Despite Bear Market, Billionaire David Rubenstein Remains a Crypto Proponent

The American billionaire and former White House official – David Rubenstein – reiterated his pro-crypto stance, predicting that the industry is “not going away.”

His comments come in the midst of a market decline that has affected numerous digital assets. Bitcoin, for one, is currently 70% down compared to its all-time high valuation from November 2021.

Crypto Provides Financial Freedom

In a recent interview for Bloomberg, the Co-Founder of The Carlyle Group – David Rubenstein – said he has not always been that supportive of the cryptocurrency sector.

Years ago, he considered it as something that could bring joy to people, such as going to Las Vegas to gamble or playing golf. However, he warned those who want to enter the world of crypto for that reason should be careful what amount of money they distribute:

“If you get pleasure by watching the screens all day and say you have just made a lot of money in crypto and so forth, allocate enough so if you lose, it’s not the end of the world.”

Later, though, Rubenstein changed his stance and now sees crypto as a sector that is here to stay. In his view, the niche is particularly popular among young people in their 20s and 30s who have libertarian values and want to have independence from centralized institutions:

“I now think that crypto is not going to go away the way some people are thought, and while you can argue it’s worthless in some aspects, many things people buy are maybe worthless. I would say that it’s clear that many people have a libertarian view of life, and they tend to be liking this thing that is kind of anti-government.”

To prove his point, Rubenstein pointed to Russia, where numerous oligarchs had their funds frozen after Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine. Having cryptocurrencies could have eased those issues because of the financial autonomy they provide:

“The government doesn’t know what you have, you can move it anywhere around the world, it’s not going to be devalued by government inflation, it’s not the worst thing to put some of your money in.”

Subsequently, the billionaire admitted he had not diversified his portfolio with digital assets. Nonetheless, he and some of his family members have invested in companies that serve the industry.

‘The Genie Is Out of the Bottle’

Rubenstein thinks that crypto’s real rise started at the beginning of 2021, when the prices of most assets were charting new all-time highs every few days.

In April last year, he argued that “the genie is out of the bottle,” meaning that authorities and central banks are unable to press down the consumers’ interest in the industry.

Once again, he opined that bitcoin and the alternative coins might be highly beneficial monetary tools for war-shaken nations, such as Russians and Ukrainians, who have significant problems with their fiat currencies:

“Having some cryptocurrency probably enables you to feel better that you can have something that’s outside of the government’s control, and it’s not dependent on the bank opening up its doors to you.”