AP/Business Insider
JK Rowling asked Twitter to explain bitcoin to her, and was bombarded by replies — including from Elon Musk.
Rowling ultimately gave up engaging with the topic, a decision Musk supported.
In the process, he took a swipe at conventional central banks, which he said had undermined their credibility and made even bitcoin “look solid by comparison.”
Banks like the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank have pumped trillions of dollars into the global economy via quantitative easing programs.
Many of these have been expanded in an attempt to mitigate the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Elon Musk intervened in a Twitter thread to attempt to explain bitcoin to J.K. Rowling, and ended up attacking central banks whom he said made the cryptocurrency “look solid by comparison.”
Musk chimed in after Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter novels, was bombarded by replies after tweeting: “I don’t understand bitcoin. Please explain it to me.”
Tweet Embed: //twitter.com/mims/statuses/1261351775698694147?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw I don’t understand bitcoin. Please explain it to me.Bitcoin advocates and skeptics then rushed to explain the cryptocurrency — a financial asset which exists solely in digital form.
Unlike traditional currencies, it is not tied to a central bank controlled by a government, and instead is regulated by complicated mathematics and a public log — called a blockchain — of all transactions.
Its value has ballooned since its creation. According to Markets Insider data, a single Bitcoin was worth almost $20,000 in December 2017. Its price at the time of writing was around $9,410.
Despite lofty predictions by its advocates, it has not found widespread use.
Rowling eventually gave up trying to understand bitcoin, posting a tweet that implied that she was no longer interested.
Tweet Embed: //twitter.com/mims/statuses/1261396891784413185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw People are now explaining Bitcoin to me, and honestly, it’s blah blah blah collectibles (My Little Pony?) blah blah blah computers (got one of those) blah blah blah crypto (sounds creepy) blah blah blah understand the risk (I don’t, though.)Musk responded essentially agreeing with her, but taking a swipe at the behavior of traditional central bankers in the process.
Tweet Embed: //twitter.com/mims/statuses/1261416824459030529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Pretty much, although massive currency issuance by govt central banks is making Bitcoin Internet 👻 money look solid by comparisonMusk said that central banks — like the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, and Bank of England — made bitcoin “look solid by comparison” because of their recent behavior.
Since the financial crisis in 2008, banks embarked on a huge program of “quantitative easing” — essentially pumping vast sums into the economy — to prevent the collapse of the economy.
It also left interest rates at historic lows and, critics say, has distorted financial markets in ways we are yet to understand fully.
Many banks have renewed their easing programs in light of the coronavirus pandemic. A report in late April by Fitch Ratings said that central banks around the world had already committed to $6 trillion worth of easing programs.

Allen Farrington writes at Quillette, Areo and Merion West, as well as extensively on Medium, where he has several much longer essays on Bitcoin, finance, economics and related topics. His collected writings can be found here. He lives in Edinburgh. 
At approximately 8:23 p.m. GMT on Monday, May 11, the 630,000th Bitcoin block was mined, the first to offer the reward to its successful miner of 6.25 bitcoin rather than 12.5, as has been the case for the past four years. You may have caught wind of this, what with #BitcoinHalving briefly trending on Twitter, an uptick in coverage of Bitcoin in the media over the past few days, or for some other reason.
There are good ways and bad ways to describe “the halving.” Or rather, there are ways that are factually true and then there are ways that are spiritually true. Whatever mainstream coverage you read on this – if you found any at all – I would bet took the factually true route. They will have told you something like the following:
Miners secure the network by wasting electricity solving useless mathematical puzzles. Whoever solves the puzzle first gets a reward and all the pending transactions get logged. The reward just halved, meaning the supply to the market will likely contract, leading many to suspect the price will go up, while others disagree. So far markets have done …Then whatever markets did in the following hours, which I really don’t think is important at all. It is factually important, for sure. But it is not spiritually important. And to ignore the spiritual importance is to misunderstand the halving entirely, just as it is to misunderstand Bitcoin. It is only spiritually important what happens to the price of Bitcoin over years, decades, and centuries.
