Novogratz also said that the maturation and acceptance of cryptocurrencies and blockchain is “taking longer than we thought it would.”
Today, bitcoin has a total market capitalization of nearly $170 billion, which Novogratz said makes it a “top-25 stock in the world.” Gold, by comparison, has a $9 trillion market capitalization – but “at one point, bitcoin passes gold.”
But bitcoin’s ability to store value has already made it a popular haven in markets where currency devaluations are a present problem, said Novogratz, as citizens of Venezuela and Zimbabwe turned to bitcoin when the value of their local currencies plummeted.
Novogratz was not as confident in other cryptocurrencies.
“I would put bitcoin in the commodity bucket, any other crypto goes in the venture bucket,” he said. “There are communities of people who believe what I believe about bitcoin, but about the other cryptocurrencies. I fundamentally don’t believe those are going to survive.”
One exception would be so-called “stablecoins”’ like Facebook’s proposed Libra, whose values are pegged to existing fiat currencies like the dollar. Stablecoins have potential as a transaction medium, but would be prone to the same monetary policies and manipulations as the fiat currencies they’re associated with.
But Facebook was a “hated” company when it announced its intent to launch a cryptocurrency, said Novogratz. “If it had not been Facebook, Libra could have maybe gone through. I don’t think it’s dead… my guess is that they try to show up somehow.”
And he remains a true believer in blockchain technology.
“Just as the internet changed the world in 1999—how we meet our spouse, have sex, watch movies and read books – I would venture to you that in 20 years the blockchain will be ubiquitous.”