With famous names including Wall Street investors, hedge fund managers, big tech CEOs, Silicon Valley entrepeneurs and billionaires buying Bitcoin then talking to media, cryptocurrency is fast becoming impossible for the financial world to ignore any longer.
Here’s a top fifteen list of the times billionaires buying Bitcoin made the news past and present, from around the 2017 bull run to 2021 – including their best quotes and Bitcoin price predictions they made.
Some billionaires have even gone further and been quoted talking about popular altcoins Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Solana (SOL), decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Elon Musk
“I own Bitcoin, Tesla owns Bitcoin, SpaceX owns Bitcoin.” (Forbes, Jul 2021)
“To clarify speculation, Tesla has not sold any Bitcoin. I have not sold any of my Bitcoin. Tesla has diamond hands.” (CNBC, May 2021)
“Having some Bitcoin is simply a less dumb form of liquidity than cash. When fiat currency has negative real interest, only a fool wouldn’t look elsewhere. ” (via Twitter @elonmusk)
“My Shiba Inu will be named Floki.” (via Twitter @elonmusk)
Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX and product architect of Tesla, Inc. A centibillionaire, Musk is the richest person in the world as of September 2021, recently overtaking Jeff Bezos on the Forbes rich list.
Barry Silbert
“In 2013, everybody thought we were crazy for launching a Bitcoin investment fund. Well, look at us now.” (via Twitter @BarrySilbert)
“Banks can’t ignore Bitcoin anymore.” (Fortune.com, Apr 2014 )
“Once Wall Street starts putting money into Bitcoin – we’re talking about hundreds of millions, billions of dollars moving in – it’s going to have a pretty dramatic effect on the price.” (Coinmarketcap, Feb 2021)
Barry Silbert is the founder of Grayscale, Nasdaq Private Market, and the CEO of Digital Currency Group, one of the first billionaires buying Bitcoin since 2012.
Mark Cuban
“Bitcoin is a better alternative to Gold, and it’s going to continue to be. That’s why I own Bitcoin and never sold it.
“What really changed everything was smart contracts. They came along, and that created DeFi and NFTs. That’s what changed the game. That’s what got me excited. That’s why it’s a lot like the internet.”
“I own Bitcoin and I have a lot of Ethereum as well. I wish I had bought it sooner, but I started buying it four years ago, simply because I think it’s the closest we have to a true currency.” (CNBC, Apr 2021)
“As long as more companies take Doge for products/services, then Doge can be a usable currency because it MAY hold its purchasing value better than a $ in your bank. If interest rates skyrocket or the amount spent falls or stagnates, so will Doge. Yes, a joke is now legit.” (via Twitter @mcuban)
“The number of transactions and the diversity of transaction types along with the development efforts in Ethereum dwarf Bitcoin. The utilization of Ethereum is much higher.” (CNBC, May 2021)
Mark Cuban is a billionaire TV personality, appearing on Shark Tank. He is bullish on both Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Michael Saylor
“Bitcoin is going to flip Gold, and it’s going to subsume the entire Gold market cap.” (Reuters, Feb 2021)
“The story here that’s not being told is that Bitcoin is egalitarian progressive technology. We’re going to see a day when 7 to 8 billion people have a bar of digital gold on their phone, and they’re using it to store their life savings with it.” (CoinTelegraph, Feb 2021)
“Bitcoin will reach a $100 trillion market value – a 100x increase from its current market cap.” (CNBC, Feb 2021)
Michael Saylor is a billionaire entrepreneur and business executive, buying Bitcoin heavily during the 2021 bull run via the company he founded, Microstrategy. Unlike Mark Cuban he’s a Bitcoin maximalist, an investor that doesn’t diversify into owning other altcoins and tokens.
Mike Novogratz
“There’s been a giant realization that crypto is not just Bitcoin being bought as a hedge against bad monetary and fiscal policy. More importantly, it’s the web 3.0. No investor wants to miss the next internet.” (BeingCrypto.com, Sep 2021)
“Crypto has bounced back because institutions are buying… this was partly a big short-covering rally and partly recognition that this is a real market that’s not going anywhere.” (Yahoo Finance, Jul 2021)
“The amount of growth that we’re going to see in our space is staggering. We’re just getting started. Right now, total crypto wealth is roughly $2 trillion, so that’s one half of 1% of all wealth. If you don’t think in the next two to three years that can be 2% to 3%, you’re not paying attention to the trends.” (CNBC, Apr 2021)
Mike Novogratz is the CEO of Galaxy Digital, and former hedge fund manager. A billionaire before the 2008 crisis, he recovered his fortune by buying cryptocurrency.
