Bitcoin may have a small place in an investment portfolio, but the many tens of thousands of meme coins amount to “outright gambling”, according to Adam Yates, head of distribution at Peregrine Capital, South Africa’s oldest private hedge fund manager.
Speaking at The Moneyweb Summit on investment opportunities for 2026, Yates said the bigger opportunity lies in blockchain technology, a decentralised ledger, will in time be used in most financial institutions.
Yates said he has a small position in Bitcoin personally, being the most established cryptocurrency, but he didn’t invest in the broader, less-regulated cryptocurrency market.
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Bitcoin and gold
On the question of not being able to value Bitcoin – of which only 21 million coins will ever be issued — he said society gave gold, Bitcoin and even paper currency their value.
“If you look at it philosophically, gold has absolutely no intrinsic value. We as humans give it [gold] value, exactly the same way, we as humans, give currency value.
“So I think the argument for gold and the argument for Bitcoin are quite similar in that the only value they provide to society is as a scarce asset,” Yates said.
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Professionals in crypto
Financial professionals were investing in cryptocurrency, he said.
“I have exposure to cryptocurrency. Most people I know in the investment industry do to some degree. I mean, it’s a very small portion of the portfolio, but it’s something we have exposure to.”
He called the tens of thousands of meme coins “probably scams, for lack of a better word”.
For Bitcoin to be a better investment for everyday investors, it needed to be less volatile. Its large price swings make it difficult for people to hold when it drops sharply in value.
Bongiwe Momoza, head of investment consulting at Mentenova, said Bitcoin could potentially become an investment “because asset classes evolve”.
“But I think at this stage there is still a lot of education that needs to happen.” She said there needed to be more regulation too.
“So that is not something that I would look into specifically in my institution.”
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Stablecoins
Yates said what mattered more than many cryptocurrencies were stablecoins, which are digital currencies linked to the dollar or another currency.
He said this was an opportunity to hold dollars without actually holding them, especially if one fell afoul of the US and was worried about one’s dollar assets being frozen.
“The US Treasury can’t go after [dollor-linked stablecoins], so I think there is a very valid place for stablecoins. I think there is a very valid argument for anyone to hold these things as a safer haven asset than the US treasury bill,” Yates said.
But what was more definitive is that “blockchain technology is definitely going to be implemented across almost all financial markets in the future”, he added.
“It just seems to be a significantly better process than the kind of centralised dealing that you have taking place at the moment. The technology is amazing.”