Mohammed El-Erian, the chief economic advisor at German multinational financial services company Allianz SE, recently revealed that he bought bitcoin some years back, but sold it off in 2020 just before the bullrun.
In a recent interview with CNBC, the Egyptian-American economist and businessman stated that he purchased some BTC in September 2018 when the leading cryptocurrency was down about 80% from its 2017 peak.
During the 2018 bear market, bitcoin, which recorded an all-time high above $19,000 plunged to as low as $3,000 per coin, and that gave El-Erian a good entry point.
“I felt compelled to buy it, I really did…I felt like I had framed it. I had this level, I had an entry point,” he said.
Sold Off Too Early
Although El-Erian did not specify the amount of bitcoins he bought, he did mention that he held onto them for some time, but eventually sold all of them, late last year, when the currency regained the $19,000 price level, same as it was before the 2018’s crash.
While he made decent profits after selling, the chief economic advisor could have made even more if he had held a little longer or kept some of his bitcoin bags considering that BTC now trades at $60,000 per coin.
Will El-Erian Buy Bitcoins Again?
When asked if he wishes to buy bitcoin again, El-Erian went ahead to group Bitcoin investors into three categories – “fundamentalists” who are in it for the long haul, “professional investors” looking to diversify their portfolios and day trading “speculators.”
The fundamentalists and professional investors are “really strong foundations for that market long term and are pretty solid in terms of supporting bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” he said.
However, El-Erian sees no usefulness in the speculators and stated that he will buy BTC again only when some of these speculators are “shaken out” of the market.
Although he does not see bitcoin becoming a global currency nor replacing the dollar, the Queens’ College, Cambridge’s president described the asset as a “disruptive force” that can never be “regulated out of existence.”
Viewing Bitcoin as the best option for reducing the amount of risk investment companies take, El-Erian stated earlier this year noted that “more companies invest in bitcoin because they don’t know how else to mitigate risks.”
