Mike Novogratz, a former Goldman Sachs banker, hedge fund manager, and now head of his own merchant bank, Galaxy Digital, is touting Bitcoin and all cryptos in general. He is now claiming that we could see a total recovery of BTC to its former glory of $20,000 in 18 months or less, or at least sometime in 2020. He made his remarks during an interview at the recent SALT conference, a massive finance and tech event conducted in Las Vegas.
Novogratz, affectionately known as “Novo” amongst his friends, is an “on-again-off-again billionaire”, who is trying to rebuild his fortunes in the crypto space by way of Galaxy Digital. His merchant bank, which describes itself as a “bridge between crypto and institutional worlds”, has a balance sheet that is ready to invest and has many times over in tokens and all things crypto, including blockchain related development efforts.
Novo is known as a risk-taker and a big one at that. He has racked up big wins, along with huge losses, as well, first with Goldman Sachs and then with Fortress Investments. His friends admire him, but his enemies do not care for his style, noting that he is often “bombastic”, a sidelined Wall Street legend, and due to his tendency to be a “party animal”, he was summarily removed as a partner of Goldman.
He is a firm believer, however, in cryptos, especially Bitcoin, and since his timing has been both good and bad, crypto enthusiasts are always interested in what he has to say. His latest comments:
- “Out of the rubble, Bitcoin has popped back up”, clearly demonstrating that it is not dead, as many cynics have suggested in recent months;
- A firm bottom formed for BTC in December, but he believes that, since the Tether/Bitfinex scandal and Binance breach did not slow its rise, it might take something much larger to force Bitcoin into retreat: “It would take something like that to shatter this newfound confidence.”
- He also does not think that these two “black swan” events have dissuaded institutional investors from investing in the space: “A little bit of guardrails can go a long way.”
- He is currently bullish, predicting that Bitcoin will retest its previous high of nearly $20,000 in December of 2017 by tripling in value over the next 18 months.
Novogratz is also someone that puts his money where his mouth is. Galaxy Digital released its financial results for 2018 last week, and the losses were phenomenal. His merchant bank booked losses of $273 million for the year, with $173 million of that figure occurring over the last two quarters of the 2018. Per the filing:
Much of this loss can be attributed to its principal investing and trading businesses, presumably due to the fact that November and December saw Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fall to fresh lows, far below what most analysts suspected.
Novogratz is confident, however, that cryptos will eventually return to their prior glory. The current level of debt and the propensity of the Trump administration to spend more is a ripe condition for investing in Bitcoin, as a store of value that can only rise, as the U.S. Dollar falls. He also sees several positives on the fundamental front, like Facebook’s crypto payment service and Fidelity opening its crypto trading platform “within weeks”.
As for near-term prospects, Novogratz is a little fuzzy. He currently buys into the general consensus of analysts that believes that $6,000 is a psychological barrier that will take quite a while to overcome. His comments were made a few days back, but Bitcoin has rocketed upward in weekend trading, passing $6,000 in its wake, and for the moment, BTC is catching its breath at $7,000 and change, having already soared higher, but now falling back a bit, until Monday’s traders get back at it. Novo must be pleased.