Billionaire Predicts Bitcoin to $1 Million if USD Loses Reserve Status

Barry Sternlicht, the billionaire CEO of Starwood Capital, says that BTC could hit the seven-figure mark in the event that the USD loses its world reserve status to the Chinese yuan.

Speaking with Bloomberg's Erik Schatzker at the "The Future of Global Financial Centers: Miami" conference, Sternlicht suggests that with rampant government money printing, Bitcoin may find legitimacy as the one thing you can't make more of.

“In a world where the government just prints money and doesn’t seem to have any consequences, sometimes that will end. The only thing they can’t make more of is Bitcoin and it’s never been hacked. It has no real value other than there’s 21 million coins and they’re infinitely divisible. Gold doesn’t really have a lot of value. You have your gold jewelry but it could be silver or titanium or platinum.”

Sternlicht says that China will inevitably try to knock the US off the dollar standard, and may have many other countries standing behind it in order to support the Belt and Road initiative. The hedge fund veteran suggests that if the USD devalues relative to other currencies in the aftermath of an economic war, Bitcoin would be the asset that everyone jumps onboard to save themselves from currency devaluation.

“If that happens and the dollar devalues you need one thing that could hold its value, and that thing, literally in the scare – it’ll go down with the stock market by the way – and then, in my opinion, it will reverse and it will go to a million a coin. It could do that because everyone – it’s not just US investors, the whole world will look at the one thing that you cant make more of, and that would be Bitcoin.”

The Starwood Capital CEO says he believes Bitcoin has no real function other than as a store of value, adding that holding some BTC could be "a smart little hedge in your life because your paper will be worthless, unfortunately."