Bill Miller the billionaire founder and Chief Investment Officer of funding agency Miller Value Partners, has mentioned he considers Bitcoin (BTC) an “insurance policy against financial catastrophe.”
Appearing on an episode of the “Richer, Wiser, Happier” podcast on May 24 Miller backed the cryptocurrency as a way for these caught in battle to nonetheless entry monetary merchandise. He used the collapse of monetary infrastructure in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal in August 2021 for instance.
“When the US pulled out of Afghanistan, Western Union stopped sending remittances there or taking them from Afghanistan, but if you had Bitcoin, you were fine. Your Bitcoin is there. You can send it to anybody in the world if you have a phone.”
Miller mentioned examples of how the crypto can perform as insurance coverage don’t “have to be all or nothing” and famous how Bitcoin carried out in the course of the early phases of the pandemic and the Federal Reserve’s response to it.
“When the Fed stepped in and started gunning the money supply and bailing out, in essence, the mortgage rates […] Bitcoin functioned fine. There was no run on Bitcoin. The system functioned without the Fed and without any interference. Everybody got their Bitcoin, the price adjusted, and then when the Bitcoiners realized, ‘Wait, we’re going to have inflation down the road,’ Bitcoin went through the roof.”
“It’s an insurance policy, the way I look at it,” he added.
Miller additionally rebuked Warren Buffett’s latest criticism of Bitcoin the place the billionaire investor famously remarked that “it doesn’t produce anything” and he “wouldn’t take” all of the Bitcoin on the planet for even $25.
“He’s mentioned that Bitcoin is a non-productive asset and subsequently he cannot worth it. Fair sufficient. If the one factor that you just assume you may worth are productive belongings, then nobody’s making you purchase it, proper? So ignore it.”
He later adopted up his remark, including “the objective of investing is not to own productive assets, the objective is to make money”.
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Miller is legendary for managing a portfolio which for 15 consecutive years between 1991 and 2005 persistently beat the returns of the S&P 500 index. He’s additionally recognized for his advocacy of Bitcoin and put half of his internet price into the asset in January.
When requested if he nonetheless held that place Miller confirmed that about “40% to 50%” of his cash was in Amazon inventory and his Bitcoin holdings have been “about the same as Amazon”, including that 80% of his internet price is break up between the 2 belongings.
Miller additionally mentioned the Luna-based tattoo on the arm of Mike Novogratz, the founding father of crypto asset administration agency Galaxy Digital after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem:
“Somebody had sent me a picture of Mike Novogratz where he got a Luna tattoo on his arm months ago of the wolf howling at the moon, and it’s big. It’s like, whoops, maybe you should have got a Bitcoin on your arm, it’d be a little more enduring than that one.”
Novogratz has mentioned that the tattoo might be a “constant reminder that venture investing requires humility” as Galaxy Digital posted a $300 million loss on its Luna investments.
“I felt bad for him when I saw some story of him going from something like $10 billion to $2 billion,” Miller mentioned, “I’m like, yeah, that’s really tragic”.
