Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham — founder of asset management firm GMO and one of Wall Street’s most prominent bubble pundits — came at Bitcoin again on Friday, calling the asset a “useless, speculative option” that’s set to slowly decline into inactivity.
Speaking on CNBC Squawk boxGrantham predicted that Bitcoin “will go down, I suspect – not with a bang, but with a whimper.” He said he has never owned Bitcoin and believes it will fall to zero, not with a sudden crash but with a gradual decline in interest over years and decades.
“All Bitcoin does is allow fraudsters to move money,” he said.
Grantham pointed to Bitcoin’s volatility as evidence against its status as a store of value. The coin was “halved for no reason in a tight economy,” he noted — a criticism that has new teeth given where Bitcoin stands today.
Gold, he added, delivered strong gains during the same period.
Maybe Grantham is right, the selloff has been tough. BTC reached an all-time high near $126,000 in October 2025. Since then, the digital asset has lost more than 50% of its value. Since Friday, BTC traded in the range of $ 60,000, checking what analysts consider an important support area that, if broken, could open the way to the $ 40,000s.
Bitcoin fell to $62,000 in mid-June as hawkish signals from the Federal Reserve weighed on markets. Escalating US-Iran tensions have sent oil prices soaring and raised fears of inflation, forcing Fed officials to drop any talk of a rate cut – another possible float for a rate hike. US spot BTC ETFs posted four consecutive days of outflows totaling approximately $113.8 million.
Bitcoin’s attempt to find a higher ground went straight to its 200-day moving average, which acted as a heavy resistance and caused a drop of about 30% from that ceiling. The current decline is among the 5 worst in the history of Bitcoin – a place that tests the determination of long-term holders. Some institutional buyers, however, are treating the dip as an entry point, with Coinbase reporting that major institutions have moved in to buy the crash.
Another billion is a big bet on bitcoin
On the other hand, Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego has put 70% of his investment portfolio in BTC – up from 10% in 2020 – and has even convinced his wife to take out a mortgage on their home to buy more.
The founder of Grupo Salinas traces his skepticism about fiat money to family dinner table conversations about Nixon ending the gold standard, and he considers Bitcoin superior to both cash and gold because it is intangible and borderless.
His conviction has survived a $150 million mortgage scam, backlash over his plans to make Banco Azteca Mexico’s first bank to accept Bitcoin, and several market cycles.
He recently pointed to a decade of London property prices as proof of his thesis – a home that cost 4,000 BTC in 2016 is now worth less than 30 – and urged ordinary investors to convert their home equity into BTC exposure, calling it an “asymmetrical bet to the upside.”
