Philippe Laffont says AI and space beat Bitcoin as BTC slides 1%

Bitcoin fell 1.2% to $61,795 as Coatue Management founder Philippe Laffont said he no longer knows what to think about the largest cryptocurrency.

"I don't know what to think about Bitcoin anymore," Laffont, founder and portfolio manager of Coatue Management, said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on June 23. "I'm a little bit more worried."

Laffont argued that Bitcoin filled a gap when public listings were scarce and index investing left investors hunting for speculative bets. That gap is now being filled from both sides — by a wave of IPOs in space and AI, and by stablecoins that offer a way to move money offshore with yields resembling interest, he said. SpaceX completed the largest US IPO in recent history on June 12, pricing at $135 a share to raise about $75 billion at a valuation near $1.77 trillion.

"I would rather bet on space going to quadruple over the next 20 years," Laffont said. Bitcoin has traded in a tight range between $62,000 and $64,000 for almost two weeks, with occasional spikes to $67,000 failing to sustain momentum.

The comments come as Bitcoin's role as a speculative outlet shrinks, in Laffont's view. He pointed to a widening pool of trillion-dollar names including the Magnificent 7 — Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla — and predicted additions like OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX as the index of the future he would rather own.

Laffont's critique carries an ironic footnote: SpaceX, the company he cited as a preferred bet, held 18,712 Bitcoin on its balance sheet as of March 31, valued at $1.29 billion against a $661 million cost basis, according to its S-1 filing. That makes Elon Musk's rocket company the eighth-largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.