- Excessive money supply and rising inflation could negatively affect U.S. markets, billionaire Carl Icahn said.
- “In the long run we are certainly going to hit the wall,” Icahn said. “I really think there will be a crisis the way we are going, the way we are printing money, the way we are going into inflation.”
- Bitcoin could be valuable if inflation indeed runs “rampant,” he said.
Longtime activist investor and Icahn Enterprises Chairman Carl Icahn spoke to CNBC today on U.S. markets, inflation, monetary supply, and bitcoin. Icahn explained that he believes a market crash is looming as excessive money supply floods the market along with the uptick in inflation rates — a scenario in which Bitcoin would be particularly valuable.
“In the long run we are certainly going to hit the wall,” Icahn told CNBC. “I really think there will be a crisis the way we are going, the way we are printing money, the way we are going into inflation. If you look around you, you see inflation all around you and I don’t know how you deal with that in the long term.”
Icahn deflected when asked to make a prediction, but he indicated that eventually the market will have to pay the price for the expansive policies of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Congress. Increased liquidity in the economy, paired with negative interest rates, propels asset prices higher, which one day needs to readjust.
Amid the high prices, Icahn highlighted Bitcoin’s potential, although neither himself nor his company invest in BTC. The Icahn Enterprises chairman said that bitcoin may hold value in the face of soaring inflation.
“If inflation gets rampant, I guess it does have value. But will inflation get rampant? Or will the government come in as they did in China and stop the thing?” he said.
Icahn’s statements are no-news for Bitcoiners, who have for years been warning about the quantitative easing employed by the government and its potential negative effects. While Federal Reserve chief Jesse Powell keeps insisting that “inflation will be transitory,” Bitcoiners stack BTC as hard as possible — the best vehicle for protecting and growing the purchasing power that inflation erodes.