Why Novogratz Is Bullish On Facebook As A Crypto Play

Billionaire Mike Novogratz said he purchased shares of Facebook Inc FB as a cryptocurrency play, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

What Happened: The CEO and founder of cryptocurrency investment firm Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. BRPHF told Bloomberg that he bought stock in the Mark Zuckerberg-led company "because Facebook is going to come out with the Novi wallet sometime this quarter."

“All of a sudden you’re going to have 2.4 billion people connected to this crypto space, and it’s going to be a public equity way to participate in payments and in blockchain through their Diem project and their Novi wallet.”

“I thought Facebook was an interesting buy on the chart, took out 290, looks like it’s going to go higher,” said Novogratz.

Novogratz also said he was shorting the five-year Treasury as a hedge against policymakers cutting monetary support, according to Bloomberg.

Why It Matters: Last May, the social media giant rebranded its cryptocurrency wallet subsidiary Calibra as Novi and said it would act as a wallet for its now also rebranded Libra cryptocurrency. The Libra cryptocurrency was renamed Diem in December.

The Diem Association is responsible for the governance of the Diem project and its members include LYFT Inc LYFT, Uber Technologies Inc UBER  Shopify Inc SHOP, and the soon to go public Coinbase.

Diem, unlike the apex cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC), is proposed as a so-called stable coin and is thus unlikely to be as volatile as the foremost cryptocurrency.

BTC traded 1.54% lower at $58,004.84 at press time.

Price Action: Facebook shares closed nearly 0.9% lower at $306.26 on Tuesday.

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