Tyler & Cameron Winklevoss
“Our thesis is that Bitcoin is Gold 2.0, that it will disrupt Gold as a store of value. If it does that, it has to have a market cap of 9 Trillion, so we think it could price one day at $500,000 a Bitcoin.” (Business Insider, Nov 2020)
“Bitcoin is a hold or a buy opportunity if you don’t have any, because we think there’s a 25x from here.” (CNBC, Nov 2020)
“A Shiba Inu $DOGE is man and woman’s best friend. It may not be the hero the world deserves right now, but it may be the one that we need right now. (via Twitter @tyler)
“First they laugh at you, then they laugh at you some more, then they laugh at you even more, then Dogecoin goes to the moon.” (via Twitter @cameron)
The Winklevoss twins are credited by some as being the rightful owners of Facebook, famously trying to sue Mark Zuckerberg. They moved into the cryptocurrency markets and became billionaires buying Bitcoin instead.
Paul Tudor Jones
“Buying Bitcoin is like investing with Steve Jobs and Apple or investing in Google early.” (Forber, Oct 2020)
“Bitcoin has a lot of characteristics of being an early investor in a tech company. I think we are in the first inning of Bitcoin. It’s got a long way to go.” (Decrypto.co, Oct 2020)
“Bitcoin has this enormous contingent of really, really smart and sophisticated people who believe in it. I came to the conclusion that Bitcoin was going to be the best of inflation trades, the defensive trades, that you would take.” (Cryptonews.net, Oct 2020)
Paul Tudor Jones is a philanthropist, hedge fund manager and billionaire, founder of the Robin Hood foundation.
Tim Draper
“Bitcoin will reach $250,000 by the end of 2022 or early 2023. I think I’m going to be right on this one.”
“Bitcoin is sort of like Microsoft in the software world or Amazon in the e-commerce world.”
“I think Bitcoin continues up because there are only 21 million of them. By virtue of its code, only 21 million bitcoin can be mined. Give it about a year and a half and retailers will all accept Bitcoin.” (All quotes – CNBC, Jun 2021)
Tim Draper is a Silicon Valley billionaire entrepeneur, venture capital investor and graduate of Stanford and Harvard Business School.
Bill Miller
“I think the risks of bitcoin going to zero are much, much lower than they’ve ever been before. It has been very volatile, but I think right now its staying power gets better every day.” (BusinessInsider, Nov 2020)
“I think every major bank, every major investment bank, every major high net-worth firm is going to eventually have some exposure to Bitcoin or what’s like it, which is Gold or some kind of commodities.” (Forbes, Nov 2020)
“I strongly recommend Bitcoin. It’s the single best performing asset class in the last year, five-year and 10-year periods.” (Forbes, Nov 2020)
“Bitcoin’s a lot less risky at $43,000 than it was at $300, because it’s now established. There’s been huge amounts of venture capital money that’s gone into it. All the big banks are getting involved with it. I’m willing to over the waterfall with this one.” (nasdaq.com, Oct 2021)
“There are protocols that are theoretically superior to Ethereum, such as Solana. Will they overtake it? I have no idea, but it’s a complex area, and that’s why I tend to stay with Michael Saylor and some of these other people. I own Ethereum, but a trivial amount relative to what I own in Bitcoin.” (blockworks.co, Oct 2021)
Bill Miller is a legendary Wall Street value investor and hedge fund manager.
Stanley Drunkenmiller
“It’s been around for 13 years and with each passing day it picks up more of its stabilization as a brand. Bitcoin could be an asset class that has a lot of attraction as a store of value.” (CoinTelegraph, Nov. 2020)
“If the Gold bet works the Bitcoin bet will probably work better because it’s thinner, more illiquid and has a lot more beta to it. I’ve warmed up to Bitcoin.” (USA Today, Jan 2021)
Stanley Drunkenmiller is the former chairman and president of Duquesne Capital, a company with assets valued at over $12 billion.
Anthony Scaramucci
“Anybody that does the homework… ends up investing into it. Look at Ray Dalio, a Bitcoin skeptic, now a Bitcoin investor.” (CNBC, Oct 2021)
“If you had one cent in Bitcoin and 99 cents in cash over the last decade, you outperformed everything. Just think about that.”
“I got a Billion dollars of this stuff. I’m all in” (A. Pompliano podcast, Oct 2021)
Anthony Scaramucci is the former White House Director of Communications and left Goldman Sachs to found investment firm Skybridge Capital with $9.2 Billion in assets. His original $400 million investment into Bitcoin in 2020 alone has now made him a Billionaire.