The halving was not just the mining of the 630,000th block. It was a social event perhaps unlike any other in history, and perhaps even never to be repeated. Previous halvings (this was the third) were celebrated in bars, beaches, and barbecues, as I am sure this one would have been in normal times. But given the lockdown, the celebrations were migrated to Zoom, YouTube and Twitter, for the most part.
Many thought this a shame, reminisced spending previous halvings – or previous get-togethers of any kind – in person, and looked forward to being able to do so once again whenever normality returns. But I think the circumstances forced their own beauty, their own poignancy. Not everybody can afford to go to New York on a random Monday in May, but everybody can afford to turn on YouTube. The lockdown meant everybody in the world celebrated the halving in the same place: on the internet. In Bitcoin’s home.
And so rather than take planes, trains, and automobiles to the bars, beaches, and barbecues, tens of thousands of individuals tuned in live from all over the world for what – factually – was little more than a countdown. Many likened it to New Year’s Eve, but it was different for at least two reasons, one factual and one spiritual.
Factually, the event itself can only be said to exist on the Internet. It was not “in a place,” except insofar as it was in every place. Unlike New Year’s, therefore, it happened for everybody at the same time.
But spiritually, the importance of this universality really cannot be overstated. The Bitcoin halving happened at the same time for everybody because the Bitcoin protocol is the same thing for everybody. It knows no borders and no nationalities. It knows no time zones. One might say it is its own reference time. The halving didn’t happen at 8:23 p.m. GMT – 8:23 p.m. GMT happened at block 630,000.
Similarly, the halving didn’t happen at ~$8,500 BTC:USD, it happened at 1 BTC:BTC. There will be a time when no “exchange rates” matter or are even meaningful. In anticipation of this, I would encourage the adoption of a different, more consistent metric – perhaps Bitcoin’s share of the aggregate global capitalization of currency? Bitcoin is its own reference value.
Bitcoin’s reference time is the same for everybody, as is its reference value, as is its reference software, as indeed are its engendered social celebrations. Provided you have an internet connection you can use Bitcoin to tell the time, to transfer value, to inspect its code, and to join the party.
Moreover, these must be the same for everybody, because they exist as references in the first place because Bitcoin, the ecosystem, strongly encourages nonviolent agreement. Bitcoin has elevated the importance of the word “consensus” in the English language, and its translations in every language, for that matter. Bitcoin is written in C++. This is the factual reason that everybody can read it. The spiritual reason is that it is open source, and that it must be open source for consensus to form and be maintained.
Every block has a field called coinbase, which the lucky miner may fill with a limited string of text that has no strictly functional purpose in terms of the code, but, due to the open source nature of the blockchain, anybody can read, and hence can be used as a kind of meta-tool for signaling purposes. The very first block ever mined by Satoshi Nakamoto was given the following text as its coinbase:
The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banksFactually, this served as a timestamp. Spiritually, it served as a statement of purpose: a call to arms that cheekily elucidated why this radical experiment was even being attempted. It was soon discovered after the halving that the coinbase of the 629,999th block, the last to reward 12.5 BTC, was filled by mining pool f2pool with the text:
NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Fed’s Plan Far Exceeds 2008 RescueI won’t insult this astonishing gesture by explaining its content. I wish merely to draw attention to its beautiful duality; factually, this achieves nothing. It is a throwback: an impressively well-executed meme.
But spiritually, this is a battle cry. Because here we are again, twelve years and goodness knows however many trillions of unbounded dollars later. Bitcoin is no longer an experiment. It is a nonviolent revolution against financial tyranny, led by nobody, fought by anybody and everybody. And it is literally trolling its way to victory.
A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.
Disclosure Read More The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

Digital currency trader and lender Genesis Global Trading is moving toward full-service prime brokerage with the acquisition of crypto custodian Vo1t, the company announced Thursday.
The New York-based trading firm, which is a subsidiary of CoinDesk parent firm Digital Currency Group, acquired Vo1t to begin developing a full suite of prime brokerage services under one roof including lending, trading and custody. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. 
