Apple CEO says the Tech Giant Looking into Crypto, But Not Planning to Use its $200B Cash to Buy Bitcoin
Tim Cook personally, however, owns Bitcoin and Ether as “part of a diversified portfolio.”
Tim Cook, chief executive officer of tech giant Apple, revealed that he owns cryptocurrency.
Speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook conference, when asked if he owns Bitcoin or Ethereum, Cook said,
“I do. Yeah, I think it’s reasonable to own it as a part of a diversified portfolio.”
The CEO further shared that he has “been interested in it for a while and I’ve, you know, been researching it and so forth. And so I think it’s interesting.”
Cryptocurrencies have had a stellar start of the week as Bitcoin made a new all-time high just above $68,500 while Ether went to hit a new high at $4,845.
Apple CEO Tim Cook just said he owns Bitcoin and Ethereum.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone that a technologist is interested in new technologies. pic.twitter.com/8vyxjPQST5
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) November 9, 2021
While he personally invests in the crypto asset, Cook said he has no plans to buy Bitcoin with the company’s $200 billion cash, but crypto is something they are looking at.
“I don’t think people buy Apple stock to get exposure to crypto,” he said. If people really want exposure to crypto, they can invest directly in it through other means, Cook added.
Apple is currently the world’s second most valued company, after Microsoft, with a market cap of $2.47 trillion, while Bitcoin is the 6th largest at $1.26 trillion.
As for accepting the cryptocurrency, Cook said that the company has no immediate plans to enable crypto functionality in Apple Pay but that “there are other things that we are definitely looking at.”
In 2019, an Apple Pay executive said that the company saw “long-term potential” in cryptocurrency.
Additionally, Cool called non-fungible tokens (NFTs) an “interesting” part of the crypto world.
When asked about Facebook rebranding to Meta Platforms and its metaverse push, Cook said augmented reality (AR) remains a core technology of Apple. The company plans to unveil its own mixed reality headset next year.
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