CNBC’s Jim Cramer: ‘Still studying Coinbase and all these cryptocurrencies’
Former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer, who hosts the CNBC show “Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer,” is “studying” Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN ).
On Monday, Cramer, who is also the co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” as well as a co-founder of the financial website TheStreet, tweeted the following:
April 14, 2021, when Coinbase became a public company on the Nasdaq exchange via a direct IPO; Coinbase stock ( COIN ) closed at $328.28 per share, valuing the company at $85.8 billion on a fully diluted basis.
That day, Cramer showed how bullish he was on Coinbase stock by sending out the following tweet:
However, since November 2021, when the last “crypto winter” began, he has been bearish on both crypto assets in general and Coinbase stock.
On November 10, 2021, a day after Coinbase released its Q3 2021 financial results, he tweeted:
And here’s how Cramer criticized Coinbase management on May 12, 2022:
On July 26, 2022, Coinbase shares fell 21% after Bloomberg reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating Coinbase to determine whether the crypto exchange offers unregistered securities. This led Cramer to send out the following three Coinbase-related tweets that day:
On Thursday (August 4), Coinbase’s Brett Tejpaul (head of Coinbase Institutional) and Greg Tusar (head of Institutional Product) published a blog post, stating that Coinbase and BlackRock would “create new entry points for institutional crypto adoption by connect Coinbase Prime and Aladdin.”
The blog post went on to say that “Coinbase is partnering with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to provide institutional clients of Aladdin®, BlackRock’s end-to-end investment management platform, direct access to crypto, starting with bitcoin, through connectivity with Coinbase Prime.” Apparently, Coinbase Prime will “provide crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage and reporting capabilities to Aladdin’s institutional customer base who are also customers of Coinbase.”
Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock, had this to say:
“Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to effectively manage the operational lifecycle of these assets. This connection with Aladdin will allow clients to manage their bitcoin exposures directly within their existing portfolio management and trade flows for a whole portfolio view of risk across asset classes.“
That announcement helped Coinbase stock, which had closed at $67.23 on Wednesday (Aug. 3), close Thursday at $88.94.
Coinbase is expected to announce its financial results for the second quarter of 2022 next Tuesday (August 9).
Regarding Cramer’s current bearish stance on crypto, on July 5, 2022 during a conversation with Joe Kernen, a co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, said:
“Right now everything seems to be bad, and I won’t deny that all asset classes are getting hurt. The one I’m most interested in is crypto. There are many people in crypto. Crypto really seems to implode, but of course we [went] from three trillion to one trillion. Why does it have to stop at one trillion?
“There is no real value there. I mean, you look at these companies… There are these companies you’ve never heard of and they blew up the weekend and you say to yourself ‘holy cow! it’s six hundred million dollars just going down the drain, and we had Gary Gensler, that one [SEC] Chairman, a few weeks ago he just said ‘look, everybody who’s come here so far the investment rate… the rate you earn… you can kind of forget about it’ and that’s what’s happening. How many places can Sam Bankman-Fried save?“
However, just a month earlier, Cramer told CNBC’s “Make It”:
“If you’re a young person thinking about crypto, I think it’s smart.
“I believe crypto should be part of a person’s diversified portfolio. I can’t tell you not to own crypto. I own crypto: I own Ethereum. Why did I buy Ethereum? Because I was at a charity bid auction to buy what was known as an NFT and they wouldn’t let me do dollars. I had to buy it in Ethereum.
“So I looked into it, and I said, ‘well, you know, I have some qualities that I like – scarcity, value – not as hot, so to speak, as Bitcoin. So I bought it. These are papers of hope. Now I don’t like hope. I think you should never invest in hope, but these are speculative, and one of the things I teach in my classrooms is that it’s okay to own something that’s speculative.
“You have to admit it’s speculative. So you don’t put it in the Procter & Gamble class, [it’s] not Coca-Cola, it’s not Apple, but I suggest and accept speculation. Now, when I started Mad Money, I said, ‘I think you should own a spec and I think you should own a gold stock’.
“And ever since crypto came along, I’ve said that instead of say 10% should be gold, 5% should be gold and 5% should be crypto. What do I think is the value of crypto? I have no idea. Here’s what I know you’re thinking. You think “I’ve seen fortunes made in crypto and I want a chance to make a fortune”.
“And unlike many of the so-called graybeards who appear on TV, I agree with you. You have every right to try to make money in crypto. I’d prefer you do it in Ethereum or Bitcoin, which have the biggest following, seem like the most legit. I would be careful about lending money since many people own these because these are speculative…
“Bitcoin can’t live your house. It is not a mortgage. It’s a piece of paper, or in this case, it’s not even a piece of paper. So I don’t want any loan. Loan for your house, loan for your car, but don’t loan for crypto, but I would never advise you to buy crypto because of all the fortunes that have been made and how it can bring fortunes to a whole new group of people. I want it to be you.“