“We’re coming at this after having a successful business on the trading and lending side,” said Genesis CEO Michael Moro. “The goal is for clients to be able to do any and all activities with Genesis.” 
Moro wouldn’t put a figure on the number of liquidity providers Genesis is aiming to plug into. 
“The answer is as many as we can that we feel good about,” he said. “We’re trading roughly $1 billion of crypto a month, and clearly we have enough liquidity venues for us to trade that much.” 
Genesis also announced plans to soon offer a derivatives trading desk, which would start with over-the-counter bitcoin options. It’s also interested in providing capital introduction for family offices that are looking for crypto hedge funds that have the strategies, fee structure and asset exposure to fit their investing needs.
“We’re curating the hedge funds worth talking to, based on the criteria you’re looking for,” Moro said.
Vo1t will also be Genesis’ first London office. The firm, whose name is supposed to remind customers of a bank vault, provides custody, lending, staking and trading products for 35 digital assets. Since 2017, Vo1t has been offering cold storage to firms listed on the Financial Times Stock Exchange, trust companies and other financial institutions around the world. It advertises a 45-minute withdrawal time for assets held in cold storage.
Moro began to pursue a deal with Vo1t last autumn after seeing how many services the startup’s team had produced with few resources. The companies are now in the middle of integrating products. 
“We’re going to keep working on the acquisition integration,” he said. “There’s quite a bit of work to be done to absorb this platform and their technology.”
Genesis is also expanding into Singapore after registering with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and will send employees from New York to the new office once it is safe to do so. With 30% to 40% of the firm’s lending business coming out of Asia, the office will give Genesis more flexibility to serve customers in the region. 
“Having New York, London and Singapore helps for different time zones,” Moro said. “Especially since crypto trades 24 hours a day … and our clientele is diverse across Europe, Asia and the U.S.”
Disclosure Read More The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

Reuters
Bitcoin crossed the $8,000 mark for the first time on Wednesday since March ahead of “bitcoin halving” that will take place on May 12. 
Some analysts expect the bitcoin halving to increase prices.
“After the two previous halvings, we’ve seen the price reach an all-time high within 3-9 months — which would be $20,000 in this case,” one analyst said.
Track the price of bitcoin live here.
Bitcoin surged 11% on Wednesday and crossed $8,000 the first time since early March as analysts said a key deadline that will reduce the amount of units is helping boost prices. 
Bitcoin is currently trading around $8,625 as of 12.55 p.m ET. 
The last time it was anywhere near this level was in March, before stock markets crashed and when the impact of coronavirus began to spread. 
Analysts attributed the rise to “bitcoin halving” that takes place on 12 May.
Danny Scott, co-founder and chief executive of CoinCorner told Markets Insider: “Coming up in 12 days is the bitcoin halving — which in short cuts the supply of bitcoins coming into circulation in half and taking it from 12.5 bitcoins every 10 minutes to 6.25 bitcoins every 10 minutes.”
“People are looking at bitcoin’s history and seeing how the supply and demand vector has played out for bitcoin in the past, with the price steadily rising after a halving to new all-time highs within 18 months,” he added. 
What is bitcoin halving?
Bitcoin miners are rewarded a specific amount of bitcoins whenever a block is produced. 
Initially when bitcoin was first launched, miners could get 50 bitcoins per block. 
After 210,000 blocks are mined, the block reduces by 50% and the process continues until a block becomes worth 0 bitcoins. 
The current block reward is 12.5 coins per block, which will fall to 6.25 on May 12. 
Dr Garrick Hileman, head of research at Blockchain.com, said: “Bitcoin’s price has been climbing of late alongside other traditional hard assets like gold in part due to concerns over the size of the monetary and fiscal response to COVID-19.”
Read more: The manager of the best small-cap fund of the past 20 years explains why he’s betting big on a consumer recovery — and shares his top 4 stock picks in the struggling sector
He added: “Anticipation of the 12 May bitcoin mining reward ‘halving,’ which will cut the supply of newly mined bitcoins in half, is also likely fuelling demand. Over time, if current bitcoin demand levels are maintained then this reduction in new supply may help boost bitcoin.”
