Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya says investing in altcoin will be the most profitable thing of life in 2022
2 min read
Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya said the old guard of the traditional payments system is likely to be overthrown by emerging blockchain technologies and decentralized finance (DeFi).
In that regard, the CEO of venture capital firm Social Capital said he plans to bet against industry titans like Visa and Mastercard in favor of Web 3.0 pioneers.
Chamath Palihapitiya: Investing in altcoin will be the most profitable thing of life in 2022
“The biggest business losers in 2022 will be Visa and Mastercard and the traditional payment rails,” he said.
Also according to him, in 2022 cryptocurrency enthusiasts will be able to make the most profitable trade of life.
“The best trade in life will be to sell short these companies that basically charge 2% or 3% tax. Then buy altcoins from Web3-focused projects that are rebuilding the payments infrastructure in a completely decentralized way,” he said.
As a thermometer, Palihapitiya cited Amazon’s decision to stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK.
“The announcement here is quite significant. The most important thing is that Amazon earlier this year closed its doors to Visa in the UK. Amazon isn’t going to do something like that, in my opinion, unless it’s a test of what it can do around the world,” he said.
In addition, Palihapitiya said he expects developing nations to embrace emerging technologies in the next decade.
“Nowadays, there’s really no need for all these small businesses to stay on top of the Visa, Mastercard tracks. It’s unnecessary”, he criticized.
Finally, Palihapitiya discussed the “buy now, pay later” model of credit cards.
“Buy now, pay later is a fee arbitrage … It starts to get used to the consumer experience: ‘I don’t need to pay these fees to these three credit card companies to facilitate a transaction with money I already have,’” he said.
For him, altcoins focused on DeFi and new forms of financial structuring will lead the market:
“That’s the great idea. When you translate that for Web3 into a good project or series of projects, you won’t need those companies. I think these niche-focused coins are going to be worth trillions of dollars in market value.”
