Bitcoin ‘Bubble Is Necessary’ To Test Endurance, Says Hedge Fund Founder Bill Miller

Bill Miller, multi-millionaire investor and founder of hedge fund Miller Value Partners, shared his positive view on the cryptocurrency market sell-off and talked about why it should not scare investors in a FOXBusiness exclusive interview Feb. 28.

Calling himself a Bitcoin “observer”, rather than a Bitcoin “believer” or “evangelist”, in the interview Miller compared Bitcoin with other major inventions throughout history, stating:

“What I observed with bitcoin is that it’s following a very time-honored path of disruptive innovation going all the way back to the printing press, railroad, electricity, radio in the 1920s, biotech, the internet.”

While many on Wall Street are worried that cryptocurrencies are a bubble worse than the Nasdaq in 2000, and some even forecast Bitcoin dropping to as low as $1,000 this year, Miller says that the market actually needs this “bubble” to find out whether the idea of this new technology can be adopted.

“Bubbles are necessary to bring capital into the market to see if these innovations are actually going to stand,” the famous investor argued, citing the idea of ‘Diffusion Of Innovations’ by Everett M. Rogers.

In December 2017, the same month Bitcoin prices soared to a record high of $20,000 per coin, Miller said that almost 50 percent of the money from his hedge fund was invested in Bitcoin. In July, 2017, Miller shared in an interview that he has been holding a modest one percent of his own assets in Bitcoin since 2014.

Others on Wall Street don’t share Miller’s optimistic view towards cryptocurrencies. In Jan. 2018, banking giant Merrill Lynch banned its financial advisors from buying cryptocurrency-related investments for clients, citing concerns “pertaining to suitability and eligibility standards of this product”.