Pavel Perelomov, chief executive officer and founder of blockchain platform Twigse, said he expects bitcoin prices to reach $10,000.
“Market factors include the beginning of the removal of quarantine in the EU and the most powerful emission of the Central Bank of the EU and the Fed. I think that if the price fixes more than $ 8,000, the next barrier will be $10,000 taking this peak will open the road to long-term growth of Bitcoin.
Scott said: “After the two previous halvings, we’ve seen the price reach an all-time high within 3-9 months — which would be $20,000 in this case.”
He added: “Looking at the stock-to-flow (S2F) model which assumes scarcity drives value (supply and demand), we can hope for the $100,000 region to hit within the next 12-18 months. 
Deflationary?
Reuters
Bitcoin surged in January when the world’s biggest cryptocurrency has taken on the role of an unconventional safe-haven investment as fears amounted about how traditional assets would fare when coronavirus was beginning to spread. 
Some analysts expect bitcoin to rise because of its “deflationary” appeal during a time where monetary and fiscal policies are difficult to predict. 
Alex Mashinsky, chief executive of Celsius Network, said:  “With the halvening just two weeks away, we’re seeing a return to bullish sentiment among Bitcoin traders, and recent data suggest there’s been an uptick in new retail investors. Plus, the unprecedented combination of fiscal and monetary stimulus is reinforcing Bitcoin’s appeal as a deflationary asset.”  
Read more: Goldman Sachs recommends investors buy ‘quality at a reasonable price.’ Here are the firm’s top 10 stock picks that fit the bill.
But not all analysts are bullish on bitcoin. 
 Jon Walsh, blockchain professional at Adtech struck a more cautious note and said bitcoin has never been tested in a tough environment until date. 
Walsh said: “The general outlook for Bitcoin is strong, but despite having been in existence now for 11 years, bitcoin is yet to be tested in a recession environment.”
“This is however, the perfect environment that bitcoin was essentially built for. Over the next 18 months, we will surely see whether the daddy of all crypto can live up to its promises of hard money with a disinflationary economic schedule,” he added.

 Claiming Back Your VATAll attendees of a London based course incur VAT as a part of the cost of attendance.Euromoney Learning have partnered with VAT IT to allow you the unique opportunity to recoup the VAT incurred.Using VAT IT’s extensive experience and simple sign-up and refund process, every invoice can be turned into cash for your business.Claim the VAT that’s rightfully yours in four simple steps: 1. Register your interest 2. Sign a few simple documents 3. VAT IT processes your claim 4. Receive your refund Why choose VAT IT VAT IT have spent two decades identifying, researching and perfecting the foreign VAT Reclaim process and built the best back end technology in the industry. By partnering with Euromoney Learning, we can provide you with a fast and effective way to reclaim your VAT which helps reduce the cost of your training.VAT IT will charge a percentage of the VAT refund if/when it is successful. Can I claim back the VAT myself?You can claim back VAT directly from the UK Tax Authority (HMRC) by completing the following form. For European clients, please refer to form VAT 65. All other clients, please refer to form VAT 65A. You may also be able to claim back your VAT against courses taking place outside of the UK, and we would recommend contacting VAT IT, our specialist partner, to discuss how to do this.

REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones is buying bitcoin, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
The hedge fund manager said his fund may hold as much as a low single-digit percentage of its assets in bitcoin futures to help protect against a rise in inflation, according to the report.
Paul Tudor Jones is the founder and CEO of Tudor Investment Corp., which managed $38.4 billion as of March 30, according to data from the SEC.
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Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones is buying bitcoin, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
Jones told his clients in a market outlook note that he believes bitcoin will serve as a hedge against a jump in inflation he thinks is coming, due to central banks printing money and sharply expanding their balance sheets amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Read more: GOLDMAN SACHS: Traders are reaping unusually large profits from earnings-related stock trades. Here are 15 picks for the remainder of the season.
