MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle voiced little sympathy for crypto investors crushed by this week’s collapse in the value of digital coins.
“If you lose your shirt, hope you got a six-pack,” Ruhle said.
“The 11th Hour” host, a former investment banker, also told crypto investors not to expect any government help or relief, saying they have only themselves to blame for buying the unstable currency over more traditional assets.
“Let’s remember: The entire basis of crypto is secrecy. It is decentralization. It’s ‘Don’t tread on me. I don’t want the government. I don’t want establishment,’ so this is very much a ‘Buyer beware’ [situation],” she said, in comments reported by the news site Mediaite.
Cryptocurrencies crashed Thursday after the collapse of TerraUSD, a so-called stablecoin, with bitcoin falling to a 16-month low of around $25,400. Crypto assets have also been swept up in broad selling of risky investments on worries about high inflation and rising interest rates.
Ruhle said the collapse of the crypto market is different from the 2008 recession, when large investment firms went under and needed to be bailed out by the government.
“You won’t have institutions at risk here, but millions and millions of individuals, many of whom have never invested in the markets, many of whom have borrowed to bet big in crypto, losing enormous amounts of money, so what’s going to happen?” Ruhle said.
“Are people going to turn around and say, ‘The government needs to help me. I need to be bailed out for this’?”
Sentiment is particularly fragile, as tokens supposed to be pegged to the dollar have faltered.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by total market value, rebounded on Friday above $30,000 — still well off last November’s all-time high of $68,000.
The digital coin remains far below week-ago levels of around $40,000 and, unless there is a rebound in weekend trade, is headed for a record seventh consecutive weekly loss.
Crypto-related stocks have taken a pounding, with shares in broker Coinbase steadying overnight but still down by half in little more than a week.