Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio who has said in the past that he owns Bitcoin gave a clearer figure, saying it has been around 1% of its portfolio for some time.
However, the hedge fund tycoon said bitcoin still faced significant structural challenges before it could realistically be considered a global reserve asset.
“I own a small percentage of Bitcoin,” he told CNBC on Thursday. “I’ve had it forever, like 1% of my portfolio.”
According to Dalio, its adoption as a reserve currency is hampered by issues such as its traceability, transactional transparency, and vulnerabilities in light of advances in quantum computing.
“I think the problem with bitcoin is that it’s not going to be a reserve currency for big countries because it can be tracked and it could be, possibly with quantum computing, controlled, hacked, etc.,” Dalio said, emphasizing that governments won’t adopt financial products that record publicly and permanently.
Recently, Dalio called on investors to allocate 15% of their portfolios to bitcoin and gold, an asset he says he prefers. “The great thing about gold is that it’s an asset you can hold and you’re not dependent on someone to provide it to you.”
In a broader sense, Dalio warned that the U.S. economy is nearly 80% of the way toward a bubble similar to those that preceded the crash of 1929 and the dot-com collapse of 2000.
The multi-billion dollar hedge fund manager explained that his predictions came from his bubble indicator, which tracks data dating back to 1900. He said he tracks several metrics, including leverage, money supply and wealth concentration, to gauge market vulnerability.
“The picture is pretty clear, in the sense that we are in bubble territory,” Dalio said.
