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- Michael Burry isn't betting against cryptocurrencies, and has actually bought a few tokens.
- "The Big Short" investor said he tweeted about shorting crypto to underline the hype around it.
- Burry expressed interest in blockchain technology, and suggested NFTs could serve a purpose.
Michael Burry teased a wager against cryptocurrencies in a recent tweet. However, the investor of "The Big Short" fame clarified that he isn't betting on a crypto crash, and has actually bought a few tokens, in a recent email to CNBC.
"I've not been shorting cryptocurrencies at all," he said. "I have not been involved in them except for a dabble – actually on the long side in a couple that I see as 'better' cryptocurrencies."
The Scion Asset Management boss asked how to short crypto on Twitter because he wanted to underline his concerns about the market. "I believe that cryptocurrencies are in a bubble and that most in it do not understand it well," he told CNBC.
Still, the hedge fund manager said he's intrigued by blockchain technology and expects it to be useful, and sees value in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) beyond the digital art market.
Burry's latest comments suggest he recognizes crypto's potential, but he's skeptical of the immense hype and heady valuations in the space. The Scion chief has previously dismissed shiba inu coin as "pointless," ridiculed dogecoin's skyrocketing price, and warned bitcoin is a "speculative bubble" built on huge amounts of leverage and vulnerable to government crackdowns.
"It's breathtaking, this religion of real and fake people," he recently tweeted about the army of promoters and bots working to pump up crypto and meme-stock prices. "The speculation probably tops anything in history."
Burry shot to fame for his lucrative bet against the mid-2000s housing bubble. He also inadvertently sparked the meme-stock frenzy by investing in GameStop in 2019, and has taken positions against Elon Musk's Tesla and Cathie Wood's Ark Invest this year.
The investor recently noted that his Tesla wager was only a trade, and he's no longer short the clean-energy company.