Bitcoin Will Be ‘Alive and Well,’ Says Renowned Emerging Markets Investor Mark Mobius

Veteran frontier markets investor Mark Mobius has said he believes cryptocurrencies will show resilience due to continuing demand for new forms of value transfer. Mobius made his remarks during an interview with Bloomberg on May 15.

Mobius is a seasoned and pioneer investor in developing nations and emerging economies, earning international recognition for his decades-long work at global investment firm Franklin Templeton. Last year, he retired to launch a new asset management boutique, Mobius Capital Partners.

Having previously adopted a cautious stance toward crypto, the investor told Bloomberg yesterday that he believes that global demand for the frictionless and private transfer of value will continue to bolster cryptocurrencies’ development and markets. He noted:

"There's definitely a desire among people around the world to be able to transfer money easily and confidentially that is really the backing to bitcoin and other currencies of that type, so I believe it's going to be alive and well."

Mobius nonetheless stopped short of endorsing crypto investment in unequivocal terms, underscoring the risks he perceives to be inherent to their decentralized structure:

“Whether I would invest in it is another question, because it has incredible volatility and at the end of the day, you can’t trace one individual or group or organization that would keep track of what is going on.”

As a proposed case in point, Mobius alluded to an unnamed Japan-based bitcoin exchange that “went bust and lost millions” — presumably a reference to the high-profile collapse of bitcoin (BTC) exchange Mt. Gox in early 2014, which resulted in the loss of 850,000 BTC valued at roughly $460 million at the time.

“You have to be very careful,” he noted, underscoring that he himself holds no investments in bitcoin.

Alongside his work at Templeton, Mobius was chosen to serve on the World Bank’s Global Corporate Governance Forum as a co-chairman of its investor-responsibility task force in 1999.

Cointelegraph has previously reported on Mobius’ response to the hardline anti-crypto stance adopted by China — notably the country’s September 2017 ban on crypto exchanges and initial coin offerings — which he considered at the time would likely draw risk-shy investors back to gold.