Jim Cramer – the eccentric host of CNBC’s finance show “Mad Money” – has flipped bullish on Bitcoin (BTC), signaling to some investors that it might be time to sell.
The famous commentator has spent the past 12 months urging investors to steer clear of crypto markets, despite Bitcoin (BTC)’s phenomenal performance during that time. Now in his latest reversal, he says his attitude on the asset may have been too bearish, too early.
“For a while I liked it, then I decided: You know what? The money had been made,” Cramer said about Bitcoin during a Mad Money segment on Wednesday. “But I was premature.”
“If you like Bitcoin, buy Bitcoin – that has always been my view,” Cramer added. “When you make a lot of money, let’s not look back.”
Yet Cramer’s tone on crypto has varied wildly over the past two years. Following FTX’s collapse last November, Cramer claimed he would not “touch crypto in a million years.” Three months prior, he warned that the Federal Reserve would soon crash, and told his audience not to “get crypto’d.”
Yet in the spring of 2021, Cramer had admitted to investing in BTC before taking profits later to pay off his mortgage. At the time, while BTC traded for above $60,000, he’d even suggested being paid in crypto.
Whatever his opinion may be, Cramer is infamous for his often terrible market timing. Last December, for example, Cramer told crypto investors that it’s “never too late to sell an awful position” while BTC traded for less than half the price it is today.
Last year, many even applied to launch “Inverse Cramer ETFs” with the SEC, designed specifically to invest in funds that Cramer told investors to avoid.
Reason to be Bullish
Cramer’s Wednesday comments were in response to a listener’s question about Cleanspark (CLSK) stock, one of over a dozen publicly traded Bitcoin miners that’s rocketed beside BTC this year.
Up 177% year to date, companies like Cleanspark are often bought as a leverage play on BTC, or as a near equivalent for investment managers that can’t get direct access to BTC itself. Miners and other BTC-adjacent firms like Coinbase (COIN) and MicroStrategy (MSTR) are outperforming BTC itself.
Going forward, investors have reason to be bullish on all such investments. Not only is the fated Bitcoin “halving” due in roughly 6 months, but a highly anticipated spot Bitcoin ETF may be approved well before that, inviting previously locked institutional capital into the industry.
Of course, Cramer going bullish on BTC is hardly a good omen – and some it spells the currency’s impending doom.
Today, Jim Cramer: “I was wrong about Bitcoin”
HE DOES THIS EVERY TIME https://t.co/j53vu2r6Wp
— Not Jim Cramer (@CramerTracker) November 25, 2023
