Despite the bear market, billionaire David Rubenstein remains a crypto champion

American billionaire and former White House official – David Rubenstein – reiterated his pro-crypto stance, predicting that the industry “is not going away.”

His comments come amid a market downturn that has affected a number of digital assets. Bitcoin, for one, is currently down 70% from its November 2021 all-time high.

Crypto gives financial freedom

In a recent interview for Bloomberg, the co-founder of The Carlyle Group – David Rubenstein – said that he has not always been so supportive of the cryptocurrency sector.

Years ago, he considered it something that could bring joy to people, such as going to Las Vegas to gamble or play golf. However, he warned those looking to enter the crypto world for that reason should be careful about how much money they hand out:

“If you’re happy to look at the screens all day and say you just made a lot of money in crypto and so on, allocate enough so that if you lose, it’s not the end of the world.”

Later, however, Rubenstein changed his stance and now sees crypto as a sector here to stay. In his view, the niche is particularly popular among young people in their 20s and 30s who have libertarian values ​​and want independence from centralized institutions:

“I now believe that crypto is not going to go away the way some people think, and while you can argue that it’s worthless in some aspects, a lot of things that people are buying are maybe worthless. I would say that it’s clear that a lot of people have a libertarian view of life, and they tend to like this thing that’s kind of anti-government.”

To prove his point, Rubenstein pointed to Russia, where many oligarchs had their funds frozen after Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine. Having cryptocurrencies could have eased these problems because of the economic autonomy they provide:

“The government doesn’t know what you have, you can move it anywhere in the world, it won’t be devalued by government inflation, it’s not the worst thing to put some of your money in.”

Subsequently, the billionaire admitted that he had not diversified his portfolio with digital assets. Nevertheless, he and some of his family members have invested in companies that serve the industry.

“The genie is out of the bottle”

Rubenstein believes that crypto’s real rise started in early 2021, when the prices of most assets charted new records every few days.

In April last year, he argued that “the genie is out of the bottle”, which means that authorities and central banks are unable to suppress consumer interest in the industry.

Once again, he opined that bitcoin and the altcoins could be very beneficial monetary tools for war-torn nations, such as the Russians and Ukrainians, who have significant problems with their fiat currencies:

“Having some cryptocurrency probably makes you feel better that you can have something that’s outside of government control and it’s not dependent on the bank opening its doors for you.”