Bitcoin’s pull back from recent highs has not dissuaded Stock Think Tank editor Bob Iaccino from owning the cryptocurrency — but he has taken profits.
Bitcoin climbed from below $20,000 in mid-December to above $41,000 Jan. 8, then fell sharply before rebounding.
It now trades just shy of $40,000.
“Bitcoin itself I continue to be have the same sort of base case for it,” Iaccino told TD Ameritrade in an interview.
“When we had talked before I was accumulating it much much lower prices than it is now,” he said.
“I basically took profits on almost everything. Essentially I have some profits left in but I’ve taken my whole initial investment out in the form of profit, so I’m not really active in it right now, although I am watching it because it’s gone to the right place in the sell-off.”
The selloff was sharp but not very high volume, nor did it decline as far as expected, Iaccino noted.
The decline bottomed out around $32,500 before recovering.
“I would have thought I would have seen somewhere closer to $24,000,” he said. “Essentially the case for Bitcoin is higher, sans regulation, now.”
Regulation will be an an issue worth watching, he said. Christine Lagarde, head of the World Bank, has commented on the need to regular Bitcoin.
More talk of regulating crypto is inevitable but not imminent, Iaccino said.
“Until that’s a global chorus [in favor of regulation], and I would suspect that’s going to happen soon, there’s no reason to look at this going anywhere but up,” Iaccino said.
Bitcoin or Apple?
There’s two fundamental cases for Bitcoin, he said: Regulation and more usability as a spending vehicle.
“That’s really it, and the only time you lose money in Bitcoin is if we have lower growth and lower inflation,” he said.
“I would argue that might happen in Q3 but it’s not here now.”
Iaccino went on to compare Bitcoin to Apple (AAPL) as an investment vehicle.
“We talk about the volatility of Bitcoin. I was just looking today at the 60-day vol of Bitcoin it’s about 20 to 21. Apple’s about 29,” he said.
“While Bitcoin is definitely volatile, there’s things that people look at as being sort of store of value like Apple that can be just as volatile if not more volatile in short windows.”
So I really think it’s a relative story in terms of the volatility. Bitcoin.
“Liquidity is different liquidity. There isn’t as much liquidity in Bitcoin as there is at Apple obviously, but we’re getting there.”
