Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor-Jones — who previously touted bitcoin’s allure as an inflationary hedge — now thinks the benchmark cryptocurrency is less attractive, suggesting it has lost some of its luster.

Jones cited the challenging regulatory environment in the U.S. and the inflation slowdown as fundamental headwinds for Bitcoin.

Regardless, the billionaire American investor — whose company controls approximately $40 billion in assets under management — said he still has a minor allocation in Bitcoin even though it has lost its appeal.

“Bitcoin Has A Real Problem”

One of the all-time great investors, Paul Tudor-Jones, told CNBC’s Squawk Box today that Bitcoin has a grave problem amid regulatory challenges in the United States.

“Bitcoin has a real problem because, in the United States, you have the entire regulatory apparatus against it,” Jones said during the interview.

In recent months, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has indeed stepped up its enforcement actions against crypto startups and platforms in the country, alleging wide breaches of securities laws. The multi-billion dollar implosion of crypto exchange FTX initiated a particularly intense wave of crypto regulatory clampdowns, including those on well-known exchanges, including Coinbase and Kraken. Coinbase has even threatened to move away from the U.S. if legal and regulatory certainty does not come forth.

Jones further said he thinks inflation will continue to cool off, adding to the less-bullish picture for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is far and away the most famous cryptocurrency. Crypto propounders consider Bitcoin a store of value asset like gold, owing to the programmed code that reduces its pace of supply expansion by 50% quadrennially. Back in 2020, when central banks started money-printing sprees in a bid to keep the economy and financial system afloat in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, Jones wrote a compelling investor letter, generally viewed as a logical case for hedging one’s portfolio against inflation with the OG crypto.

Tudor-Jones Still Has Bitcoin Exposure

While Jones’s recent remarks weren’t exactly an endorsement of Bitcoin, given his major bullishness roughly three years ago, the hedge fund manager is not ready to completely cut ties with the number one cryptocurrency.

For Jones, Bitcoin remains intriguing, with its appeal mainly coming from the fact that a single individual or company cannot manipulate its supply.

“It is the only thing that humans can’t adjust the supply in, so I am sticking with it, and I am always going to stick with it,” the billionaire emphasized, adding that bitcoin accounts for a “small diversification” in his portfolio.

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Filed under: Bitcoin - @ May 15, 2023 9:08 pm