Airbnb And Uber Investor Jeffrey Wernick Believes “Everybody Should Put Something Into Crypto”
In a recent interview with Business Insider, Jeffrey Wernick, an early investor into Uber and Airbnb, portrayed digital currency investment as the sole means through which ordinary citizens can collect capital.
Mr. Wernick stated: “given the fact that the capital markets are overvalued because they’re subsidized by those low-interest rates, that the biggest institutions that have the biggest access to leverage at cost of capital significantly cheaper than anyone else can produce. Then the question is, is what, what for a typical middle-class person-how do they accumulate wealth? And I think their only answer is to put a certain percentage in crypto.”
The investor argued that “There have been some studies that show that now, that if you put 5-10% of your money in crypto that actually on a risk-adjusted basis it improves your total portfolio returns,” adding that through investing in cryptocurrency “you’d be making a statement to the government that says ’what you’re doing is completely unacceptable’.”
“I think over five years, you’re going to accumulate a lot more wealth than you would in any other alternative investment. […] “I think everybody should put something into crypto,” he concluded.
Mr. Wernick likewise contended that “a lot of the volatility in pricing has to do with uncertainty on government policy towards it,” adding “while the government is trying to mitigate volatility in ordinary capital markets, they’re trying to exacerbate volatility in cryptomarkets”.
The investor depicted the present digital currency prices as “amazing […] given the fact that it only faces headwinds, no tailwinds. Every government throughout the world is trying to figure out how to stop and kill bitcoin.”
In spite of the difficulties, Mr. Wernick expressed: “Since Bitcoin has been created […] it has outperformed every currency, even with governments hostile to it, and a regulatory regime that’s an uncertain regime.”
Mr. Wernick contends that many “people don’t understand the philosophy” supporting bitcoin, including that “the people now in the business were not there in 2009 and 2019.” The investor declares that “People who have gotten into it now talk more about blockchain than bitcoin because they’re just looking for an alternative model to make money.”
Mr. Wernick depicts new investors as “agnostic to the initial philosophical framework that drove people to adopt bitcoin […[ and keep it alive from 2009 through 2013 or ‘14,” stating that “There was a small universe of people that actively worked to keep it alive by continuing to mine and continuing to buy and they were doing it because of the concept that they believed in, and that it’s a people’s money.”
