Bloomberg Journalist Bashes Bitcoin For Being Correlated

Yesterday, Sonny Singh, the chief commercial officer of fintech startup Bitpay, sat down with Bloomberg Opinion’s Stephen Gandel and host Emily Chang to talk about the Bitcoin price. In a debate-esque style, Gandel and Singh bounced ideas off each other, with both ballyhooing their opinions on the leading crypto asset.

Via the medium of the Bloomberg TV segment, Gandel, a seeming BTC skeptic, first noted that a “leading” driver for cryptocurrencies in 2017 was that they were a “port in the storm,” or hedge if you will, specifically due to the non-inflationary nature of these assets. However, the Bloomberg journalist, an evident skeptic of the theory that Bitcoin is clearly non-correlated, explained that as U.S. stocks fell, so did BTC. Gandel even quipped “they’re all connected.”

This, interestingly, is against sentiment touted by key proponents in and out of the cryptosphere. Per previous reports from Ethereum World News, Bill Miller, the chief of investment at Miller Value Partners, explained that while no investor “needs” exposure to cryptocurrencies, their close-to-zero correlation with traditional equities makes them a “great diversifier.”

Miller’s comments come hot on the heels of a similar remark from Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, the founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets. Pompliano, who has become one of the de-facto poster children of Bitcoin on mainstream media, noted that his firm’s data indicates that the correlation between BTC and the S&P 500 is near-zero. The preeminent investor even added this is much of the same with the U.S. dollar index.

Bitpay C-Suite Member Still Long-Term Bullish On Bitcoin

In a pseudo-response to Gandel’s comments, which seemed more bearish than bullish, Sonny Singh, the aforementioned member of Bitpay’s c-suite, noted that he’s still long-term bullish on Bitcoin, with his optimism likely extending to the broader ecosystem as well.

Singh, who (in)famously called for BTC to reach $20,000 in 2019, citing newfound interest from Bakkt, Fidelity, and potentially Blackrock, noted that by many fundamental indicators, this industry is still healthy. He explained that new companies continue to foray into this industry, along with new talent and technologists. Interestingly, Singh even noted that the “bad businesses” that are exiting the industry could be seen as optimistic, as such ventures weighed down crypto’s legitimacy and raison d’etre.

He even doubled-down on his institutional participation comments from a previous interview, noting that although Bakkt’s futures and products of similar caliber are getting pushed back, they’re evidently still in the works. Singh partially attributed this delay to regulators, noting that nothing moves fast in the broader fintech industry, which Bitcoin is arguably a part of. Regardless, these looming products will push crypto adoption worldwide, especially as proper solutions and infrastructure continue to prop themselves up.

Yet, Singh made sure to mention that 2017’s price boom, which saw BTC swell to over $20,000 on some exchanges, was a “pure anomaly,” drawing attention to a lack of fundamentals, hype, and arguably fake news regarding certain projects. However, in closing, he said that when institutions start to really make a move on the crypto sector, demand will return en-masse,.

Title Image Courtesy of Aaron Burden on Unsplash