Bitcoin’s advantages over equities are what will propel the asset towards $100,000, said Jordan Belfort – known as the Wolf of Wall Street. Interestingly, his bullish price projection comes years after bashing the cryptocurrency and warning investors to get out because BTC will go away.
Belfort in 2018: Bitcoin is Going Away
Belfort is a former stock broker who became synonymous with the term “pump and dump” last century when he and his team touted penny stocks to inflate their value, which boosted their value, and then dumped them on their investors.
After spending a brief time in jail, Belfort went on to write several books. One of them, picked up by legendary director Martin Scorsese, became a 2013 movie hit with Leonardo DiCaprio in the leading role.
Knowing a thing or two about scams, Belfort tried to redeem himself by warning people about what he believed were fraudulent investment projects. One of them used to be the first-ever cryptocurrency – bitcoin.
He used several opportunities to criticize the asset, but he was especially vocal during and after the last parabolic price increase when BTC neared $20,000 and the subsequent market crash when it dumped to $4,000.
“Bitcoin is all based on the Great Fools Theory. I know this better than anyone in the world. I’m not proud of that, but I do.”
He went even further by advocating that people should “get out if you don’t want to lose all of your money because there’s a very good chance it’s going to crack. And when it really cracks, you’re not going to be able to sell on the way down, there will be no liquidity.”
Belfort in 2021: Bitcoin to $100K
Fast-forward three years after his aforementioned negative comments, the so-called Wolf of Wall Street has changed his tune regarding BTC. During a recent interview with Fortune, Belfort outlined some of his critiques in the past but noted that the developments following the COVID-19 pandemic and the equity markets had turned the tables for him.
Contrasting to equities, which have “an infinite number of shares that can be issued,” bitcoin has “a fixed, finite supply.” According to Belfort, this makes people feel “spoiled by bitcoin.”
Additionally, he asserted that BTC now has a “much bigger base of buyers than ever before” and predicted that its price could top $100,000 by the end of the year.
With his apparent change of heart on BTC, Belfort has joined the likes of MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, and more.
