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Brian Kelly – often described as CNBC’s “uber” bitcoin bull – is allegedly short bitcoin.
The news came forth in a new podcast published on Zerohedge.com. The bitcoin market has been seriously crashing over the past few days. Late last week, the currency struck the $3,100 range for the first time in over 15 months, though at press time, the price has risen back up to roughly $3,400. The currency does appear to be showing signs of recovering, though it’s hard to say how long it will last or where it will wind up at the end of 2018.
Bitcoin in Crisis?
The podcast – entitled “Quoth the Raven,” taken from Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poem – says that Brian Kelly is short bitcoin, and potentially has been for some time. Kelly has served as a cryptocurrency analyst with CNBC for several years. On a recent program, Kelly allegedly claimed that he was “net short,” something he has yet to state in the past.
Only a few months ago, Kelly purportedly stated that he’s so confident in BTC and its crypto-cousins that he’s placed approximately 90 percent of his wealth into digital assets. The podcast was particularly critical of Kelly’s casual attitude when announcing that he was short. The podcast speaker jokes that the asset has not entered a “bear market,” but is stuck in an “as*hole market,” and that the bear has come down crashing at 15,000 miles per hour. At the time of writing, bitcoin has fallen by over 80 percent since it reached its all-time high of nearly $20,000 last December.
In addition, the podcast claims that Kelly repeatedly pumped BTC to potentially get listeners interested and investing in the currency to boost its price.
The father of crypto has been falling steadily since the beginning of the year. Last summer, the asset spent most of the time hovering in the $6,000 range. In June, it temporarily fell below the $6,000 mark and entered $5,000 territory, causing widespread panic.
Kelly, however, remained adamant that bitcoin was not ready to die, alleging that a series of recent hacks and selloffs were responsible for the sudden drop.
Bitcoin Is Still Alive
On CNBC, he commented:
“This is not the funeral for bitcoin, whatsoever. Let’s put this in perspective. Do you know where we were a year ago? $2,500. Bear markets, we don’t know where they end. It doesn’t mean that bitcoin can’t go lower, but this is by no means the funeral for bitcoin.”
NICK MARINOFF · DECEMBER 18, 2018 · 12:13 AM
