Draper shrugs. Investors should do their homework by scrutinizing who’s running the ICOs and whether their business plans seem legitimate, he said.
“I take huge risks,’’ he said with a laugh. “I lose my money 60 percent of the time.’’
Whatever the risks, Wall Street is inching closer to embracing bitcoin and its ilk as a bona fide asset class. Last week, CME Group Inc., the world’s largest exchange owner, announced it was planning to launch bitcoin futures by the end of the year, which could pave the way for approval of exchange-traded funds based on the cryptocurrency. On Nov. 2, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said bitcoin could go mainstream.
Hedge funds are raising hundreds of millions dollars to pour into digital currencies. But Draper said he thinks bitcoin will divide the financial services industry, at least initially.
“There will be a few who embrace it and jump out front and say, ‘This is important’ and then there are going to be those who jump back and say, ‘I’m going to cling to the past and I’m going to hold onto everything I’ve got.’ And you know who wins then,” he said. “It’s always progress, it’s always technology.’’
With 30,000 bitcoins in his digital wallet, Draper, for now at least, wins too.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.