High profile stock trader Dave Portnoy has panic sold his bitcoin one week after he got into cryptocurrency. He cited the falling price of chainlink, another of his crypto investments, as the main reason.
Dave Portnoy Got in and Out of Crypto in One Week
American trader and founder of Barstool Sports blog Dave Portnoy became a headline in the crypto space when he began investing in bitcoin on Aug. 13. He sat down with the founders of Gemini Exchange, the Winklevoss twins, who walked him through buying his first bitcoin. Portnoy invested $200K in BTC, $50K in chainlink (LINK), and later bought orchid (OXT).
While the prices of his cryptocurrencies were climbing, Portnoy was quite happy. However, he was fixated on pumping and dumping cryptocurrencies. “The thing I like about pump-and-dumps in crypto is that it’s encouraged,” he said in a recording. Noting that in the stock market, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will take action against anyone engaging in pump-and-dumps, he said, “In crypto, you can pump and dump all day long.”
That is not the case, of course, as lawyer Jake Chervinsky explained. “I don’t know who needs to hear this but pump-and-dumps are illegal in crypto just like in every other market,” the lawyer emphasized, elaborating:
If you admit to doing them [pump-and-dumps] intentionally on a recorded live stream then you can expect to see the video played back for you as Exhibit A by CFTC and The Justice Dept.
A few days later, Portnoy recorded a video of himself in bed, claiming that he was very sick and possibly a victim of covid-19. When he recovered on Friday, he got out of LINK as the price of the cryptocurrency continued to drop.
Responding to a chainlink investor accusing him on Twitter of being “just a weak handed suit like the rest of them,” Portnoy wrote: “I make 6 figures a day like clockwork in the real stock market. No need to sit around losing money waiting for Elon [Musk] to mine gold from outer space. I’ll have built my own house on the moon before that day comes. If I wanna lose 7 figs on wives tales I’ll stick with the track.”
Portnoy further tweeted: “I currently own zero bitcoins. I will wait and watch. I lost 25k … The LINK marines are weak and the orchid flowers do die in the crypto world. I may or may not be done.” He added:
I’m out on crypto because coins don’t always go up. Stocks on the other hand continue to always go up.
The Barstool Sports founder clarified in a video that he got out of bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies because of chainlink. He refused to admit that he bought at the top, insisting that in the stock market there is no top because there are always new highs when he buys, giving the example of Amazon’s stock. He said while his BTC holding was climbing, LINK kept falling. At the time of writing, the price of chainlink stands at $16.01, up about 10% over the past 24 hours.
Gold bug Peter Schiff is happy that a well-known person has gotten out of bitcoin. “While @stoolpresidente [Portnoy] was the last big name to get into bitcoin he was the first to get out. I predict the next big name to bail will be Paul Tudor Jones,” Schiff wrote. However, contrasting Portnoy, he added, “Stocks always go up until they don’t, and only because of the Fed.”
What do you think about Dave Portnoy’s crypto encounter? Let us know in the comments section below.
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