'Buy Everything You Can': Mexican Billionaire Ricardo Salinas Now Holds 70% of Personal Portfolio in Bitcoin

Ricardo Salinas, Mexico's telecom and retail magnate worth an estimated $5.8 billion, has ramped up his Bitcoin investments to constitute 70% of his liquid portfolio. The billionaire revealed his hefty crypto allocation during a recent Bloomberg interview

"In my personal portfolio, the one I manage myself… Yeah, I’m pretty much all-in,” Salinas told Bloomberg. I've got about 70% in Bitcoin-related exposure and 30% in gold and gold miners,"

"I don't have a single bond and I don't have any other stocks except my own."

The revelation marks a significant escalation in Salinas' cryptocurrency bet, registering a 10% increase from his reported holdings back in 2020.

By 2020, in the middle of the post-pandemic fears, Salinas announced he had allocated 10% of his liquid portfolio to Bitcoin. By that time, Bitcoin had dipped nearly 60% between February and March, touching ground at $3850, before spiking nearly 500% to end the year at $29K, according to data provider CoinGecko. Bitcoin was recently trading near $88,000.

That percentage jumped to 60% by 2022, when he announced during the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami that the majority of his liquid investments were in "Bitcoin and Bitcoin equities."

Salinas' latest Bitcoin allocation comes amid plans to delist his flagship firm Grupo Elektra to ease tax hurdles with the Mexican government. The businessman controls a sprawling empire that includes banking, retail, and telecommunications assets and is Mexico’s fifth richest person.

His enthusiasm for cryptocurrency has extended beyond personal investment. In 2021, Salinas announced plans to make his bank, Banco Azteca, the first in Mexico to accept Bitcoin, though these efforts faced regulatory hurdles.

The Mexican financial authorities subsequently issued warnings about virtual assets, and Salinas' Bitcoin banking ambitions didn’t move forward. Despite these challenges, he has remained a vocal Bitcoin supporter, frequently promoting cryptocurrency on social media. “Buy everything you can,” he told Blomberg today.

In previous statements, Salinas has described Bitcoin as a modern form of gold, praising its portability and resistance to debasement. He has particularly emphasized its value in Latin American economies like Venezuela and Argentina, where local currencies have struggled with significant inflation.

"Bitcoin protects the citizen from government expropriation," Salinas wrote in a social media post where he recommended the book "The Bitcoin Standard" by Saifedean Ammous.

He also emphasized that time is the best way to combat Bitcoin’s short term volatility. “(For) Bitcoin, you have to think (about) 10 years and buy everything you can,” he told Bloomberg, “it’s not going anywhere except up.”

“It’s the hardest asset in the world, not even gold is this hard,” He said.

Salinas believes the best investment strategy for the average person is to apply the dollar-cost average method. “What most people should do is dollar cost average. You have a program where you can buy so much per month and you buy every month. That will take the uncertainty away—and never sell it”

Salinas' increased Bitcoin exposure may easily put him among the world's most cryptocurrency-invested billionaires that are not inside the crypto industry. While other wealthy investors have allocated portions of their portfolios to digital assets, few have publicly committed such a large percentage to Bitcoin and related investments.