“I hold Bitcoin because the US government and every other nation in the western hemisphere are creating money now and for the foreseeable future,” millionaire Barry Sternlicht said.
Following JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s recent remarks that Bitcoin (BTC) is useless, two prominent billionaires have come to its support – but both argue that Ether (ETH) has some even more desirable qualities.
Barry Sternlicht, a co-founder of Starwood Capital Group, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Wednesday that gold is “worthless” and that he is hoarding Bitcoin because every country in the “western hemisphere” is creating unlimited quantities of money.
Sternlicht, whose net worth is believed to be about $4.4 billion, is well-known for his real estate investments via Starwood Capital Group. The investment company was established in 1991 and now manages about $95 billion in assets (AUM).
Sternlicht was questioned about Dimon’s repeated assertions that BTC is “worthless.” “Gold, like silver, is somewhat useless. That is, they have a few industrial applications, but they are small. I hold Bitcoin because the US government and every other country in the western hemisphere are creating money indefinitely,” he said.
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and worth $4.3 billion, expressed similar views in an interview with CNBC’s Make It on Wednesday. Cuban said that Bitcoin is “better than gold” and that he believes Ether has the “greatest upside” as an investment. Despite his preference for Bitcoin over gold, Sternlicht qualified his endorsement of Bitcoin with admiration for Ether.
“Bitcoin is a dumb coin, it has no real purpose other than a store of value, and it’s crazily volatile. So, Ether, I own some of that. It’s a programmable Bitcoin, and there are tons of other coins that are built on that system.”
“I’ve developed a strong interest in blockchain technology as a whole, and in the digital ledger, which is going to revolutionize everything; we’re probably just in the first inning,” he said.
However, not every millionaire has jumped on the crypto bandwagon. Larry Fink, head of BlackRock ($9.4 trillion AUM), said that he is “probably more in the Jamie Dimon side.”
“Because I am not a student of Bitcoin or its future trajectory, I cannot tell you if it will reach $80K or $0. However, I think that digital money has a significant role to play,” he said.
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