claimed that security personnel was unable to get the license plate details.

Three men drove their car into the metal barricade outside Sam Bankman-Fried’s parent’s home where he is under house arrest, SBF’s lawyers claim.

In a filing to the federal court, the lawyers for the former FTX CEO said the three men got out of the car after hitting the barricade and told a security guard guarding the home: “You won’t be able to stop us.”

The unidentified trio were then able to drive away before security guards could record the car’s license plate.

According to a Reuters report, the incident was described in a Jan. 19 court filing that said it underscored the security risks faced by the FTX founder and those linked to him, including the two individuals who secured Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bond.:

“Given the notoriety of this case and the extraordinary media attention it is receiving, it is reasonable to assume that the non-parent sureties will also face significant privacy and safety concerns if their identities are disclosed.”

The lawyers didn’t specify the date or time they claim forwhen the incident took place.

On Jan. 12, lawyers representing some of the largest English-language media outlets — including Bloomberg, CNBC, Reuters and the Financial Times — wrote a letter to U.S. District Court judge Lewis Kaplan requesting the names of the guarantors.

The media lawyers argued the public’s right to know Bankman-Fried’s guarantors significantly outweighed their privacy and safety rights.

Given that Bankman-Fried shares close ties to some of the wealthiest and most politically connected individuals on the planet, the lawyers argued that such non-disclosure could undermine public confidence in U.S. government institutions.

Related: FTX profited from Sam Bankman-Fried’s inflated coins: Report

Bankman-Fried was extradited to the U.S. in December and pleaded not guilty to all eight fraud and conspiracy-based charges laid against him on Jan. 3.

All charges relate to his alleged involvement in FTX’s catastrophic collapse in November. The controversial figure remains under house arrest at his parent’s California home until his trial date, which is set for Oct. 2.

Just 8% of Americans have a positive view of crypto: CNBC survey

CNBC’s All-America Economic Survey was conducted toward the end of November, just a few weeks after the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

A new CNBC survey suggests that only 8% of Americans have a favorable view of cryptocurrency as of the end of November, down significantly from the 19% recorded in March.

CNBC’s All-America Economic Survey was conducted between Nov. 26 and Nov. 30. It, however, should be taken with a grain of salt as, despite its name, it had a relatively small sample size of 800 respondents across the U.S. in total, with a margin error of +/- 3.5%.

The survey was published on Dec. 7, and alongside the declining number of crypto-friendly respondents, CNBC highlighted that the number of haters (those with negative crypto views) has grown rapidly, increasing from 25% in March to 43% by November.

CNBC suggested the results indicate a “dramatic fall for an investment that was touted as its own asset class and had a celebrated coming-out party on the global stage with multiple Super Bowl ads and celebrity endorsements:”

“That popularity attracted many ordinary Americans to crypto and the survey shows 24% of the public invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency in the past, up from 16% in March.”

The survey also indicated that a fair amount of crypto investors are turning sour on the asset class,too, as 42% of such respondents indicated to have a “somewhat or very negative view” of crypto.

“According to the survey, 42% of crypto investors now have a somewhat or very negative view of the asset, in line with the 43% result for all adults in the survey. The main difference: 17% of crypto investors are ‘very negative’ compared with 47% for non-crypto investors,” CNBC notes.

While the survey did not postulate what caused the negative sentiment between March and November, recent events in the crypto industry are likely to have played a part.

In May, Do Kwon’s brainchild U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) imploded, wiping $44 billion out of the market. In July, crypto lender Celsius — among a handful of others — went bankrupt and locked up an inordinate amount of customer funds.

November saw the biggest shock this year, with FTX, the third-largest crypto exchange, by trading volumes filing for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, wiping billions out of the market again and locking up customer funds.

Speaking at the CNBC Financial Advisor Summit this week, Brian Brook, the CEO of crypto exchange Bitfury emphasized that crypto is “90% retail market, which means the sentiment of mom-and-pop investors really matters:”

“And so when you read FTX stories on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, literally every day for the last 30 days…what it does is for relative new entrants, they get scared.”

