Jim Cramer says he’s done with cryptocurrency two months after paying off his mortgage with BTC.
“Sold almost all of my Bitcoin. Don’t need it,” said Cramer on Squawk on the Street Monday.
China’s growing repression on cryptocurrency mining as well as the role of Bitcoin in recent ransomware attacks was apparently one of the drivers for the move.
The price of BTC has fallen recently and Cramer said he would have expected the opposite, given China’s constraints on mining (the country has historically led Bitcoin global mining efforts).
“When you limit mining, [the price] should obviously go up,” said Cramer.
Jim Cramer also signalled concerns about Bitcoin’s role in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware payment—as well as other, unreported ransomware cases, noting the government was able to retrieve part of that ransom after it was paid.
“I think the Justice Department and the FBI and the Federal Reserve and Treasury could coalesce and say, ’OK guys, if you pay ransomware, we’re going to go after you’,” said Cramer.
Together, the two government bodies gave Cramer enough pause as he decided to withdraw onto Bitcoin.
“This is not going up because of structural reasons,” he said.
He failed to address the status of his other crypto assets. He recently sold half of his ETHwallet for the purchase of a fully electric Hummer.
He has been a longtime advocate of BTC. In the past, he said, on air, that it would be “almost irresponsible” not to include it in a portfolio and said he’d be open to being paid in BTC instead of cash.
Apparently, that point of view has now changed.
