Ray Dalio: The government ‘outlawing bitcoin is a good probability’

Ray Dalio: The government ‘outlawing bitcoin is a good probability’

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio, founder of the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, thinks bitcoin may have a similar fate as gold did in the U.S. during the 1930s.

"[B]ack in the '30s in the war years ... because cash and bonds were such bad investments relative to other things, there was the movement to those other things, and then the government outlawed them," Dalio told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday. "They outlawed gold.

"That's why also outlawing bitcoin is a good probability," he said.

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency in terms of market value, has "proven itself" as its blockchain hasn't been hacked and it has a large following, Dalio said. "It is an alternative store-hold of wealth. It's like a digital cash. And those are the pluses."

"So I think that it would be very likely that you will have it under a certain set of circumstances outlawed the way gold was outlawed," Dalio said.

Dalio explained that "every country treasures its monopoly on controlling the supply and demand. They don't want other monies to be operating or competing, because things can get out of control."

As an example, Dalio cited India and its efforts to ban cryptocurrency.

Whether it could it be effectively banned in the