Vinny Lingam brands current crypto market “unsustainable”

Vinny Lingam has labelled the crypto industry as unsustainable, during a recent appearance on CNBC Crypto Trader.

Lingham, a well-know South African investor, believes thousands of jobs could be at risk because of the current volatility in the markets.

“When you look at the number of people in the industry, you have fifty to a hundred thousand people working in crypto and not making any money,” he said.

“These people need close to one billion dollars worth of fiat each month just to sort of pay the bills.

“We need to wait for the crypto market to shrink down to the point where it becomes sustainable again.

“These people need to sell crypto for fiat each month and unless there are buyers on the other side it’s not gonna work.”

Apart from being an investor on Shark Tank South Africa, Lingham is also known throughout the OG crypto cohorts as the ‘Bitcoin Oracle’. He famously called the end-of-the-year 2016 price of Bitcoin at $1,000 in mid-2016 after the price had spiked up to $790 and subsequently dumped down to $580 as news of the first Bitcoin ETF rejection emerged.

Vinny Lingham is also the founder of Civic – a blockchain-based startup with a goal no less ambitious than to get every single person in the world using blockchain technology. Earlier this year at the NYC consensus conference, Civic debuted an identity-based age verification beer vending machine.

Disillusioned at a $5,800 bottom

Vinny proclaimed there were a number of factors at play in the recent market downturn, but one not to be underestimated would be pure market fundamentals.

“No one wanted to believe $5,800 wasn’t the bottom, and it was clear that the market could not sustain this level,” he added.

Vinny has recently supported the approach of slow and steady long-term growth, instead of pump-and-dump style price movements seen so far. He described the current sentiment as despair, despite the recent call for capitulation from others.

“I think we are close to the bottom, best guess would be between two and three thousand dollars but could be higher or lower.”

Institutional investments on the sidelines

Vinny did claim that institutional grade investment was still not here yet. When asked about institutional money managers he said: “I know these guys and they have very cushy jobs and play golf every Friday. Their goal is to protect wealth and not to risk it. If they lost money – they lose their jobs.”