Jack Dorsey
“What inspires me the most about Bitcoin is the community driving it. It reminds me of the early internet.” (CNBC, Jul, 2021)
“My hope is that creates or helps create world peace. It’s going to be long-term, but my hope is definitely peace.” (CNBC, Jul, 2021)
“Bitcoin changes absolutely everything. I don’t think there is anything more important in my lifetime to work on.” (Yahoo, Jul, 2021)
“The world ultimately will have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be Bitcoin.” (The Times, Mar 2018)
Jack Dorsey became a billionaire when he co-founded social media platform Twitter, led his other company Square into the world of DeFi, and started a $23.6 million Bitcoin fund with rapper Jay Z.
Steve Wozniak
“The government can just create new dollars, and borrow and borrow. You never have it fixed. Bitcoin was the goal. It’s the digital equivalent of Gold. Bitcoin is the most amazing mathematical miracle.”
“Bitcoin is mathematically defined, there is a certain quantity of Bitcoin, there’s a way it’s distributed and it’s pure and there’s no human running it, there’s no company running it and it’s just growing and growing and surviving, that to me says something that is natural and nature is more important than all our human conventions.” (CNBC, 2018)
“I buy into what Jack Dorsey says [on Bitcoin becoming the world’s single currency], not that I necessarily believe it’s going to happen, but because I want it to be that way.”
Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple alongside Steve Jobs. He’s now a philanthropist helping to fund entrepeneurial efforts in technology.
Tim Cook
“I think it’s reasonable to own it as a part of a diversified portfolio – and I’m not giving anybody investment advice by the way [chuckles].”
“I do own some. I think it’s interesting. Apple is looking into cryptocurrency.”
“I’ve been interested in it for a while and I’ve been researching it and so forth.” (Dealbook online summit, Nov 2021)
Tim Cook has been the CEO of Apple since 2011, previously serving as the COO under Steve Jobs.
George Soros
The elusive billionaire George Soros hasn’t made many public statements on buying Bitcoin yet, perhaps as he once called Bitcoin a ‘bubble‘ – like many however he now appears to have changed his mind.
The CEO and chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management, Dawn Fitzpatrick confirmed in 2021 that the family office now owns ‘some coins, but not a lot.’
“I’m not sure Bitcoin is only viewed as an inflation hedge here. I think it’s crossed the chasm to mainstream.” (nasdaq.com, Oct 2021)
Mark Zuckerberg
Similar to Soros, Mark Zuckerberg didn’t advocate Bitcoin much in its early years, and Facebook (now rebranded to Meta and launching a Metaverse project) was said at one point to be making its own rival cryptocurrency Libra.
Several years have passed without it materialising, and no one is quite sure what happened to Libra – there are some proposals it will now become a stablecoin, Diem.
“Cryptocurrency technologies can take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands.” – (Economic Times, 2018)
“I’m very optimistic about Crypto and Web 3 and that whole general direction. I think it’s still quite early compared to what it’s going to be and its full potential.”
Billionaires Buying Bitcoin – Who’s Left in 2022
One of the only famous billionaire names left in finance still critical of Bitcoin is JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. Although JPMorgan Chase did eventually become the first bank to give retail clients access to buying Bitcoin.
The most vocal detractor of Bitcoin on Twitter is stockbroker and financial commentator Peter Schiff. Although he is not yet a billionaire, with a net worth of $70 million and preferring to invest in Gold.
One billionaire critic of crypto is American investor and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger.
He stated at a shareholder meeting: ‘I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth, nor do I like just shuffling out of your extra billions of billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air.’
Warren Buffett, billionaire CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway has also cited the greater fool theory – ‘If you buy something like Bitcoin or some cryptocurrency, you don’t have anything that is producing anything. You’re just hoping the next guy pays more.’
Bill Gates in June 2022 specifically said digital assets like crypto and NFTs are ‘100% based on greater fool theory’. Although he added he is not short Bitcoin. Gates is the 4th richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth over $133 billion.
Goldman Sachs has recently reversed course on crypto – once being one of its detractors – and expanded into offering Bitcoin trading. The narrative of institutional investors buying Bitcoin and digital assets has seen the Bitcoin market cap once again reach $1 trillion.
The first futures-based ETF has recently been approved. Will more news of institutions and billionaires buying Bitcoin push the price to six figures per coin? That remains to be seen in 2022 and beyond.
If it does, it will also drag up the dollar and USDT price of all altcoins with it, whether Ethereum, Dogecoin or Shiba Inu, even if the latter two are more speculative and based on memes. You can buy Bitcoin, ETH, DOGE and SHIB on regulated exchange eToro and ride the bullish trend.
2022 Update – the Russian government has also announced it owns over $200 billion in Bitcoin assets, and is making moves to make cryptocurrency legal tender – we could add Vladimir Putin to the list. Bitcoin is sitting at around its 21 weekly EMA, historically a good time to invest in Bitcoin.
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