Concerns about a looming global debt crisis have taken the world’s top hedge fund manager from doubting Bitcoin (BTC) to tentatively embracing the benchmark crypto.
Ray Dalio has urged investors to allocate a portion of their portfolios to BTC amid concerns about dollar devaluation amid rising US debt.
Ray Dalio Backs Bitcoin, Gold Amid Debt Crisis
Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio said on The Master Investor Podcast that macroeconomic risks concerning increasing government debts in the United States and globally have not been priced into markets, which may eventually face a substantial drop.
The U.S. Government is “spending 40% more than it takes in, and it can’t really cut its spending,” Dalio stated, adding that, “it’s accumulated a debt that’s six times the amount of money it takes in […] and in interest payments that is $1 trillion per year, which is half [its] budget deficit.”
Dalio further explained that the U.S. Government can pay its debts only by issuing more debt and by “the central bank [the Federal Reserve] printing the money.”
 
This has created a situation where markets may become increasingly spooked, with Dalio indicating that a trigger for a huge crash could be another substantial round of quantitative easing, or the Government taking control of the Federal Reserve.
In such an environment, Bitcoin and gold look increasingly attractive as savings vehicles, the hedge fund billionaire opined.
Because such risks are not priced into markets, Dalio is advising investors to allocate at least 15% of their portfolios to gold or Bitcoin, which could serve as hedges against devaluing fiat currencies.
Central Banks Will Not Adopt Bitcoin As A Reserve Currency
Dalio, however, clarified that he is “strongly preferring” the precious metal over Bitcoin, but he stressed that the choice is up to investors. In his opinion, central banks are unlikely to embrace the alpha crypto as a reserve currency, “because everybody can understand and watch who is doing what transactions on it, so there’s no privacy to it.”
Dalio also contended that there are “doubts” over whether “the code can be broken” or whether Bitcoin’s protocol could ever be altered to make the asset “less effective” as a store of value.
The hedge fund boss thus believes gold overshadows Bitcoin in his portfolio due to these reasons. “I have gold and I have some Bitcoin, but not much,” Dalio volunteered in the middle of the podcast interview.
He first purchased the apex crypto in 2021.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/billionaire-ray-dalio-endorses-15-allocation-to-bitcoin-and-gold-to-hedge-against-mounting-us-debt/