Jim Cramer: Coinbase stock is cheap, put 5% of your portfolio in crypto

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Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s Mad Money, has recommended buying Coinbase stock and suggested that 5% of investment portfolios should be allocated to cryptocurrency.

Cramer made the comments in the Lightning Round on Wednesday in response to a caller who asked whether buying Coinbase stock was a good way to get crypto exposure. The 66-year-old finance personality stated that while Coinbase’s listing went “very poorly,” he views it as a big player in crypto:

“I think Coinbase is inexpensive. I don’t really care for management because I think they let out a lot of stock when they started. I was against that. They should’ve been buyers, not sellers. I think the listing went very, very poorly. I think the company is the ... natural repository of crypto.”

Coinbase stock (COIN) has seen a lackluster performance since its listing on the Nasdaq exchange in mid-April. At the time of writing, COIN is sitting at $248, down 27% from its all-time high of $340 on April 16.

However, the firm had a strong performance last quarter, with its Q2 report posting net profits of $1.6 billion, compared to $32 million in Q2 2020.

Cramer added to his comments by suggesting that direct exposure to crypto should also be an option for investors:

“I own Ethereum directly. I think you should have up to 5% of your portfolio in crypto. I am a believer in crypto.”

The CNBC host is a former hedge fund manager and co-founder of the financial news website TheStreet. While Cramer has remained relatively consistent on Ether (ETH) lately, he has had an on-again-off-again love affair with digital gold since he first bought Bitcoin (BTC) back in December 2020.

In fact, he’s all over the place. In the middle of a crypto downturn in June, Cramer urged investors to be “patient” with BTC — but 10 days later, his patience ran out, and he boldly claimed that BTC is “not going up because of structural reasons,” and revealed:

“Sold almost all of my Bitcoin. Don’t need it.”

In March, Cramer bullishly stated that BTC made him a “ton of money,” while his investments in gold and stocks had let him down. In April, he stated that he had cashed out 50% of his “phony money” BTC to pay off his mortgage.

Cointelegraph reported on May 5 that Cramer said he owned “a lot of Ether” after he initially bought the asset to bid on a Time Magazine NFT.