“And so as a result, liquidity is thinner than it would have been and people’s willingness to invest is lower,” he added. 

Related: Vitalik Buterin on the crypto blues: Focus on the tech, not the price

That being said, it’s not all doom and gloom, at least when it comes to institutional investors.

According to a Coinbase-sponsored survey released on Nov. 22 and conducted between Sep. 21 and Oct. 27, it had found that 62% of institutional investors invested in crypto had increased their allocations over the past 12 months.

This week, Crypto exchange Bitstamp also claimed that institutional registrations within its digital asset trading platform were up 57% in November, despite FTX dominating the headlines all month.

Fidelity offers retail investors commission-free BTC and ETH trading

Fidelity Crypto will focus on Bitcoin and Ether initially. The brokerage will make money by charging a 1% spread on trades.

Fidelity Investments is expanding retail access to commission-free cryptocurrency trading services — a move designed to recognize growing mainstream interest in digital assets. 

According to CNBC, Fidelity’s new crypto offering will be powered by its subsidiary, Fidelity Digital Assets. Dubbed Fidelity Crypto, the new service will give retail investors the ability to buy and sell Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) with minimal fees. Instead of a commission, Fidelity Crypto will incorporate a 1% spread into every trade. In financial markets, a spread represents the difference between the buy and sell prices quoted for an asset.

Although Fidelity didn’t specify a launch date for the new offering, it has opened up an early-access waitlist to users. The brokerage said it is targeting retail investors for commission-free crypto trading because a significant portion of its customers is already invested in digital assets. 

“A meaningful portion of Fidelity customers are already interested in and own crypto,” the asset manager told CNBC in a statement.

Fidelity Digital has expanded its institutional offerings amid the bear market, having only recently launched Ether custody and trading services to its high-net-worth clients. In April of this year, the asset manager announced plans to give retirement savers the ability to invest in Bitcoin directly through their 401(k) accounts.

Related: Fidelity report shows resilience to crypto winter, huge adoption gap among investors

Fidelity has been a major institutional proponent of Bitcoin and digital assets, calling BTC a “superior form of money” that will grow in acceptance. Although most of its efforts have focused on institutional investors, speculation about a retail offering has been growing for some time. As reported by Cointelegraph, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said in September that Fidelity will soon open retail access to crypto.

Bitcoin won’t hedge inflation until it hits 1B wallets: Scaramucci

The Skybridge Capital CEO said Bitcoin needs much more proliferation before it can act as an inflation hedge.

Skybridge Capital CEO Anthony Scaramucci believes that while Bitcoin continues to be an attractive asset, it has not reached the “wallet bandwidth” that is required for it to be considered an inflation hedge. 

Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Aug 22. the global investment management CEO said Bitcoin was still too much of “an early adopting technical asset” which would need to be held in around a billion wallets before it would begin to act as a hedge against inflation.

“Until you get into the billion, billion-plus zone, I don’t think you’re going to see Bitcoin as an inflation [hedge] as it’s still an early adopting technical asset.”

While the exact number of Bitcoin wallets in the world is unknown, estimates place this number at approximately 200 million.

In its earlier years, some touted Bitcoin as a potential hedge against inflation, given its fixed supply of 21 million coins. This narrative has changed over time, however, as Bitcoin has been observed as being increasingly correlated to the stock market, according to a new IMF report. 

Scaramucci said he was still bullish on Bitcoin and the overall crypto market pointing to recent moves from BlackRock to launch a new private spot Bitcoin trust with Coinbase as the custodian — a sign that there is strong institutionalized demand for the leading cryptocurrency.

Scaramucci believes that the markets are currently filled with a ton of short positions, which could result in people getting “their faces ripped off when they least expect it.

In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, Steven Lubka, managing director of private clients at Swan Bitcoin argued that Bitcoin should still be considered an inflation hedge.

