Fund Manager Defends Crypto, Finds It Nonsensical That Investors Would Trust Jordan Belfort

Mark Yusko, the chief investment officer at Morgan Creek Capital Partners, who manages over $1.5 billion in assets, fired back at crypto skeptics who have deemed Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a scam, including Jordan Belfort.

Yusko’s investment firm recently launched a Digital Asset Index Fund following their partnership with Bitwise, a fund management company that offers a suite of cryptocurrency products, including indexes and now index funds. Because of his involvement in the cryptocurrency industry, it is no surprise that he finds Belfort, and other cryptocurrency skeptics, to be gravely mistaken.

While speaking to Yahoo Finance, Yusko said that funds and retail investors should have some cryptocurrency in their investment portfolio, and not having it puts them at risk of losing out on the growth of next big market.

Yusko said:

“Every investor should be considering an allocation to digital assets right now. It’s like 1993, 1994 [in regard to] the internet, when Google was just being thought of and no one thought it was very important.”

Crypto Skeptics Emboldened by Price Down Cycle

It comes as no surprise that Yusko is bullish on the cryptocurrency market due to his heavy involvement in the industry, but his views on the market are directly conflicting with those of other “experts” in the investment field.

One notable cryptocurrency foe is Jordan Belfort, the notorious penny stock scammer who pled guilty to investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. He has long been against cryptocurrencies, but first crystalized his views earlier this week, when he said that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will “disappear.”

“This thing [Bitcoin] is going to evaporate like a mirage. There’s a lot of really honest people who are going to get slaughtered,” Belfort said. He also added that when it does go bust, it will be the “bust heard around the world.”

Belfort was first convicted of defrauding investors in 1999, when investigators found that he had been convincing investors to pour money into worthless stocks, artificially inflating their prices while he sold his positions for massive profits. The result of his actions was the destruction of 34 small companies and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor’s funds

Belfort fancies himself as an expert of scams due to his experience, but Yusko expressed that he finds it odd why people would give the convicted scammer’s opinion consideration, saying that, “The fact that people look at him and say, ‘He’s a bad guy and he did bad things, so I should trust him,’ is nonsensical. Absolutely nonsensical.”

Importantly, governments are beginning to understand the importance and potential impacts of the cryptocurrency markets, with the U.S. Treasury recommending a sandbox regulatory environment in their fintech report. Short of every world government banning the use and ownership of cryptocurrencies, it is incredibly unlikely that it will simply “go bust” as Belfort claims.

Although many fund managers, including the likes of Mark Yusko and Michael Arrington, a partner at Arrington XRP Capital, a digital asset management firm and former editor of TechCrunch, among others, are incredibly excited about the future of the cryptocurrency market, crypto skeptics and perma-bears will always remain, and thrive especially when the markets are in a down cycle.

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