Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Do you think billionaires invest in BTC?
by
Cormoran
on 10/09/2017, 13:11:08 UTC
It's standard for financial advisers to recommend a diverse portfolio; with over 5 million dollars in a portfolio, financial advisers will start recommending alternative investments as well as the normal diversification methods of splitting money between equity, fixed income, bonds and cash/gold with varying ratios based on the client's age and risk tolerance. I'm not sure whether financial advisers with a large investment bank are actually allowed to pitch bitcoin as even an alternative investment yet, in the US - my portfolio doesn't qualify for my advisers to make official recommendations about alternative investments, but I've unofficially discussed them. Bitcoin was one of the investments my advisers were quite excited to find I was investing in, and one actually has called me several times to chat about it after finding out that I was investing. Based on this, I'd say it's very likely that people who are being advised on alternative investments have put some money into bitcoin, although it's more properly called speculation rather than investment imo.

Either way, semantics aside, I think most ultra-high net worth portfolios would include 1-2% in bitcoin or other risky, but possibly very rewarding speculative bets. That's generally the level of exposure that's considered wise; some might be extra cautious and stay away from it entirely, like Howard Marks, some might put more in like John McAfee reportedly has. The most recent I've heard was that Mark Cuban has $20m invested into 1confirmation, a new cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund; he's dismissed the whole thing as a bubble before just like Marks, but he's gradually coming around and at the least is willing to put .6% of his net worth into it. That would be the equivalent of someone with a net worth of $70k, which is the average American's net worth as of the last census in 2011, investing $500. For someone who's living paycheck to paycheck with a rented apartment and leased car, and a total net worth of around $15-20k, that's equivalent to more like $100. Not much, when you look at it in scale, but it's something.