Jim Cramer, the Mad Money host and The Street co-founder, said he is “fixated” on needing to own bitcoin because he fears a “massive amount of inflation.” While he owns “so much gold,” he is adamant about leaving a bitcoin inheritance to his children.
Jim Cramer to Regularly Buy Bitcoin
Jim Cramer is the host of Mad Money on CNBC, a former hedge fund manager, and a co-founder of Thestreet.com, a financial news and literacy website. During a podcast interview with Morgan Creek Digital partner Anthony Pompliano (Pomp), published Monday, Cramer asked many questions about cryptocurrency, particularly bitcoin. The Mad Money host said he has been following stock trader Dave Portnoy very closely. Portnoy recently bought bitcoin but exited the crypto market within a week after the price of chainlink, another of his crypto investments, fell.
Cramer calls himself a gold bug because he has “so much gold,” he revealed. He is concerned about hedging against inflation and leaving the right assets to his kids. The former hedge fund manager explained that to hedge against inflation, he currently goes to his “inflation handbook,” and “what it says is buy gold, buy masterpieces and buy mansions. Those are the three things.” He emphasized that “what we didn’t have in that menu was crypto and I think that you have to have [it].” He further opined: “I feel very strongly that I have missed crypto.”
Pomp clarified to Cramer that it is important to distinguish between bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. “When you talk to your kids about it, you got to make sure it’s bitcoin not just crypto in general because bitcoin specifically has the inflation hedge – things that we’re talking about here.”
Cramer believes:
My kids, when they get my inheritance, won’t feel comfortable with gold and will feel comfortable with crypto.
“I just need something that my kids will understand … and they will never understand gold and the reason why they’ll never understand gold is they think gold’s dangerous. It’s dangerous because it can be stolen. It’s dangerous because they don’t want to take it out of the bank,” Cramer shared. As for cryptocurrency, the Mad Money host is also concerned about the security side, such as getting hacked. However, Pomp explained several ways to keep his bitcoin more secure.
Cramer admitted that when people asked him about bitcoin in the past, he said to them that he does not trade coffee, cotton, and bitcoin. “That sufficed for a very long time. It worked until the three trillion dollar [Fed] package because we don’t have that. We don’t have three trillion in this country. You can raise them you make the rich pay as much as you want. This is the first time in my life, and I’ve said it publicly, that I know we don’t have the money and that’s one of the reasons why I like gold so much.” However, he agrees with Pomp that the upside of bitcoin beats gold.
Recently, the Federal Reserve has made a major policy shift to push up inflation. This has prompted some companies to move cash reserves into bitcoin, such as the Nasdaq-listed Microstrategy which recently bought a total of $425 million in bitcoin in order to hedge against inflation. Meanwhile, some people strongly believe that bitcoin beats gold in every way.
The co-founder of The Street exclaimed:
I am fixated on needing to own crypto because I fear massive amount of inflation.
Pomp proceeded to explain how Cramer could buy and hold bitcoin. For example, to get some exposure, he could buy Grayscale Investments’ GBTC, but there are premiums. Alternatively, he could buy bitcoin itself and either use the custody service of a reputable company or store it himself. He asked about JPMorgan, which Pomp believes will one day offer the same crypto service Fidelity does. Cramer says he has some funds at Fidelity so it is likely the place he will go and buy bitcoin, mentioning that he could be doing dollar-cost averaging. Cramer says that he is not worried about the price fluctuation of bitcoin since it will be part of his portfolio as an alternative asset for hedging purposes.
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