- The Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, recently became the latest big name to admit to being wrong about Bitcoin
- The growing list includes developers, finance magnates, and even publications
- Which big names have done an about turn about Bitcoin?
When the Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort came out over the weekend to say that he was “wrong about Bitcoin going to zero”, there was less jubilation and more resigned shrugs from the Bitcoin community. The reason for this is simple – we’re used to it by now. Belfort is by some margin not the first big name to dismiss Bitcoin as a scam and then admit to not actually having looked into it in the first place, basing their assertions only on what other people have said. And the list would make quite the dinner party.
David Hansson
The Danish programmer, famous for creating Ruby on Rails, admitted in February this year that his initial thoughts about crypto’s use case were wrong, following the Canadian truckers’ protest:
…it’s clear to me now that I was too hasty to completely dismiss crypto on the basis of all the things wrong with it at the moment. Instead of appreciating the fundamental freedom to transact that it’s currently our best shot at protecting.
The Motley Fool
The financial website, whose authors pilloried and mocked crypto relentlessly for years, saw the light in February 2021 when it purchased $5 million worth of Bitcoin with the intention of seeing it through until it goes 10x:
We believe it will store value more effectively than gold over the long term. We believe it may become a medium for transactions, as/if pricing stabilizes in the decade ahead. We believe it can act as a productive hedge against inflation.
Jordan Belfort
The Wolf of Wall Street has been savaging crypto like the fox who got into the hen house since 2017, but in 2021 he seemed to be changing his mind. This weekend he confirmed his new stance:
I stand by everything I said about crypto in 2017 except for one thing, I was wrong about Bitcoin going to zero but I didn’t look closely enough because I just said it’s a scam because it just seemed like that because in all the ear markings of that.
Jim Rickards
The financial author called Bitcoin a “bubble…based almost entirely on fraud” in May 2020, but eight months later revealed a new take on it:
Bitcoin works. So does gold. https://t.co/YftHWJYEcd
— Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) February 20, 2022
Mark Cuban
The Shark Tank judge and Dallas Mavericks owner is known as a huge cryptocurrency advocate today, but it wasn’t always so. In 2019, Cuban said he would “rather have bananas”, noting that, “I can eat bananas. Crypto not so much.”
Clearly he didn’t know about the crypto projects Banana Finance, Banana ClubToken and Banana Token. Cuban has since invested millions in crypto projects and talks often about its potential.
Ray Dalio
In 2017, Dalio called Bitcoin a poor store of value and an ineffective medium of exchange, but in May 2021 he finally succumbed and bought an unspecified amount of the cryptocurrency. This came after saying in 2020 that it had established itself as a “gold-like asset alternative”, although, unfortunately for him, he bought the very top of the early 2021 bubble.
See, it’s not just you.
Kevin O’Leary
What is it about Shark Tankers? This judge, now a firm crypto fan, called Bitcoin a “giant nothing burger” in early 2021 but changed his mind somewhere in the following 12 months:
Bitcoin is not just a coin or currency, it’s a software. Institutions like to criticize me for investing in Bitcoin, but how I see it, if you hold big positions in companies like Microsoft or Yahoo, it’s all the same.
— Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) February 20, 2022
Mr. Wonderful has now backed, and even given his nickname to, a crypto app called WonderFi that aims to make decentralised finance accessible to all, as well as becoming an official ambassador for the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
Who’s Next?
As we can see, there are plenty of big names that have admitted to being wrong about Bitcoin, and you can be sure there will be plenty more to come as it persistently refuses to go to zero.