Jones said bitcoin “reminds him of the role gold played in the 1970s,” according to the report.
“The best profit-maximizing strategy is to own the fastest horse. If I am forced to forecast, my bet is it will be Bitcoin,” Jones said in the client note.
One of Jones’ funds, Tudor BVI, may hold as much as a low single-digit percentage of its assets in bitcoin futures.
Jones is the founder and CEO of Tudor Investment Corp., a hedge fund that managed $38.4 billion as of March 30, according to data from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Bitcoin traded up as much as 6.5% on Thursday to $9,911. 

 Claiming Back Your VATAll attendees of a London based course incur VAT as a part of the cost of attendance.Euromoney Learning have partnered with VAT IT to allow you the unique opportunity to recoup the VAT incurred.Using VAT IT’s extensive experience and simple sign-up and refund process, every invoice can be turned into cash for your business.Claim the VAT that’s rightfully yours in four simple steps: 1. Register your interest 2. Sign a few simple documents 3. VAT IT processes your claim 4. Receive your refund Why choose VAT IT VAT IT have spent two decades identifying, researching and perfecting the foreign VAT Reclaim process and built the best back end technology in the industry. By partnering with Euromoney Learning, we can provide you with a fast and effective way to reclaim your VAT which helps reduce the cost of your training.VAT IT will charge a percentage of the VAT refund if/when it is successful. Can I claim back the VAT myself?You can claim back VAT directly from the UK Tax Authority (HMRC) by completing the following form. For European clients, please refer to form VAT 65. All other clients, please refer to form VAT 65A. You may also be able to claim back your VAT against courses taking place outside of the UK, and we would recommend contacting VAT IT, our specialist partner, to discuss how to do this.

Mark Yusko, the CEO and chief investment officer at Morgan Creek Capital Management, shared several reasons he thinks bitcoin’s price will hit $100,000 by the end of 2021.Yusko said it would be “perfectly logical” for bitcoin to hit $400,000 to $500,000 if its market capitalization moves toward that of gold.The call comes after the legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones’ recent disclosure that he’s built a stake of bitcoin futures, making him the latest investment mogul to buy the cryptocurrency.Click here for more BI Prime stories.
With the legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones disclosing purchases of bitcoin futures for the first time, it’s become increasingly clear that market denizens who were once skeptical about the cryptocurrency are revisiting their stance.But Mark Yusko, the CEO and chief investment officer at Morgan Creek Capital Management, where he oversees $2 billion, has been a bitcoin proponent for years now.In addition to being bullish on bitcoin, Yusko is bearish on the real estate market, stocks, and the US Dollar. What’s more, he calls bonds “pretty overvalued,” so he’s not keen on that space either.”Really what it comes down to is … I realized that this was technology — an innovation in technology, an innovation in computing power,” he said on the “Altcoin Buzz” podcast. “I actually believe that this transition will be the biggest wealth-creation opportunity I’ll probably see in my lifetime.”
The transition that Yusko speaks of is what he calls the move to “Web 3.0.” The way he sees it, Web 1.0 consisted of the initial internet moguls — Cisco, Microsoft, and Intel — and created tons of wealth. Web 2.0 companies grew even faster and bigger — firms like Alibaba and Facebook — because they were building on viable infrastructure already put in place.Today, Yusko says Web 3.0 — blockchain — will be “even bigger.” And it’s this network that is the key to making bitcoin valuable.And he has some extremely bullish forecasts for the cryptocurrency. He sees the fair value of bitcoin skyrocketing to $100,000 by the end of 2021. That would mark an about 900% increase from current levels.Outlined below are five of the main reasons Yusko gives for his unabashed bitcoin bullishness. 
