Thomas Farley, the former head of the New York Stock Exchange, commented that Bitcoin is on a “lower left to upper right trend” and that its famous volatility shouldn’t scare investors away.
“With respect to the recent price moves, I’m kind of sanguine about them — Bitcoin’s a very volatile asset class, in part because it’s a new asset class. I have no doubt it’ll go up, it’ll go down over the long term — I still think it’s a lower left to upper right trend and I think we’re going to see that play out over five years,” he declared.
Regarding such controversies like China’s mining crackdown or the impact that Bitcoin mining has on the environment, he commented: “I think this kerfuffle is an interesting conversation, but by and large I think it’ll be resolved because I think the blockchain at its core adds to its efficiency and in fact will add to energy efficiency over time.”
But things changed when the topic of Bitcoin as “digital gold” came up.
“I think the upper bound for now is gold, which is about a $10 trillion market cap. In order for Bitcoin to one day exceed gold, it’ll have to be more of an accepted form of currency — I’m not sure, frankly, if it ever gets there.”