Share this article
Billionaire Investor Howard Marks Warming to Bitcoin
Marks, who is worth $2.1 billion, said his early comments on bitcoin were a "knee-jerk reaction."
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 12:27 p.m. Published Mar 16, 2021, 2:41 p.m.
Howard Marks, co-founder of alternative investment manager Oaktree Capital, says he has reconsidered his previous "dismissive" stance on bitcoin.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
The investor, who is worth $2.1 billion according to Forbes, previously said in a 2017 memo that cryptocurrency was "an unfounded fad." The comment was "a knee-jerk reaction without information," Marks conceded in a video interview with the Korea Economic Daily on Monday.
While he'd previously considered bitcoin to have no intrinsic value, he said that "there are plenty of things that people want and value highly that have no intrinsic value. How about a painting or a diamond or a bar of gold?" he said.
Marks described the positives of of bitcoin as being able to trade 24 hours a day and confidentiality.
Saying his early comments hadn't been proven correct so far, Marks added that, with bitcoin now over $50,000, people who bought at $5,000 "look right."
See also: JPMorgan Sends Its Private Clients a Primer on Crypto
However, while bitcoin, unlike the U.S. dollar, has a limited supply of 21 million units, Marks argued the market is "circular," meaning people want the cryptocurrency because the price is rising and that demand drives prices up.
Marks also said in a recent Oaktree memo that his son "thankfully owns a meaningful amount" of bitcoin.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer: Expect lame 2026 as four-year bitcoin cycle appears intact
The director of global macro at the asset management giant remains a secular bull on bitcoin, but isn't optimistic about the next year.
What to know:
- A number of notable market analysts of late have dismissed the idea of bitcoin's four-year cycle and the nearly certain bear market that might imply.
- Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer, however, says the action so far this time around lines up about perfectly with past four-year cycles and the current bearish action should last deep into 2026.
Top Stories
