Billionaire David Rubenstein: “Crypto is not going away”
David Rubenstein, the billionaire co-founder and co-chairman of private equity firm Carlyle Group, says the crypto industry is not going away.
Rubenstein made the cryptocurrency comments during a talk with Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin at the University Club of Chicago on September 22.
When asked what he thinks about cryptocurrencies, Rubenstein replied:
“Well, if you go to Las Vegas and you gamble because you like gambling, it just gives you pleasure the way other things give you pleasure. Playing golf can bring you joy. If you enjoy it, you allocate a certain amount of your net worth and say “I’m going to take one or two percent of my net worth, I’m going to lose it in Las Vegas”.
“And if you win the first day and you win the second day, you think you’re really a genius and you’re going to win money, but in the end you’re going to lose. So, if it gives you pleasure to play, allocate enough money that you can afford to lose. So with crypto, that was my view for a while. If you enjoy looking at the screens all day and say you just made a lot of money in crypto and so on, allocated enough that if you lose it, it’s not the end of the world.
“I now believe that crypto is not going to go away the way some have thought, and while you can argue that it is worthless in some respects, many things people buy may be worthless.
“I would say that it’s clear that a lot of people – and a lot of people have a libertarian view of life, or maybe a more conservative life, and they tend to like this kind of thing. It is anti-government. The government does not control it. They want to have some of their assets and things that the government can’t control or know what they’re doing, and increasingly they’re lobbying Congress quite effectively to prevent Congress from over-regulating this industry, and I don’t think it will be over-regulated...
“Now I haven’t invested in any cryptocurrencies but I have invested in my family through companies that serve the industry because I believe the industry isn’t going away anytime soon and I can’t choose which of the 18,000 cryptocurrencies will work but I don’t the industry is disappearing…
“As a rule of thumb with some exceptions, if you pay attention to what young people are doing, you will likely see economic trends, pay attention. People in their 70s don’t usually start financial trends, really. People who have engaged in things on the internet or smartphones or computers, they tend to be in their 20s, and those who are often very involved in crypto tend to be in their 20s or 30s in some cases.“
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