Investment legend Bill Miller sees bitcoin as a kind of insurance against future financial disasters, he told CNBC on Wednesday.
Miller said he still holds a sizable fortune in Bitcoin, even though it has been trading about 36 percent below its record high since January.
The billionaire also sees the addition of bitcoin and ether to KPMG’s balance sheet in Canada as another important step in cryptocurrency adoption by foundations and institutions.
Billionaire investor Bill Miller has always had a keen sense for the right investments. He achieved legend status when, as manager of the Legg Mason Value Trust, he outperformed the benchmark S & P 500 index for 15 consecutive years – from 1991 to 2005. Now the star investor is betting on Bitcoin.
Miller sees the digital store of value as insurance against future financial catastrophes and therefore still invests a significant amount of his assets in the cryptocurrency. He argues that it is still in its “infancy” – its early stages – and therefore there is still plenty of room for growth.
“But you can’t buy anything with Bitcoin,” critics often say. True, says the billionaire as well. Instead, he compares the digital asset to high-value collectibles like a Picasso painting. “It’s like insurance,” the chairman and CIO of Millar Value Partners told CNBC news network Wednesday. “Insurance has no intrinsic value. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. You certainly don’t want your house to burn down or get into a tragic accident. Yet you pay for insurance every year just in case it does happen.”
“Bitcoin is insurance against financial disasters like we saw in Lebanon, Afghanistan or many other countries at the time of the pandemic,” Miller added. Billionaires Mike Novogratz and Charles Hoskinson are of the same opinion, with the two crypto advocates most recently saying that holding crypto money could have helped the people of Afghanistan when the country was facing a humanitarian and economic crisis after the collapse of the government last year. Some even suggested that people willing to help should send digital currency to Afghanistan – ensuring that donations would not be confiscated by the Taliban.
Half of Miller’s fortune at times consisted of bitcoin, however, Miller also clarified that he never invested half of his net worth in Bitcoin, as numerous media outlets had reported in January. This, he said, was a misunderstanding. In reality, he initially put only a few percent of his personal wealth into the cryptocurrency, which then grew to half of his total wealth as the price skyrocketed.
“Currently, it’s worth less again because the currency has dropped by half since November,” he says. “But it’s still a big number,” he adds, but did not give specific figures.
