Billionaire Ken Griffin Backpedals On His Bearish Crypto Stance

The persistent success streak of the crypto industry over the years of its existence has been promoting more skeptics to have a change of heart. Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel Securities, has been the latest to come over to the side of the burgeoning industry.

Citadel Securities plans to invest in crypto

While speaking with Bloomberg, the billionaire hedge fund manager admitted that his stance about crypto has been wrong. Griffin noted that the industry had proven itself to be here to stay, debunking his beliefs about it.

Griffin said:

 Crypto has been one of the great, great stories in finance over the course of roughly the last 15 years and, I’ll be clear, I’ve been in the naysayer camp over that 15 year period.

He stated that while he still had his reservations about the industry, the industry’s $2 trillion market cap was hard to ignore. The veteran investor added that he would be exploring the industry through his hedge fund, Citadel Securities.

Citadel Securities is one of the US’s biggest market-makers with a valuation of over $28 billion according to Bloomberg. Griffin stated that Citadel Securities will partake in market-making activities in the crypto market for its clients which includes asset managers, banks, broker-dealers, hedge funds, government agencies, and public pension programs.

Before now, Griffin had been a vocal critic of cryptocurrencies. He has compared Bitcoin to the historical Tulips Mania. As early as last year, he commented that the growing crypto adoption was akin to a “Jihadist call” as crypto proponents seemed to be determined to undermine the global reserve currency status of the US dollar.

The crypto market is expecting more mainstream adoption

The crypto market has still welcomed Griffin’s change of stance as it has embraced other skeptics before him. In a tweet, crypto proponent, Anthony Pompliano, noted that the market was expecting even more investors to capitulate on crypto.

Previous crypto skeptics who have crossed over include Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame, CEO of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor, and famed controversial investor Jordan Belfort, popularly known as the Wolf of Wall Street.

With the growing adoption and market value, market expectations are also that regulatory clarity will soon be gotten for the industry.