While Lubka agreed that Bitcoin has failed to act as an inflationary hedge during the global inflation events this year, he believes that this inflation has been predominantly caused by supply shocks rather than monetary expansion — where Bitcoin is able to hedge against inflation more effectively.

Related: UK hits double-digit inflation for the first time in 40 years

As of the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price is currently $21,406, down 69.01% from its all-time high of $69,045 on November 11 last year.

Also speaking on ‘Squawk Box’ on Monday, Coinshare’s chief strategy officer Meltem Demirors said she expects Bitcoin prices will continue to remain flat throughout the third quarter as the price correlation between tech equities and cryptocurrencies continues.


Bitcoin won’t hedge inflation until it hits 1B wallets: Scaramucci

The Skybridge Capital CEO said Bitcoin needs much more proliferation before it can act as an inflation hedge.

Skybridge Capital CEO Anthony Scaramucci believes that while Bitcoin (BTC) continues to be an attractive asset, it has not reached the “wallet bandwidth” that is required for it to be considered an inflation hedge. 

Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday. the global investment management CEO said Bitcoin was still too much of “an early adopting technical asset” which would need to be held in around a billion wallets before it would begin to act as a hedge against inflation:

“Until you get into the billion, billion-plus zone, I don’t think you’re going to see Bitcoin as an inflation [hedge] as it’s still an early adopting technical asset.”

While the exact number of Bitcoin wallets in the world is unknown, estimates place this number at approximately 200 million.

In its earlier years, some touted Bitcoin as a potential hedge against inflation, given its fixed supply of 21 million coins. This narrative has changed over time, however, as Bitcoin has been observed as being increasingly correlated to the stock market, according to a new IMF report. 

Scaramucci said he was still bullish on Bitcoin and the overall crypto market pointing to recent moves from BlackRock to launch a new private spot Bitcoin trust with Coinbase as the custodian — a sign that there is strong institutionalized demand for the leading cryptocurrency.

Scaramucci believes that the markets are currently filled with a ton of short positions, which could result in people getting “their faces ripped off when they least expect it.”

In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, Steven Lubka, managing director of private clients at Swan Bitcoin, argued that Bitcoin should still be considered an inflation hedge.

While Lubka agreed that Bitcoin has failed to act as an inflationary hedge during the global inflation events this year, he believes that this inflation has been predominantly caused by supply shocks rather than monetary expansion — where Bitcoin is able to hedge against inflation more effectively.

Related: UK hits double-digit inflation for the first time in 40 years

As of the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price is currently $21,406, down 69.01% from its all-time high of $69,045 on Nov. 11 last year.

Also speaking on Squawk Box on Monday, Coinshare’s chief strategy officer Meltem Demirors said she expects Bitcoin prices will continue to remain flat throughout the third quarter as the price correlation between tech equities and cryptocurrencies continues.


The bottom is in: CNBC’s Jim Cramer says crypto has “no real value”

Mad Money host Jim Cramer has changed his sentiment on crypto again, predicting the total market cap will tank below $1 trillion as “there’s no real value there.”

Given his track record, some in the crypto community believe the market bottom may now be in after CNBC host Jim Cramer said there was “no real value in crypto” and predicted the market would tumble further.

Cramer is known for giving his investment expertise as the host of CNBC’s Mad Money, but has developed a reputation in the crypto community for giving stock and crypto tips that generally end up being wide of the mark, or the complete opposite of his prediction.

His predictions, along with his on-again off-again love-hate relationship with crypto have become a popular meme among the community over the past few years.

Appearing on a segment of CNBC’s Squawk Box on July 5, Cramer was commenting on the bearish performance of various asset classes in 2022. He stated that the current sector he is currently “most interested in” is crypto as he slammed it as essentially being worthless while predicting more carnage ahead.

“Crypto really does seem to be imploding. Went from $3 trillion to $1 trillion. Why should it stop at $1 trillion? There’s no real value there.”

“How many companies can Sam Bankman-Fried save?” he added.

The comments are in stark contrast to just two months earlier when Cramer enthusiastically stated that he was a “believer” in Ethereum, and “you could easily get 35-40%” return on investment in the near future.

