Bill Miller: Bitcoin is ‘an insurance policy against financial disaster with limited fallout’

Renowned value investor Bill Miller is still optimistic about his two favorite assets, Amazon and Bitcoin, despite the market slump of 2022. The former CEO of Legg Mason described cryptocurrencies as “misunderstood” and described Bitcoin as an “insurance policy against financial disaster.”

At the Forbes/SHOOK Top Advisor Summit on Thursday, Miller discussed the market with Marvin McIntyre, managing director of Morgan Stanley’s Private Wealth Management.

While Miller agreed that a hawkish Federal Reserve is currently crushing companies that have performed well over the past ten years, he claimed that this presents a great opportunity to buy more firm shares at a discount. According to the investor:

“If your time horizon is longer than one year, you should do very well in the market.”

Miller’s relationship with Bitcoin

Miller stated in an interview from last year that around half of his wealth was related to Amazon while the remaining 50% was in bitcoin.

The former chairman described Bitcoin on Thursday as “an insurance policy against financial disaster, with limited fallout” during challenging market times as it’s “not connected to the rest of the financial system.”

Despite being 70% lower than its all-time high reached in November, BTC outperformed the majority of other financial assets in Q3. On the back of this week’s relatively disappointing CPI statistics, it momentarily fell below $18,000, but it is currently trading around the $20,000 zone. According to Miller, Bitcoin will probably continue to outperform in this way if the Fed tightens monetary policy.

Notably, Bill’s comment coincides with billionaire investor and Duquesne Family Office’s CEO Stanley Druckenmiller who believes that people would shift to the crypto industry if central banks seemed unreliable.

Back in May, when the whole cryptocurrency market crashed in the wake of Terra’s failure, Miller’s faith in Bitcoin also demonstrated resiliency. Having said that, he acknowledged that he had to sell some of his Bitcoin at the time to meet margin calls.