1. It’s a noncorrelated safe-haven asset “It acted exactly as all other safe-haven assets did,” Yusko said in reference to bitcoin’s behavior during the latest coronavirus-induced market swoon. “What people seem to miss is that uncorrelated doesn’t mean that you’re uncorrelated every day, every hour, every minute. It means you’re uncorrelated over the long term. And the correlation of bitcoin to other assets is very low — still about 0.15.”2. Fundamental growth”People take these short-term moves and try to extrapolate them into long-term trends — and they’re just not,” Yusko said. “They’re really unrelated events to the long-term fundamental part of bitcoin that is so attractive, which is more uses, more adoption, more widespread ownership, more wallets, more people with 0.1 or more bitcoin in their wallet.”
He added: “So all those things fundamentally are really, really strong.”3. The word is spreading and education is ramping up”But what you’ve got is this increasing knowledge base that’s being disseminated — groups like yours going on the air, people writing about it, people bringing it front and center,” he said.When Yusko first found out about bitcoin, he was skeptical. But as he learned more and became more educated in the space, he realized the opportunity at hand. He expects others to follow a similar path.
4. An endorsement from a younger generation”Bitcoin growth is determined differently. It’s a network, and networks grow based on usage, based on regulation, based on — in this case —millennial adoption because there’s really a difference between how older investors view the world, right? They think of gold as their safe haven. Younger investors think of bitcoin as their safe haven,” Yusko said.5. Fair value and scarcity”There will only be 21,000,000 ever mined, but some do get lost forever,” he said. “Fair value of this network — if you follow the stock-to-flow model or the original parabolic growth model — comes out to about $10,000 in 2017. Magically, we hit that about six days after we were supposed to.” 
He added: “By 2021, about the mid to end of 2021, the fair value will be around $100,000.”With all of that established, it’s also worth noting that Yusko has an even more bullish forecast in a more far-flung scenario in which the total market value of bitcoin rivals that of gold. If that happens, he thinks bitcoin could hit $400,000 to $500,000. It’s a scenario he believes to be “perfectly logical.”

What companies are using private blockchains today and why?
Walmart has developed a blockchain system based on Hyperledger Fabric to trace the provenance of their products. The blockchain allows suppliers to upload certificates of authenticity to the ledger securely, bringing more trust to a system and enabling the company to trace products back to source within seconds rather than days.
After successful trials with two products, the company is looking to roll it out further. Like other private blockchains, Walmart’s traceability system does require its suppliers to participate in the system to ensure its veracity, but the company is large enough to impel them to comply. 
De Beers has launched a ‘secure and immutable trail’ using a private blockchain called Tracr, to verify the authenticity and provenance of diamonds and ensure they are not “blood diamonds” from conflict zones. 
Comcast has partnered with other industry leaders to launch Blockgraph, a blockchain-based system which allows advertisers to target viewers with specific adverts while maintaining viewers’ privacy.
BurstIQ’s big data blockchain platform helps patients and doctors securely transfer sensitive medial information using smart contracts that establish the parameters of what data can be shared.
In April 2017, the streaming giant Spotify acquired blockchain startup Mediachain in an effort to create a fairer, more transparent, and rewarding music industry for musicians. Prior to its acquisition, Mediachain had developed several technologies that could aid in these efforts, including a decentralized, peer-to-peer database that connects applications to media and information about it, the Mediachain Attribution Engine, and a cryptocurrency that rewards artists for their work.
The all-in-one real estate transaction management software, Propy, leverages blockchain technology to streamline real estate transactions and mitigate the risk of fraud. Propy even offers properties that can be purchased using cryptocurrency.
Xage is the world’s first blockchain-enabled cybersecurity platform for IoT companies primarily in the transportation, energy and manufacturing industries. With the ability to self-diagnose and heal possible breaches, it leverages blockchain technology to manage billions of devices and protects industrial IoT operations against cyber attacks.
Shipping giant DHL is at the forefront of blockchain-powered logistics. One of the largest shipping companies to embrace blockchain, it uses the technology to maintain a digital ledger of shipments and protect the integrity of transactions.
And several banks and insurance companies, such as JP Morgan and MetLife, are using their own private blockchains to simplify, streamline and verify transactions and contracts that would previously have taken far longer and potentially been less secure.