This prediction occurred when Ether (ETH) was priced at roughly $3,000, and the price has since dropped 62% since then.

During the segment, Cramer also went after NFTs, as he questioned the amount of money that is being thrown around on such an “awful” asset class:

“NFTs, I mean, you look at these companies that you’ve never heard of and they blew up over the weekend, and you say to yourself, holy cow, there’s $600 million just going down the drain. […] What an awful asset. NFTs sold to you. Made up.”

In response to Cramer’s tips, user accounts such as the “Inverse Cramer ETF” have sprouted up on Twitter which tracks “the stock recommendations of Jim Cramer so you can do the opposite.”

The profile has obtained 62,800 followers so far and has recently observed the stock prices of Ford and Nike dropping 25% and 7% apiece since Cramer recommended buying them.

Cramer first bought Bitcoin (BTC) back in December 2020. During the bear market in June last year, Cramer stated he sold all of his BTC saying the price is “not going up because of structural reasons.” Four months later the price of BTC surged to its ATH of roughly $69,000.

Related: Bitcoin price swings 7.5% during intraday trading as US recession concerns mount

Another notable tip occurred in August 2021, when Cramer suggested buying Coinbase stock COIN as it was “cheap” at roughly $248. At time of writing, COIN is priced at $55.41 according to Yahoo Finance.


The bottom is in: CNBC’s Jim Cramer says crypto has ‘no real value’

“Mad Money” host Jim Cramer has changed his sentiment on crypto again, predicting the total market cap will tank below $1 trillion, as “There’s no real value there.”

Some in the crypto community believe the market bottom may now be in after CNBC host Jim Cramer, given his track record, said there was “no real value in crypto” and predicted the market would tumble further.

Cramer is known for giving his investment expertise as the host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” but has developed a reputation in the crypto community for giving stock and crypto tips that generally end up being widely off the mark or the complete opposite of his prediction.

His predictions, along with his on-again-off-again love-hate relationship with crypto, have become a popular meme among the community over the past few years.

Appearing on a segment of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday, Cramer commented on the bearish performance of various asset classes in 2022. He stated that the sector he is currently “most interested in” is crypto as he slammed it as essentially being worthless while predicting more carnage ahead:

“Crypto really does seem to be imploding. Went from $3 trillion to $1 trillion. Why should it stop at $1 trillion? There’s no real value there.”

“How many companies can Sam Bankman-Fried save?” he added.

The comments are in stark contrast to just two months earlier when Cramer enthusiastically stated that he was a “believer” in Ether (ETH) and that “You could easily get 35–40%” return on investment in the near future.

This prediction occurred when ETH was priced at roughly $3,000, and the price has since dropped 62% since then.

During the segment, Cramer also went after nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as he questioned the amount of money that is being thrown around on such an “awful” asset class:

“NFTs. I mean, you look at these companies that you’ve never heard of, and they blew up over the weekend. And you say to yourself, ‘Holy cow, there’s $600 million just going down the drain.’ […] What an awful asset. NFTs sold to you. Made up.”

In response to Cramer’s tips, Twitter accounts such as Inverse Cramer ETF, which tracks “the stock recommendations of Jim Cramer so you can do the opposite,” have sprouted up.

The profile has obtained 62,800 followers so far and recently observed the stock prices of Ford and Nike dropping 25% and 7% apiece, respectively, since Cramer recommended buying them.

Cramer first bought Bitcoin (BTC) back in December 2020. During the bear market in June 2021, Cramer stated he sold all of his BTC, saying the price was “not going up because of structural reasons.” Four months later, the price of BTC surged to its all-time high of roughly $69,000.

Related: Bitcoin price swings 7.5% during intraday trading as US recession concerns mount

Another notable tip occurred in August 2021 when Cramer suggested buying Coinbase stock, as it was “cheap” at roughly $248. At the time of writing, COIN is priced at $55.41, according to Yahoo Finance.