Tocqueville’s chairman John Hathaway has branded the cryptocurrency market "absolute bubble” and ‘garbage,’ Kitco.com reports.
When asked about the cryptocurrency craze by a precious metals news and data site Kitco.com, Hathaway said, ‘garbage.’
The manager of the $1.2 billion dollar Tocqueville gold fund emphasised: “It's an absolute bubble -there's no question in my mind that it's in a bubble”.
He also referred to the cryptocurrency overall market capitalization of $126 billion comparing it to gold.
“Sure you can make money in bubbles any time but you have to get out. Let's not forget that the total market value of these cryptocurrencies is $180 billion or so, maybe a little less now -that's tiny compared to gold,” he stressed.
Earlier this month Ray Dalio, the founder of the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, said in an interview he believed there's a bubble in the Bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) market.
"It's not an effective storehold of wealth because it has volatility to it, unlike gold. Bitcoin is a highly speculative market. Bitcoin is a bubble. It’s a shame, it could be a currency. It could work, conceptually, but the amount of speculation that is going on and the lack of transactions [hurts it],” he said.
Before Dalio the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) Jamie Dimon said that Bitcoin was 'a fraud' and it would blow up.
Speaking at a bank investor conference in New York, Dimon added: “The currency isn’t going to work. You can’t have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart.”