Following bitcoin’s weekend selloff, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Swedish fintech big Klarna, is doubling down on his issues round an ongoing gold rush into digital currencies.
“There’s quite a lot of promise in cryptocurrencies,” Siemiatkowski mentioned Tuesday on CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange.” “But on the identical time, I’m deeply apprehensive that the big threat is like when my cab driver is asking me if he ought to put money into bitcoin. That’s when I get nervous that lots of people will come late into the get together and lose some huge cash.”
Siemiatkowski has beforehand mentioned he is “deeply apprehensive” about posts selling bitcoin on Twitter and thinks regulators ought to act to guard folks from potential losses.
Bitcoin and different digital currencies have surged in worth in 2021 on the again of elevated curiosity from institutional traders, whereas main firms like Tesla and PayPal have additionally made important strikes within the area. Tesla purchased $1.5 billion value of bitcoin earlier this yr and now accepts it as fee for its vehicles. Starting Tuesday, Paypal’s Venmo will present customers a brand new function that lets them put money into 4 completely different cryptocurrencies — bitcoin, ether, litecoin and bitcoin money — and share their purchases with pals via Venmo’s social feed.
The cab driver has turn out to be a speaking about a bitcoin bubble — much like the generally instructed story of Joseph Kennedy Sr. becoming worried about the market earlier than the 1929 crash after receiving inventory suggestions from a employee shining his sneakers. Some crypto bulls have pushed again towards the concept, although.
In a collection of tweets earlier this yr, CoinShares chief technique officer Meltem Demirors contended that “your cabbie shopping for bitcoin is not an indication of the highest for the market.” It’s a lot simpler to study about investing now because of the web, she wrote, as a result of “prime quality analysis is freely and available.”
While bitcoin bulls see it as a retailer of worth akin to gold, like Siemiatkowski, not everyone seems to be satisfied by the digital forex’s growth — it beforehand sank as little as $3,122 in 2018 after climbing to nearly $20,000 a yr earlier. Skeptical economists view bitcoin as a bubble ready to burst.
“As a lot as I’m excited about the expertise, I’m all the time apprehensive about speaking about it as a result of there’s a big threat and such a unstable play at this time limit,” Siemiatkowski mentioned. “You know, when I say what I simply mentioned, I promise you should have 500 folks on Twitter chasing me for even daring to precise skepticism.”
In February, CNBC reported that Siemiatkowski’s Klarna is near finalizing a $1 billion funding spherical that may give the corporate, ranked No. 5 on final yr’s CNBC Disruptor 50 checklist, a valuation of $31 billion.
Founded in 2005, Klarna is amongst many potential tech IPO candidates in Europe. “Maybe it may occur this yr, perhaps it will be subsequent yr, nevertheless it’s clearly going to occur pretty quickly,” Siemiatkowski instructed CNBC earlier this yr. “It’s positively within the works however we’ve not formally began the method.”
Klarna’s CEO added that the agency finds direct listings — another path to a standard IPO the place companies checklist with out issuing any new shares — “attention-grabbing.”
