Two months after paying off his mortgage with Bitcoin, CNBC’s Jim Cramer says he’s done with the cryptocurrency.
“Sold almost all of my Bitcoin. Don’t need it,” Cramer said on Squawk on the Street Monday.
One of the catalysts for the move, apparently, was China’s increasing crackdown on cryptocurrency mining as well as Bitcoin’s role in recent ransomware attacks.
Bitcoin prices have been falling recently and Cramer said he would have expected the opposite, given China’s restrictions on mining (the country has historically led Bitcoin global mining efforts).
“When you limit mining, [the price] should obviously go up,” he said.
Cramer also expressed concerns about Bitcoin’s role in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware payment—as well as other, unreported ransomware cases, noting the government was able to reclaim 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’,” he said.
Combined, the two government forces gave Cramer enough pause that he decided to bail on Bitcoin.
“This is not going up because of structural reasons,” he said.
Cramer didn’t address the status of his other crypto holdings. He recently sold half of his Ethereum portfolio to purchase an all-electric Hummer.
Cramer has been a longtime proponent of Bitcoin. He previously 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 Bitcoin instead of cash.
Presumably, that opinion has now changed.
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