It might seem that lately, the world of high-finance want nothing more than to drop a proverbial load all over Bitcoin but CEO of leading global financial services firm Morgan Stanley, James Gorman, offered words to support the contrary on Wednesday.
Speaking at a conference hosted by The Wall Street Journal, he said he considered Bitcoin to be “certainly more than just a fad.” Whilst claiming yet to have invested himself, he went on to say:
I’ve talked to a lot of people who [invested in Bitcoin]. It’s obviously highly speculative, but it’s not something that’s inherently bad. It’s a natural consequence of the whole blockchain technology.
The story broke over at Bloomberg where the news network accompanied it with a positive and informative video about cryptocurrency which seemed refreshingly balanced for a mainstream source.
The overall sentiment from the main-man at Morgan Stanley seemed to refute Jamie Dimon’s divisive words from the last few weeks. The JP Morgan Chase executive was widely reported as saying that Bitcoin was worse than tulip bulbs and won’t end well.”
However, Gorman wasn’t completely bullish in his words. He did wonder “at what point do regulators – like the Chinese have been saying – just decide we want to control monetary flows for money laundering and privacy and capital outflows and all the other reasons.” He went on to express intrigue in the technology and protocol without needing to resort to hyperbole to cover lack of understanding – an absolute rarity from voices within the upper echelons of high-finance:
The concept of anonymous currency is a very interesting concept — interesting for the privacy protections it gives people, interesting because of what it says to the central banking system about controlling that.
Despite his thoughtful take, Gorman exists as one of few loud rational voices in a sea of unreasonable noise. Even other fans of cryptocurrency from Wall Street seem only interested in the technology from a purely speculative view. Earlier this week former Fortress Investment Group manager Mike Novogratz this week called Bitcoin “the largest bubble of our lifetimes” but said that traders, like himself, plan to “make a whole lot of money on the way up.”
Ref: Business Insider | Bloomberg | Image: Alex Proimos (License CC2.0)
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