“Cryptocurrencies are fantasy”, says Brazil’s biggest investor
2 min read
Luiz Barsi Filho is the biggest individual investor on the Brazilian stock exchange. With an extensive portfolio built over more than 50 years, Barsi is known as the “king of dividends” because of his strategy.
Barsi’s philosophy is to buy good stocks in perennial sectors that pay good dividends. In this sense, the investor has stated several times that he does not like various products. Among them are cryptocurrencies, called by Barsi “fantasy”.
The definition was given by Barsi in an interview with Valor Econômico along with his daughter, Louise Barsi, who is also an investor and creator of the Ações Garantem o Futuro (AGF) channel. However, the views of father and daughter are slightly divergent from each other.
Brazil’s biggest investor: “Whoever has cryptocurrencies will do badly”
Luiz Barsi, 83, is a long-time advocate of investing in shares of companies that pay good dividends. In this way, the objective is to obtain long-term gains by forming what Barsi calls a “social security portfolio”.
During the interview, the billionaire and his daughter were asked what they thought about cryptocurrencies. Luiz’s answer was emphatic: “cryptocurrencies are a fantasy”.
Daughter Louise, however, took a more ambivalent stance. On the one hand, she stated that she does not invest in cryptocurrencies, just like any other currency. On the other hand, she said she “believes a lot in the technology behind it”, referring to blockchain.
In Luiz Barsi’s view, not even the blockchain has any practical application. The billionaire even made a warning to investors who are exposed to this market.
“It is not good either as an investment or as an application. In my interpret. Nothing against those who invest, but those who invest will lose. It’s a matter of time”, said the investor.
The time…
This is the second time in a year that Luiz Barsi has spoken negatively about cryptocurrencies. The billionaire issued a similar opinion in March 2021, saying he “doesn’t even think about cryptocurrencies as an investment.”
In the interview with Valor, Luiz Barsi also criticized the mentality of the Brazilian financial market in relation to long-term investment. For the billionaire, the stock market and brokerages encourage speculation, not sustainable investment.
“In Brazil, of those who operate on the stock exchange, there should not be 1% of investors. Most want to buy and sell all the time. It is very interesting for the stock exchange to have speculators and not investors. The exchange wants brokerage, fees. Of course, will not give preference to who buys and keeps them.”
However, BTC is precisely the most profitable investment of the last decade, exactly the long term that Barsi advocates. At current prices, the cryptocurrency has already racked up returns in excess of 880,000% since 2011.