The Block: Ray Dalio: Bitcoin is ‘not effective’ to serve purposes of money

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio, who is the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, is not a fan of bitcoin.

Dalio believes bitcoin doesn’t serve purposes of money. “There’s two purposes of money, a medium of exchange and a store hold of wealth, and bitcoin is not effective in either of those cases now,” he told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The 70-year-old billionaire investor endorsed buying gold. “I think you have to have a certain amount of gold in your portfolio,” he said.

Cash, on the other hand, is “trash,” according to Dalio. He advised investors to have a global and well-diversified portfolio. Dalio’s firm, Bridgewater, manages about $160 billion in global investments for around 350 institutional clients, according to its website.

This is not the first time Dalio has had a negative stance on bitcoin. In 2017, he called bitcoin “a bubble” and a “highly speculative” instrument.

Dalio is not the only billionaire investor who sees flaws in bitcoin. Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway have called bitcoin "rat poison" and "rat poison squared," respectively. Carl Icahn once called bitcoin “ridiculous, while JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has called bitcoin “a fraud.”

Yet, a recent report from Bank of America names bitcoin the single best investment of the last decade. The report said if you invested $1 in bitcoin at the start of 2010, it would now be worth more than $90,000.