Bitcoin Will Have to be A Part of Any Portfolio: Ex-President of NYSE

Bitcoin has hit the mainstream. Former President of the New York Stock Exchange, Thomas Farley has said during an interview on Squawk Box that Bitcoin is “trusted, censorship-resistant, there will only ever be 21 million, and it will have to be part of a portfolio.”

Farley is an American banker, and current CEO of Far Point Acquisition Corp. He said:

“When Bitcoin was at $60,000, you had a lot of institutions on the sideline who were looking and saying, ‘boy, we’d like to invest. We’d like to allocate 1% to 3% of our portfolios, pension funds, for example, but it’s $60,000. It feels toppy, there’s some mania.’ But they’ve done the diligence. They’ve met with their investment committees. And so, as it went down to $17,000, it wasn’t a shock to me that you saw some of those institutions stepping in for the very first time buy Bitcoin for their portfolio.”

Bitcoin Volatility

When challenged about Bitcoin’s volatility, Farley said there was ‘a moment of capitulation.’

“I think it is a combination of some really smart Bitcoin whales that have been in it for 10 years, and then fairly quickly, some of those institutions stepping in that’s exactly what’s happened. Bitcoin is up 40%. That doesn’t mean it’s going to go up another 40%. But in crypto, there’s Bitcoin. And then there’s literally everything else. Bitcoin is trusted. it’s largely censorship-resistant. There will only and ever be 21 million Bitcoin. It will have to be a component and a portfolio of broad portfolios, like a pension fund. Maybe just to a small extent but it will have to be there.”

After declaring his support for BTC, Farley gave his take on all the other coins. “Then there are all other cryptocurrencies. Ethereum is in a special class of its own.  Then there are stablecoins, and everything else looks like a speculative stock. Maybe if you invest in it you make money, maybe you lose all of your money.”

While Farley has been a strong supporter of Bitcoin, he does temper this opinion with the occasional warning.

“Bitcoin is a store of value, but the price fluctuations are much, much higher than other stores of value. Yes, the upside potential of holding BTC is high. But so, too, is the downside. The ‘to the moon’ verbiage is dangerous.”