Polk and Bilzerian Spark Twitter War Over Bitcoin and Poker
April 27, 2018 10:33 amDoug Polk and Dan Bilzerian are both cryptocurrency investors with large social media followings, although this week there emerged some pretty serious differences between their approaches to digital asset. Whereas Polk prefers a long term approach to investing, Bilzerian seems to favor dipping in and out of the market depending upon whatever coin prices may be doing at the time.
In December 2017, the Bitcoin price hit a peak of $19,300 before dropping to as low of about $6,114 a few months later before reaching its current level of $9,265. Last May, Bilzerian bought what he called a “sh*tload of bitcoin” when the price was around $2,500, with the wealthy playboy then cashing out recently at $16,5000 after the the price fell off its December’s high.
With the price on the rise once more, Bilzerian subsequently tweeted “Time to get back into crypto”, prompting a response from Polk, who has a cryptocurrency YouTube channel with 200K subscribers, stating that “If you ever have to get back into crypto then you are doing it wrong”.
Let the Feud Begin
The brash billionaire didn’t take kindly to Polk’s comment, and in addition to throwing a couple of sleights his way made an ironic reply that did not require a response, stating:
“Selling my bitcoin at 16,500 was wrong huh? Plz tell me what else I’m doing wrong you dumb shit, make sure to use my name so people pay attention to you.”
Not one to resist a good twitter war, Polk then decided to bring up the topic of the source of Bilzerian’s wealth to account for much of his standing, and as he fired back:
“Since you brought up the subject, make sure to continue to use Daddy’s money so people pay attention to you as well.”
Successful in Own Right!
Polk prides himself on being able to wind up some of the biggest egos associated with the poker world, with Daniel Negreanu recently banning him from his twitter account following acrimonious exchanges over the past year or so. Looks like Bilzerian has become the latest target on Polk’s radar, and after questioning his business acumen, Polk sarcastically wrote:
“Would you say you are more of an expert on poker or bitcoin Dan?”
Poker or Bitcoin?
Last year, Polk even went so far as to post a scathing video on YouTube entitled: “The Truth About Dan Bilzerian’s Poker Ability” in which he slated his skills. Following Polk’s aforementioned poker versus bitcoin comment Bilzerian, keen to prove his poker acumen, then bet Polk $1 million that he could prove that he had earned huge amounts of money playing poker, tweeting:
“I’ll bet you a million dollars I can show wires of poker wins in excess of 40 million dollars. I’ve probably won more in one night than you have in your whole life, so I guess to answer your question, poker.”
Eager to get his teeth into a juicy cash game, Polk subsequently tried to tempt Bilzerian into competing against him in some one on one high stakes actions. Nevertheless, few professional players would be willing to risk such a large sum against a player many consider to be one of the world’s best heads-up No Limit hold’em specialists, with Bilzerian shooting back that he had made his poker money exploiting weaker, wealthier competition, and not by taking on tougher opponents.
Trying to bring Polk back on topic, Bilzerian said “point is, you said I didn’t make money playing poker, so let’s bet on it.”
At this point, Polk brought the twitter exchange back to cryptocurrencies once more, and offering some “free” advice to Bilzerian tried to school him once more by tweeting that “you should never be fully exiting cryptocurrency. The value will increase over time, and trying to time the market will be on average an inferior strategy to investing in the long term success of Bitcoin.”
Longterm or Sell High?
Digs aside, Polk and Bilzerian’s exchange did bring up a wider issue about whether it was best to buy low and sell high, or alternatively just hold long-term. Over the past few years, the mantra in the cryptocurrency world has been to HODL (Hold on for dear life), but many investors seem to have changed their opinion over the past few months, with quite a few tweeters coming out in support of Bilzerian’s argument on the topic.
Nevertheless, Polk still believes that the value of digital currencies will increase over time, and that “trying to time the market will be on average an inferior strategy.”He seems to have plenty of people who take his advice seriously, too, and his crypto channel currently has 197,241 subscribers who regularly tune in to listen to his views and opinions on the topic.