Howard MarksPersonal fortune, US$2.2 billion. His fund, Oaktree Capital Management, controls assets of $205 billion.
Jamie Dimon. Personal fortune, $1.6 billion, as CEO of JPMorgan Chase he is responsible for assets of $4.21 billion.
Larry Fink. Personal fortune of around US$1.2 billion, as president and CEO of BlackRock he is responsible for assets of US$10 trillion.
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The truth is that the list could be longer, but these seven are enough. Their personal fortune amounts to more than US$285,000 million, and they command assets of more than US$15,697,000,000,000 (US$15.7 trillion).
They didn’t understand anything, or they didn’t want to understand it
Beyond their money, power and influence, what brings these men together is the horror and contempt they once showed for cryptocurrencies and in particular Bitcoin
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“One of the most speculative and volatile investment vehicles ever created.” “Bitcoin is just a greater fool theory type investment.” “Bitcoin is a fraud… worse than tulip bulbs.” “I am going to fire them in a second (anyone I find trading cryptocurrencies), for two reasons, it is against our rules and they are stupid, both are dangerous.” “They are a Ponzi mechanism.” “They are an index of money laundering.” “Let’s face it, it’s a cry from the Jihadists that we don’t believe in the dollar.” “Bitcoin is probably rat poison squared.” “Something like Bitcoin is a gambling token, and has no intrinsic value.” “It is basically speculative. People are thinking, ‘I can sell it at a higher price,’ so it’s a bubble,”….
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After all these diatribes and insults – it doesn’t matter who said what – some changed their minds… if they hadn’t already done so before their display of holy indignation. Others, more cunning, continue in the same way, but as soon as we scratch their wallets a little we find that their money does not follow their words and they have more than one crypto or investments in “ad hoc” companies.
In just 15 years, Bitcoin went from being worth US$0.09 (it appears on January 3, 2009, but has actually been listed since July 18, 2010) to exceeding US$107,700, with a capitalization that exceeds US$2,000,000,000,000 (half the value of the entire crypto market).
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This is seven times more than the fortune of those who once criticized the achievements of Satoshi Nakamotoand one thirteenth of all the money they control.
How can it be that the most powerful and informed men in the world “missed it” or “arrived late”?
If this proves anything, it is one of the “beauties” of the financial market, where we are all equal and the wealth and contacts – leaving aside that this does generate the possibility of entering into “unsanct” maneuvers -, especially in a truly free market As is the case with crypto, they do not guarantee anything.
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Sharpening the pencil we see that Fink, Buffet, Gates, Marks and Dimon have publicly declared themselves as Democrats, while it could be said that Dalio always played for both sides and only Griffin is a Republican. The political trend could then explain – even if only in part – the horror that the former have expressed for an instrument that neither they nor the state can control, to the point of clouding their vision as businessmen (they made a mistake with BTC, they erred with Trump).
Although there is no precise information, Nakamoto – who still remains anonymous – would have about 1,100,000 bitcoins in his “wallet”, which as far as is known has not moved since 2010. At today’s values this is more than $117 billion, which would place him as the twelfth richest person on the planet.
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If the promises that are accompanying the assumption of donald trump are fulfilled, the bubble has not yet been burst – the price of bitcoin seems to grow through speculative bubbles – and next year bitcoin exceeds US$140,000, let us not be surprised if Sakamoto -whoever it is-, displace one of his fiercest critics from sixth place among the richest in the world: Warren Buffet.
Idols with feet of clay
Since we are in the season of the Christmas holidays, a biblical reference is in order. In passage 2:26:45 of the Book of Daniel, in the Old Testament, the prophet relates that King Nebuchadnezzar had had a dream, in which a gigantic statue with a head made of gold, a torso made of tin, hips in bronze, the legs of iron and the feet of baked clay, it was hit in its lower part by a small stone that was rolling, delaying it and breaking it into a thousand pieces.
The figures we mentioned before are followed almost religiously – I can include here other local critics of cryptocurrencies such as Juan Carlos de Pablo, Ricardo López Murphy, Claudio Zuchovicki, Ricardo Arriazu, Carlos Melconian, etc. -, in some cases, such as the of Warren Buffet, with a fanaticism that surpasses that of the jihadists.
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Except for “The Oracle of Omaha” and his friend “The Party Boy” Gates, the others have ended up publicly acknowledging their mistake in despising bitcoin and associated financial instruments (being partly responsible for the current crypto rally).
These “mea culpas” try to hide the fact that their vision of the market and society is outdated; They were never more than idols with feet of clay. As Satoshi Nakamoto warned some time ago: “If you don’t believe me or understand it, I don’t have the time to try to convince you… forgive me.”
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
