Billionaire investor Howard Marks highlights the qualities of Bitcoin

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In a recent episode of the “We Study Billionaires” podcast, Oaktree’s Howard Marks shared his thoughts on Bitcoin, which have changed dramatically since he was openly negative about it in 2017. The billionaire investor said he could now understand many arguments in favor of Bitcoin, including its similarities and advantages over gold.

“There is a big argument that [bitcoin is] digital gold it has some of the qualities of gold in the sense of being inflation resistant and possibly crisis resistant. But over gold it has some advantages, “Marks said.” You don’t have to pay to store it, it’s not difficult to send it somewhere or move it, and you can spend it – which you can’t do with gold. “

Marks said that in 2017, when he said Bitcoin had no intrinsic value, he was unaware of the many arguments in its favor. Besides the comparison to gold, during the episode he mentioned the endurance, limited supply and empowerment of Bitcoin brought to the unbanked.

Having top investors like Howard Marks already seeing Bitcoin as the storehouse of silver’s value after just a little over ten years since its inception is pretty significant. At a bare minimum, this means that the currency is progressing on its monetization path as expected and is recognized as superior to gold – historically the most wanted commodity to store value.

In the podcast, Marks goes so far as to acknowledge that Bitcoin is already being used as a medium of exchange in some places. Usually, it is only after a monetary good has become widely accepted as a store of value that it has the power to progress and become a medium of value transaction.

According to Marks, “people who live in places where you can’t go to a bank, where you don’t trust the government, where you don’t trust the currency” are among those who might be looking for bitcoin. to store and transfer money. .

The chairman and co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management also highlighted the importance of Bitcoin’s limited supply of 21 million coins, which allows price appreciation to continue as long as demand can increase.

“What I missed in 2017, the search for intrinsic value and cash flow production, [was] the case of supply and demand, “noted Marks. The case of supply and demand is that software restricts the issuance of bitcoins … while demand can increase for a long time.”

Although Marks admitted to understanding many arguments in favor of Bitcoin, he said he was now more cautious when sharing his thoughts – a tactic he didn’t really use in 2017.

“I spoke very strongly against bitcoin in 2017,” Marks said. “I was extremely negative, I was extremely outspoken. I had an instinctive reaction to something new. Now I prefer to say that I don’t know enough to have a strong opinion.”

Marks began to understand Bitcoin better during the pandemic when he spent a lot of time with his son, Andrew, who “is on the other side.” The billionaire investor said he owned bitcoin through Andrew, who manages their family’s money. Either way, Marks is poised to continue to learn and pay attention to Bitcoin for years to come, as he believes that the longer it survives, the more proven and value proposition it has.

“We’re probably not done learning everything there is to learn about Bitcoin, and we’ll see in the future if this is a legitimate asset class and its worth. over the years, it becomes more and more difficult to say that there is nothing to that, “said the president of Oaktree.” Bitcoin has been around for a dozen years now. So if it’s an eclair in the pan, it’s a terribly long pan. Maybe it’s something there. “

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