Bitcoin (BTC)–Michael Arrington, the Founder and former co-editor of popular tech site TechCrunch, told CNBC in a Cryptotrader interview that he believes Bitcoin’s price will reach $25,000 before the end of the year.

Speaking at Korea Blockchain Week, Arrington reiterated his bullish stance on Bitcoin, admitting that he was optimistic about the price outlook of the number one cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Since the launch of his $100 million hedge fund last November, tilted Arrington XRP Capital, the founder has been exploring the space of cryptocurrency with the intention of primarily investing in different currencies as well as ICOs.

However, given that the fund is based in the highly liquid, easy to transact XRP, it was a surprise when  Arrington revealed that, at present, the fund holds more Bitcoin than XRP.

While Arrington has been a major supporter of Ripple’s cryptocurrency in the past, he went so far as to create a hedge fund that would be valued in XRP and use the coin as its primary source of liquidity. Despite holding more BTC than XRP, the founder still had praise for his fund’s native currency. Speaking with Cryptotrader host Ran NeurNer, he had this to say on the state of XRP,

“Ripple is a really, really good way to move money. We’ve denominated our fund in XRP because it’s a fantastic way to move money across the border quickly at almost zero cost.”

As to the wave of negative press XRP has received throughout 2018, from the back and forth SEC contention over the coin being classified as a security, to the most recent market fallout over Coinbase being tied to rival currency Stellar Lumens, Michael Arrington placed the blame on toxic tribalism. He lamented the individual factions, much like religious zealots, that have sprung up around various coins, saying that XRP had become the punching bag for an industry that likes to use the label of centralization and corporation in a negative light,

“The one thing they all agree on is they all hate XRP.”

His response to the issue of centralization or XRP being a security?

“None of that’s really true. From a hedge point of view, it’s great to denominate ourselves in XRP.”

In addition, he reiterated his praise for the speed and negligible transaction costs of sending XRP anywhere around the globe. He also shed light on more of the specific makeup of the fund, stating that they are denominated in XRP, but focused on diversifying the underlying assets. Therefore, XRP accounts for only 3-4% of the fund’s holdings, worth around several million dollars. Bitcoin makes up the largest fraction of the fund’s portfolio, with wide ranging investments from U.S. based Mainframe (a decentralized application platform), as well as cryptocurrency exchanges and Dapps.

Both NeurNer and Arrington came to agreement over the $25K figure for Bitcoin to achieve in 2018, stating the emerging presence of Bitcoin ETFs by year’s end as a catalyst for growth.

The post TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington Predicts Bitcoin to Reach $25K in 2018 appeared first on Ethereum World News.

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