Carl Icahn sees Bitcoin becoming increasingly attractive due to inflation

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn issued a warning on an inevitable market crisis looming on the horizon. Considering this situation, some investors might see Bitcoin (BTC) as increasingly attractive as an inflationary hedge.

Countries all over the world have been printing money as part of their efforts to mitigate the economic effects of the coronavirus crisis. Unfortunately, these efforts could cause problems down the line, according to the billionaire.

“In the long run we are certainly going to hit the wall,” Icahn said in an interview with CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report” on Monday. “I really think there will be a crisis the way we are going, the way we are printing money, the way we are going into inflation. If you look around you, you see inflation all around you and I don’t know how you deal with that in the long term.”

If this happens, Icahn believes that BTC might become increasingly attractive to some investors as a hedge against inflation. “The jury is really out on whether bitcoin has intrinsic value or acts as a store of value,” he said, Business Insider reported. “If inflation gets rampant, I guess it does have value. There are so many variables, it is a very difficult thing to invest in.”

However, the billionaire admitted that his firm has not made any investment in Bitcoin. The reason for this is that his team felt that they still lack a proper understanding of the crypto.

“We've got a lot of smart guys working at Icahn & Company, and we just don't understand bitcoin,” Icahn explained. “I'm not saying it's bad or good, I'm just saying we don't understand it. We're not going to invest in something we don't get.”

Icahn isn’t the only one who sees Bitcoin’s inflationary hedge. In a recent note to its clients, JPMorgan said that institutions are increasingly turning to BTC instead of gold as a hedge against inflation, which helped in the crypto’s price hike.

“The re-emergence of inflation concerns among investors has renewed interest in the usage of bitcoin as an inflation hedge,” JPMorgan said. “Institutional investors appear to be returning to bitcoin perhaps seeing it as a better inflation hedge than gold.”

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