Fund manager and veteran investor, Bill Miller has revealed that he is bullish for bitcoin and has also offered an explanation for his stance. According to Miller, almost 50% of Russia’s reserves are in currencies that are in the control of people who want to inflict harm on them. The famed value investor talked about the general outlook for the crypto space amidst the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The investor founded Miller Value Partners and is currently serving as its chief investment officer and chairman. He also manages the Income Strategy and Opportunity Equity funds of the company. Before he launched Miller Value Partners, he also helped co-found Legg Mason Capital Management.
An increasing number of countries have introduced sanctions for Russia, after it launched a military operation in Ukraine. The sanctions prompted the shares of Russia companies, as well as the value of the Russian ruble to plummet. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, stated last week that their goal was to paralyze the assets of the central bank in Russia. She said that this would freeze their transactions and liquidating their assets would become impossible for the central bank. Miller elaborated that taking Russia’s reserves into account currently, which are valued at $640 billion, almost 16% of them are in US dollars.
32% of their total reserves are in euros, which means that almost 50% of Russia’s total reserves are in currencies that are controlled by governments imposing sanctions on it. He went on to say that this was not a good position to be in from Russia’s perspective. He elaborated that only 22% of their reserves were in gold and this was the only part that was not in the control of another country. The billionaire investor went on to say that hundreds of countries out there have a non-reserve currency.
Therefore, they would be interested in something that remains impervious to inflation and cannot be used for harming them, or is not being manufactured in large quantities. Hence, he said bitcoin fits the bill, which has made him bullish for the pioneer cryptocurrency. Miller continued to discuss crypto, which has become quite a hot topic. He stated that the other cryptocurrencies are different. He opined that bitcoin is the unique one and other cryptocurrencies should be regarded as adventure investments as they are trying to solve other issues.
The renowned value investor has been bullish for bitcoin for quite a while now. Back in February, the investor said that he had a ‘very big’ bitcoin position. As a matter of fact, he had gone as far as likening bitcoin to digital gold when it comes to hedging against inflation. He also added that bitcoin could be insurance against financial catastrophe. However, recently, it appears that with the cryptocurrency becoming mainstream, it has also been weighed down due to the trouble in the market because of the Russia and Ukraine conflict. Its value has remained under the $40,000 mark for some time.
