Today was an ugly day for the cryptocurrency world. In fact, it was a bad day for the financial markets in general. The U.S. stock indexes fell 2% on average, the FTSE lost 3.64%, the DAX was down 4.15%, oil futures tumbled more than 10%, and cryptocurrencies lost more than $200 billion in capitalization.
All because of fears of a new strain of COVID-19 that had speculators and analysts brainstorming scenarios of a possible new lockdown. Recently, scientists discovered the B.1.1.529 variant of the coronavirus. It has a high number of mutations that could make it immune to the antidotes developed to date.
Anthony Scaramucci is Bullish on Bearish Times
However, while some are rushing to sell their assets in fear, others take advantage of the situation to fill their pockets. Anthony Scaramuci, Trump’s former Comms director during his tenure in the White House, is one of them.
In a recent interview for CNBC, the Founder of SkyBridge Capital explained that this panic episode (the biggest since the 2020 crash) is nothing but a Black Friday and that people should take advantage of it to inject money into strategic investments as government monetary policies do not give much reason to be optimistic.
“If the Fed is not tapering, this is a buying opportunity. It’s Black Friday, and things are on sale.”
Discussing the cryptocurrency market, Scaramucci called for calm. He explained that the fears that led to the fall do not affect the fundamentals and that while there is a market overreaction, in the big picture, cryptocurrencies have enough reason to emerge stronger from this economic episode.
“If you believe in the long-term fundamentals as we do, this is the time to be buying. I just think this is a risk-off situation right now. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies being volatile, that’s taking people out of the game. That’s also washing out some of the leverage, which I think sets up a pretty nice first quarter.”
Cryptocurrencies Are Doing Just Fine All Things Considered
Scaramucci is not the only bullish person in this sea of tears. Ricardo Salinas Pliego – the third richest man in Mexico – recommended his Twitter followers to buy Bitcoin as a hedge against the consequences of irresponsible U.S. policies.
Good old USA is looking more and more like any other irresponsible third world country….wow…look at the scale of fake money creation.
Buy #Bitcoin right now. https://t.co/xzv0xk2TQq pic.twitter.com/JMslqlagLE— Ricardo Salinas Pliego (@RicardoBSalinas) November 24, 2021
Salinas Pliego defends the thesis that Bitcoin is the equivalent of digital gold and acts as a store of value. Scaramucci, for his part, does not share this view.
“I don’t think it’s a hedge against inflation at this moment in time. I think (it could be in the) long term, if you got to a billion wallets, and Bitcoin is in a stable trading zone … This is sort of Amazon in the year 2000, so this comes with some volatility.”
Volatile or not, Scaramucci still believes that cryptocurrency markets have reacted in a healthy way to what could be bloodshed —considering previous crises.
Economic analyst Alex Krueger agrees with this position, highlighting that cryptocurrency traders fared better than traditional investors on this Black Friday.
Crypto tanked due to extreme risk off sentiment triggered by the new covid variant. It would have crashed in the same way had prices been much lower. Not a matter of euphoria. Crypto assets performed well relative to other asset classes such the crude oil complex and small caps.
— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) November 26, 2021
