One of the Co-Founders of London-listed brokerage group Plus500 has said in an interview that he believes Bitcoin is “one giant ponzi scheme.”
Speaking to Israeli news network Channel 10 last week, Alon Gonen also said that Plus500 made “hundreds of millions of dollars” from the cryptocurrency when he was at the firm.
Gonen was the original financial backer of Plus500 and was one of the main co-founders of the business. He is no longer involved in the company and does not have significant holdings in the firm either.
Over the past couple of years, Gonen has emerged as something like a social media influencer in Israel. He has written a book – called ‘Freedom to Think’ – that is aimed at promulgating some of his ideas around business, ethics, and a broader way of living.
In the interview, Gonen noted that Plus500 made huge sums of money from people trading in Bitcoin.
“I did not lose anything on Bitcoin,” he told the host. “I made a lot of money from people betting on Bitcoin. We were the first platform in the world to let people trade in Bitcoin and hundreds of thousands of people traded on Plus500 during my time there. And the company made hundreds of millions of dollars from bets on Bitcoin.”
When asked by host Hagi Golan if he held any crypto himself, Gonen replied with a strong negative.
“Zero, I don’t bet on Bitcoin,” he said. “I am a long-term investor.”
When Golan argued that many long-term Bitcoin holders had made a lot of money, Gonen was still negative.
“Correct, but if I was in your place, I would wait a bit,” Gonen noted. “The value I see in Bitcoin today stems only from the demand for Bitcoin. There are no dividends. It’s used by criminals. The cost of transfers is very high. And one sees the mania of all the countries and companies around it.
“This is one giant ponzi scheme. You see that public companies are putting money into it. And it’s for sure that someday this will end badly. I’ll tell you what I don’t know is when it will end but there will be one big collapse – boom!”