Reuters / Dado Ruvic
Mark Yusko, the CEO and chief investment officer at Morgan Creek Capital Management, shared several reasons he thinks bitcoin’s price will hit $100,000 by the end of 2021.
Yusko said it would be “perfectly logical” for bitcoin to hit $400,000 to $500,000 if its market capitalization moves toward that of gold.
The call comes after the legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones’ recent disclosure that he’s built a stake of bitcoin futures, making him the latest investment mogul to buy the cryptocurrency.
Click here for more BI Prime stories.
With the legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones disclosing purchases of bitcoin futures for the first time, it’s become increasingly clear that market denizens who were once skeptical about the cryptocurrency are revisiting their stance.
But Mark Yusko, the CEO and chief investment officer at Morgan Creek Capital Management, where he oversees $2 billion, has been a bitcoin proponent for years now.
In addition to being bullish on bitcoin, Yusko is bearish on the real estate market, stocks, and the US Dollar. What’s more, he calls bonds “pretty overvalued,” so he’s not keen on that space either.
“Really what it comes down to is … I realized that this was technology — an innovation in technology, an innovation in computing power,” he said on the “Altcoin Buzz” podcast. “I actually believe that this transition will be the biggest wealth-creation opportunity I’ll probably see in my lifetime.”
The transition that Yusko speaks of is what he calls the move to “Web 3.0.” The way he sees it, Web 1.0 consisted of the initial internet moguls — Cisco, Microsoft, and Intel — and created tons of wealth. Web 2.0 companies grew even faster and bigger — firms like Alibaba and Facebook — because they were building on viable infrastructure already put in place.
Today, Yusko says Web 3.0 — blockchain — will be “even bigger.” And it’s this network that is the key to making bitcoin valuable.
And he has some extremely bullish forecasts for the cryptocurrency. He sees the fair value of bitcoin skyrocketing to $100,000 by the end of 2021. That would mark an about 900% increase from current levels.
Outlined below are five of the main reasons Yusko gives for his unabashed bitcoin bullishness. 
1. It’s a noncorrelated safe-haven asset 
“It acted exactly as all other safe-haven assets did,” Yusko said in reference to bitcoin’s behavior during the latest coronavirus-induced market swoon. “What people seem to miss is that uncorrelated doesn’t mean that you’re uncorrelated every day, every hour, every minute. It means you’re uncorrelated over the long term. And the correlation of bitcoin to other assets is very low — still about 0.15.”
2. Fundamental growth
“People take these short-term moves and try to extrapolate them into long-term trends — and they’re just not,” Yusko said. “They’re really unrelated events to the long-term fundamental part of bitcoin that is so attractive, which is more uses, more adoption, more widespread ownership, more wallets, more people with 0.1 or more bitcoin in their wallet.”
He added: “So all those things fundamentally are really, really strong.”
3. The word is spreading and education is ramping up
“But what you’ve got is this increasing knowledge base that’s being disseminated — groups like yours going on the air, people writing about it, people bringing it front and center,” he said.
When Yusko first found out about bitcoin, he was skeptical. But as he learned more and became more educated in the space, he realized the opportunity at hand. He expects others to follow a similar path.
4. An endorsement from a younger generation
“Bitcoin growth is determined differently. It’s a network, and networks grow based on usage, based on regulation, based on — in this case —millennial adoption because there’s really a difference between how older investors view the world, right? They think of gold as their safe haven. Younger investors think of bitcoin as their safe haven,” Yusko said.
5. Fair value and scarcity
“There will only be 21,000,000 ever mined, but some do get lost forever,” he said. “Fair value of this network — if you follow the stock-to-flow model or the original parabolic growth model — comes out to about $10,000 in 2017. Magically, we hit that about six days after we were supposed to.” 
He added: “By 2021, about the mid to end of 2021, the fair value will be around $100,000.”
With all of that established, it’s also worth noting that Yusko has an even more bullish forecast in a more far-flung scenario in which the total market value of bitcoin rivals that of gold. If that happens, he thinks bitcoin could hit $400,000 to $500,000. It’s a scenario he believes to be “perfectly logical.”