George Soros Prepares to Trade Cryptocurrencies

George Soros called cryptocurrencies a bubble in January.
Now his $26 billion family office is planning to trade digital assets.

Adam Fisher, who oversees macro investing at New York-based Soros Fund Management, got internal approval to trade virtual coins in the last few months, though he has yet to make a wager, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokesman declined to comment.

George Soros, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that digital coins cannot function as actual currencies because of their volatility. But he didn’t predict the hard tumble that some observers had forecast at the time.

“As long as you have dictatorships on the rise you will have a different ending, because the rulers in those countries will turn to ฿itcoin to build a nest egg abroad,” George Soros, 87, said on Jan. 25.

Former hedge fund manager, Mike Novogratz, shelved plans to launch a crypto fund in December, shifting his efforts to a merchant bank focused on crypto currencies and ventures based on related technologies.

Other macro managers have turned to digital coins as profits from their hedge funds dwindle. John Burbank, who shuttered his main fund last year, plans to raise $150 million for two funds investing in digital currencies. His Passport Capital started the funds in January and have mostly sought investments from family offices and other wealthy investors.

Billionaire Alan Howard made sizable personal wagers -- separate from his firm -- in cryptocurrencies last year and plans to put more of his own money into digital assets and the blockchain technology behind them.

George Soros has already been indirectly betting on crypto. The firm amassed a stake in Overstock.com in the fourth quarter, making it the third-biggest share holder of the discount e-commerce company. In August 2017 it became the first major retailer to accept digital currencies. The company had also planned to start an exchange for cryptocurrencies as well as offer digital coins that could trade on the platform.

In March, Overstock.com disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its proposed ICO. Shares have sunk about 40 percent in the wake of the disclosure.

Investors in digital assets also face the growing possibility of government intervention. Central banks globally are investigating the benefits and risks of cryptocurrencies, while regulators in South Korea, one of the world’s busiest ฿itcoin markets, are cracking down on such trading amid allegations of fraud.

Tim Draper Predicts ฿itcoin $250,000 by 2022

Billionaire investor and tech pundit Tim Draper predicted ฿itcoin will be valued at USD 250,000 by 2022. The prediction was made in his usual flamboyant Draper style to an enthusiastic audience in front of the Draper University of Heroes in San Mateo, California.

During the short speech, Tim Draper extolled the virtues of blockchain technology in today’s political and social environment, arguing that there is fast becoming a bilateral scenario between the “virtual world” and the “terrestrial” world. Draper maintained that “you can now be governed anywhere in the world” using blockchain technology, citing healthcare insurance, pensions and welfare as some of the elements which will benefit in the “virtual world” scenario.

Draper, a long-term exponent of ฿itcoin and its underlying blockchain technology has been consistent in his views regarding the virtual currency’s potential, maintaining that in five years, fiat currency will be a thing of the past and that there will be no more currencies linked to specific nations:

“In five years you’re going to walk in and try and pay fiat for a Starbucks coffee, and the barista is going to laugh at you because they’re going to say, “What is this? Are you counting out pennies? Give me shells?”“ He stated recently that other cryptocurrencies would fall away, leaving ฿itcoin as the standard.

Healthcare as Draper pointed out, is increasingly becoming the focus of governments as blockchain is beginning to prove that it has potential to offer a more secure and accessible storage service than current analogue and electronic systems, many of which remain vulnerable to security breaches. A blockchain makes “the perfect bureaucrat”, according to Draper: “It’s honest, it’s straight forward, it’s incorruptible, it’s fair.”

Draper sees business being conducted far more differently in the future without the need of lawyers and accountants. Paying employees, raising money and budgeting will all be conducted through blockchain technology.

Draper’s predictions have been correct before. In January 2017, he predicted a USD 10,000 ฿itcoin price by 2018. This turned out to be a rather conservative prediction after the digital currency surged well past his mark in November 2017.

Peter Thiel: ฿itcoin Will Be The "One Online Equivalent to Gold"

Peter Thiel has once again endorsed ฿itcoin, which he recently argued is tantamount to digital gold. And much like gold, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal conjectures that the cryptocurrency is destined to be a store of value rather than a means of payment.

"It's like bars of gold in a vault that never move," he told a CNBC reporter during a conversation at the Economic Club of New York last week, adding:

"It's sort of hedge of sorts against the whole world falling apart."

He also struck a bullish tone on ฿itcoin in particular -- versus other cryptocurrencies -- suggesting that the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization will maintain its position.

"There will be one online equivalent to gold," he reportedly claimed, "and the one you'd bet on would be the biggest."

