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Dave Portnoy, the outspoken founding father of Barstool Sports activities, used his debut look at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2025 to coach the convention highlight XRP. Talking on the Metro Toronto Conference Centre mainstage, Portnoy acknowledged that he purchased the token for one purpose solely: worry of lacking out.
Joined on-stage by media strategist Sam Ewan, Portnoy opened with gentle banter about Toronto pizza—“North of Brooklyn nonetheless is, I might say, my favourite,” he insisted, giving “shout-out Invoice the Greek, who’s like my chaperone for Toronto”—earlier than turning to the market that drew hundreds to Consensus.
Pressed on whether or not the present cycle is dominated by so-called meme cash, Portnoy minimize to the chase. “Even Bitcoin is, frankly, a memecoin,” he stated. The comment set the tone for a dialogue that oscillated between portfolio confessions and cultural critique.
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When Ewan tried to pinpoint Portnoy’s boldest wager, the 47-year-old rattled off winners the best way others recall birthdays: Axon inventory at roughly $200 (now about $700, he famous), Michigan’s Rose Bowl triumph, and Scottie Scheffler capturing the Masters. But he known as these victories “two various things” from the moment, couch-bound gratification of watching a line of inexperienced candles. “There’s one thing about it while you place a guess, you see Bitcoin go up, you see XRP go up, and also you’re simply sitting in your sofa—‘I made that cash not working.’ That’s an excellent feeling,” he admitted.
Why XRP, Not Bitcoin
Portnoy’s self-diagnosed FOMO emerged in sharper aid because the dialog turned to actual property. He recalled smashing his fist on a desk after being outbid on a Miami condominium by “a crypto bro” who “heard about Bitcoin when it was, I don’t know, eight bucks, seven bucks.” The episode, he stated, crystallised the anxiousness of lacking an asymmetric trade: “I’ve slaved for twenty years and he simply out-bid me.”
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That very same impulse, Portnoy confessed, now drives his position in XRP. “It’s what—two bucks forty cents or one thing like that? What if that’s the following Bitcoin?” he stated, emphasising that his allocation displays a speculative itch relatively than a thesis about Ripple’s know-how or tokenomics. “It’s FOMO. It’s not like I’ve some grand perception in it.”
In maybe the panel’s most revealing anecdote, Portnoy traced his fraught historical past with Bitcoin to an opportunity encounter: “I purchased Bitcoin the primary time for round $10,000 … the Winklevoss twins have been staying subsequent door to me at a lodge they usually got here and defined what Bitcoin was. It was the dumbest rationalization I’d ever heard, and I bought all of it proper there.”
The forfeited place—“about $2 million”—would have dwarfed each different win in his profession, he conceded, underscoring the emotional swing between conviction and capitulation that defines many retail journeys by way of crypto’s boom-and-bust cycles.
At press time, XRP traded at $2.40.
Featured picture from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com