$95 Billion Investment Firm CEO, Barry Sternlicht, Invests in Ethereum As “A Programmable Bitcoin”

Billionaire Barry Sternlicht revealed this week that he owns the top cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), due to the excessive amount of money-printing happening globally.

The chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, an investment firm with $95 billion in assets under management (AUM), talked about cryptocurrencies in an interview with CNBC, where he noted that it makes sense to invest in them as a way to diversify a portfolio.

“The reason I own bitcoin is because the U.S. government, and every government in the Western Hemisphere, is printing money now to the end of time, and this is a finite amount of something and it can be traded globally.”

At the same time, he called Bitcoin a “dumb coin,” saying that its sole purpose is being a store of value, and it is crazy volatile. Here comes his second investment, Ether, which is

“a programmable Bitcoin, and there are tons of other coins built on that system.”

When asked about JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon calling Bitcoin “worthless,” Sternlicht said, “Gold is kind of worthless too” despite the precious metal having some “industrial uses.”

Additionally, Sternlicht, worth $4.4 billion, has “become very interested in blockchain technology as a whole,” which he believes is “going to change everything.”

“We’re probably in inning one.”