Despite his prediction, Peter Thiel didn't express complete confidence in ฿itcoin, and speculated that there is a 50 to 80 percent chance that it will have no value in the future. Nonetheless, he also noted that on the flip side, there is a 20 to 50 percent chance that it will increase in value.

"Probability weighted, it's good," he told CNBC.

Peter Thiel's investments suggest he may be even more bullish on ฿itcoin than he lets on. As previously reported by CoinDesk in January, Founders Fund, of which Peter Thiel is the co-founder, recently purchased somewhere between $15 to $20 million worth of ฿itcoin across several of its funds. He has also publicly stated that he believes critics are "underestimating" the cryptocurrency.

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey says "฿itcoin will be the world’s ‘single currency’ in 10 years."

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey has been an active voice in the cryptocurrency community. While he is an influential voice in the world of technology due to his role as the Twitter CEO, he is also the CEO of Square, a mobile payments services company which recently added the ability to buy and sell ฿itcoins on their Square Cash app. In recent interview, Jack Dorsey stated that he holds a firm belief that ฿itcoin will become the global ‘single currency’ in the next ten years.

Jack Dorsey has been an active ฿itcoin advocate in the past and continues to voice support for the cryptocurrency and its future. He gave this statement in an interview with The Times, where he expressed his belief that ฿itcoin is indeed going to become the ‘single currency’--a currency token accepted all around the world.

According to Jack Dorsey, “The world ultimately will have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be ฿itcoin.” He went on to say that the transition would happen “probably over ten years but it could go faster.”

While Jack Dorsey is among many other eminent names such as Peter Thiel who believe that cryptocurrencies are going to change the world, these latest claims seem rather outlandish. While theoretically, ฿itcoin can become the ‘single currency’ of the world, but going by the way the past few months have been--as prices have been extremely mercurial--falling from $19,000 to $6,000 in a matter of months.

Jack Dorsey has been advocating ฿itcoin for a long time now. In an earlier interview with The Verge, he had stated that ฿itcoin is the ‘next big unlock’ for the world of finance. Jack Dorsey’s Square Cash app too, deals in ฿itcoins now. Square recently released an illustrated children’s book explaining benefits of digital currencies.

Predictions such as these help build a positive sentiment around cryptocurrencies -- and help the prices to rise. It is a very strong statement from a very influential man in the tech world. This statement is very likely to have an impact on ฿itcoin prices in the short run. Cryptocurrency experts have predicted ฿itcoin prices to bounce back later this year and reach a high of as much as $25,000!

Stay tuned for more cryptocurrency news updates.

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Seoul, South Korea is Planning to Launch Its Own Cryptocurrency

The South Korean city of Seoul is developing its own cryptocurrency, the "S-Coin," to be used in city-funded social benefits programs, says its mayor.

Mayor Park Won-soon announced the plan during an interview with CoinDesk Korea last week, where he also revealed that the city will create a fund to support the advancement of blockchain technology and related startups.

"As Seoul is the world's leading city in the field of information & communications, including the 4th Industrial Revolution, I think we should study new technologies such as blockchains," he said.

Like Estonia, which is attempting to apply blockchain technology to all government administrative processes, Park thinks that the "blockchain can be applied to all bureaucratic administrations in Seoul, such as the public transport system system operated by Seoul City and the provision of youth allowance."

Furthermore, Park indicated that the S-Coin could be used as a payment method for city-funded welfare programs for public employees, young job seekers and citizens helping the environment by saving electricity, water and gas.

To accomplish this, Park said the laws governing cryptocurrencies would need to be changed, adding that "in order to make an S-Coin, we need to prepare legal support and institutional such as bylaws," he said.

Park also said he hopes to foster a blockchain ecosystem, saying:

"I've met blockchain companies, and I think our companies are not seeing the light because of the various regulations. Actually, [the] technology is as advanced as any other country. By creating clusters that will allow blockchain companies to build up, and startups to develop new technologies, we are working to develop and spread blockchain technology around the world."

Stepping back, this scheme is part of a wider blockchain masterplan for Seoul, which the city expects to complete in April. In November of 2017, the city of Seoul hired Samsung SDS to help it establish an Information Strategy Plan (ISP) for blockchain-based municipal innovation. It is the first city in Korea to create a roadmap for introducing the blockchain.

Regarding the Korean government's strong regulatory policy on cryptocurrency, Park said, "The last time the Ministry of Justice announced regulatory measures, there was tremendous resistance, and the government seemed to think deeply about it." He added that it is "the local government's task to create cases and models."

If the Seoul government can relax certain regulations, it could become easier to pursue these models, he suggested.

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