Citadel's Ken Griffin said Monday that Bitcoin (TIKER: BTC.EXANTE) may be in a bubble.
"Bitcoin right now has many of the elements of the tulip bulb mania we saw back hundreds of years ago in Holland," said the billionaire hedge fund manager in an exclusive interview with CNBC.
"I get very worried that people that are buying Bitcoins don't really understand what they're participating in other than the headline stories that it keeps going higher and 'I want to make sure I don't miss this opportunity to make some money,'" the billionaire said.
"So is it a fraud? No. But these bubbles tend to end in tears. And I worry about how this bubble might end."
Griffin says “people confuse Bitcoin with blockchain.” He does believe the blockchain technology backing the cryptocurrency is valid.
"Blockchain's a very interesting technology that will have some very profound applications for society over the years to come," he said.
Bitcoin climbed more than $1,000 in a week to a record high of $9,732.76 on Monday morning. The cryptocurrency has climbed 50 percent in November alone and now has a market value of about $161 billion.