Yahoo Finance 'Too late to use crypto as hedge against falling pound' says BitBoy Crypto
Watch: It's 'too late' to use crypto as hedge against collapsing fiat currencies, says BitBoy Crypto | The Crypto Mile
The British pound (GBPUSD=X) and euro (EURGBP=X) are faltering against a strengthening dollar. Now a crypto influencer has warned investors that "it's too late" to use crypto as a hedge against collapsing fiat currencies.
The US dollar has strengthened against the pound and the euro, as investors suspect the Federal Reserve's aggressive stance on interest rates is unlikely to change.
Meanwhile, after the UK's finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled historic tax cuts and the biggest increase in borrowing since 1972, the pound has been thrown into uncertainty.
However, according to crypto influencer and creator of BitBoyCrypto.com Ben Armstrong, digital assets are not a good option for storing value amidst the current macroeconomic headwinds.
On this week's The Crypto Mile Armstrong said: "If right now you're in the UK and you're sitting there saying to yourself that you want to use crypto to hedge against my falling pound? You're too late in a lot of ways. It's too late."
Check: Crypto live prices
He added that investors should have been thinking about adding crypto to their portfolios one or even two years ago, at least.
The cryptocurrency YouTuber said: "You need to develop a plan to hedge your assets in a way that's set so that you know, kind of what you might do.
"And you've already been taking steps toward that.
"I know this sounds harsh, and people don't want to hear that because your money's falling and you don't know what to do when you're scared, but this is a very, very, very valuable lesson for you, and the next time things are going great, then why don't you hedge a little bit?"
He added that the crypto-sphere is haunted by the the scares of former crashes.
"I've lost money in the market. I've been hacked before," he said.
He added: "I lost money in Celsius (CEL-USD), millions of dollars in Celsius. It's an expensive lesson for now. The next time things are going well and you do the smart thing, you're probably going to end up being better off than you would have if this situation wouldn't have happened."
On Wednesday, (BTC-USD) bitcoin rose slightly on the news that Google (GOOGL) has teamed up with Coinbase (COIN) to offer crypto payments for cloud services.
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Bitcoin was up 0.5% in the last 24 hours to $19,156, and ethereum (ETH-USD), the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was up 1.5% to $1,297.
Bitcoin is still showing a tendency to march in lockstep with US equity markets, such as the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Nasdaq (^IXIC), which both ended Tuesday trading down, as prospects for policy tightening and geopolitical risks weigh in on investor sentiment.
Ripple vs the SEC
Ripple (XRP-USD) has seen a renewed interest from traders after improving its chances in its lawsuit against the US Security Exchange Commission (SEC) after two judges ordered the commission to release documents by William Hinman, its former director.
It is unclear whether the documents could help Ripple in its case, but XRP shot up over 2% in the past seven days.
The US District Court judge involved in the Ripple vs SEC case ordered the release of emails and other correspondence written by Hinman that reportedly suggest that he said ether was not a security because, like bitcoin, it was “sufficiently decentralised.”
Part of Ripple’s legal strategy is to use Hinman's communications to show the SEC has been contradictory when regulating cryptocurrencies.
If it is successful, the case could set an important precedent for the crypto industry.
Read more: Ethereum price drops 20% as SEC declares control over network
Armstrong advised XRP holders not to bet on the price of Ripple shooting to an all-time high when the case ends.
He warned: "This is not going to happen."
If Ripple wins its case against the SEC, he said: "Number one, XRP will go back out on all the exchanges, as regulated exchange in the US currently do not list XRP.
"This will be big because the interest will come back in the run-up to a new crypto bull-run. There will then be more liquidity and options for people to buy XRP.
"The price will certainly go up, you could see it go up to maybe $1.20, and then it will probably drop to about $0.70. However, if XRP is deemed officially not security it will draw in more risk averse people."
Ripple's defence argues that digital assets that function solely as a means of exchange in a decentralised network should not be classified as a security, and if ether can be excluded from the SEC's scrutiny, then so can XRP.
However, the alleged content of Hinman's communications does not correspond with director of the SEC, Gary Gensler, who has reiterated that all cryptocurrencies, apart from bitcoin, will be regarded as securities.
XRP was at $0.49 at the time of writing.
Read more: Google partners with Coinbase to accept crypto payments for cloud services
On Tuesday, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said he expects an "answer" in the SEC case by the first half of 2023.
Speaking about the case with CoindeskTV, Garlinghouse said: "This is about more than just Ripple or XRP, this has implications for all of crypto in the US."
