Billionaire Loses $130 Million Quitting Bitcoin Because He ‘Didn’t Understand’ It

A Japanese billionaire lost $130 million after selling his bitcoin because he didn’t understand it.

The CEO of Softbank, Masayoshi Son said that he spent too much of his time tracking the cryptocurrency’s movement and trying to understand it.

Speaking at The New York Times DealBook conference, which moved online this year, Son said he was advised by a friend to invest 1% of his personal assets into bitcoin. For the billionaire, this worked out at approximately $200 million (£149 million).

Son said that he ‘doesn’t understand’ bitcoin and that he would spend around five minutes each day looking at bitcoin prices fluctuate, but for a billionaire with a busy schedule, this was too big of a distraction.

After finding the investment to be ‘distracting his own focus on his own business’, he quickly grew tired of checking the price of the cryptocurrency every day and decided to free himself by selling his stake in 2018.

‘I feel so much better,’ Son said.

He told the online event’s audience that while he is glad to be free of cryptocurrency, the popularity of digital currency will not die down any time soon.

‘I think digital currency will be useful,’ Son said. ‘But I don’t know what digital currency, what structure, and so on.’

Also in his talk, Son revealed that he had passed up early opportunities to invest in Tesla and Amazon.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin hit $18,000 (£13, 300) which is its highest value in three years. According to Deutsche Bank analysts, Bitcoin has only closed above $17,000 (£12,600) on five other days in the past.

The currency’s boost could be attributed to a recent PayPal announcement that users can now buy, sell and hold the token through its platform.

In its report, titled Bitcoin: The 21st Century Gold, Citibank said the currency could potentially peak in December 2021 at a figure as high as $318,000.