Billionaire investor Tim Draper is hedging his $250,000 bitcoin price call
Billionaire investor Tim Draper has made headlines for famously predicting bitcoin’s price will reach $250,000 by 2022, and on Thursday he reiterated that call — albeit with a slight hedge.
During an interview with Yahoo Finance’s YFi PM to announce the launch of Grit BXNG, the boxing gym Draper invested in that will be the the first ever gym to accept bitcoin, he extended the timeline of his bitcoin call a bit to 2023.
“$250,000 by 2022, and I’m hedging a little, maybe Q1 2023,” he said. “It may be Q1 2023, but it will be [$250,000] before that.”
Interestingly, Draper didn’t increase his price target since bitcoin (BTC-USD) has seen a bit of a boost off the back of market volatility amidst an ongoing U.S.-China trade war dragged down stocks and global bond yields. That boost led many, including hedge fund founder Kyle Bass, to conclude bitcoin was being seen by some as a “digital gold” safe haven investment rather than just a speculative digital currency.
But Draper hasn’t given up on that use case for the cryptocurrency just yet. By pushing for Grit BXNG to accept it as a payment, he pointed out the company would be able to avoid the payment processing fees associated with processing credit card payments.
“I’m the first customer he’s had who paid in bitcoin, and by the way, I was a little reticent to do it because I know what that stuff’s worth,” he joked, adding that the cryptocurrency will always stand apart from its competitors, including Facebook’s (FB) proposed Libra coin, for being the leading decentralized currency.
“You know it’s interesting, it’s consolidated more than I thought it would,” Draper said. “I thought there would be many more competitors at this point that were really relevant, but people have consolidated toward bitcoin because it’s decentralized and that’s why they get the flak at Facebook for being a centralized currency.”
Either way, for Draper, who has already famously poured millions into bitcoin, if the cryptocurrency does eventually appreciate to meet his price target, Grit BXNG’s move may prove out to be another very salient move.
“It’s good, I’m an investor in Grit, it goes into our pile of money. Things will work out,” he laughed.
Zack Guzman is the host of YFi PM as well as a senior writer and on-air reporter covering entrepreneurship, startups, and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @zGuz.
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