Ricardo Salinas Pliego is not tiptoeing around bitcoin. The Mexican billionaire says roughly 70% of his investment portfolio is in BTC, a position that puts him squarely in the “hard money beats soft money” camp and firmly outside the comfort zone of most financial advisers.
- 70% of portfolio in BTC
- Bitcoin as an inflation hedge
- Home equity for BTC exposure
- Bitcoin vs. real estate
- $1 million BTC target
Salinas, who has an estimated net worth of about $5 billion and chairs Grupo Elektra, reiterated his conviction in a CoinDesk interview. His core view is straightforward: bitcoin is the best long-term store of value, and a better inflation hedge than fiat currencies — government-issued money like the peso, dollar, or euro, which can lose purchasing power when too much of it is created.
He reportedly said approximately 70% of his investment portfolio is allocated to bitcoin. That is not a “starter position.” That is a full-force macro bet. It’s the kind of allocation that makes traditional wealth managers clutch their spreadsheets a little tighter. But Salinas isn’t talking like a trader trying to catch a quick pump. He’s treating BTC like a treasury asset, something to hold for years while the rest of the financial system keeps doing what it does best: printing, diluting, and calling it policy.
He also pushed the idea further than most public bitcoin bulls would dare. Salinas suggested homeowners could consider using home equity to gain bitcoin exposure. Home equity is simply the portion of a property you actually own after subtracting the mortgage. In plain English: if your home is worth $500,000 and you still owe $300,000, your equity is roughly $200,000. Salinas said he once persuaded his wife to mortgage her home to buy more BTC.
That’s either conviction with a capital C or a lesson plan for a painful family dinner if the market goes south. Sometimes both.
His argument follows a familiar bitcoin thesis: governments weaken fiat currencies through excessive money creation, while scarce assets tend to preserve purchasing power over time. In Salinas’s words:
“Bitcoin is the best long-term store of value.”
“Governments continue to devalue fiat currencies through excessive money creation.”
“Scarce assets such as gold and bitcoin preserve purchasing power over time.”
That logic has only gotten more mainstream since the inflation scare that followed the pandemic-era money spigot. Bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million coins gives it a scarcity profile that fiat currencies simply do not have. Central banks can expand the money supply. Bitcoin cannot be inflated by committee. That’s the whole appeal, and also the reason it remains such a threat to the old monetary order.
Salinas also made the case using real estate, which is useful because it strips away some of the usual crypto fog and puts the comparison in brick-and-mortar terms. He pointed to a Central London home as an example. In 2016, a property worth about $1.6 million could have been bought for around 4,000 BTC. A decade later, the same home would require fewer than 30 BTC. The point is simple: bitcoin’s price rose much faster than the property’s value, so the same house became dramatically cheaper in bitcoin terms over time.
That doesn’t mean real estate is dead or that everyone should pawn the roof over their head to stack sats. Real estate has obvious strengths: it can produce rental income, it serves a practical purpose, and local markets can behave very differently from one another. Bitcoin, by contrast, has no tenants, no plumbing, and no roof to leak. What it does have is portability, scarcity, and a monetary design that is cleaner than most state-issued currencies. They are different assets serving different purposes.
Still, Salinas’s comparison is powerful because it highlights a blunt truth: property is scarce in a physical sense, but it is not monetary scarcity in the same way bitcoin is. Land can be developed, zoning changes, buildings age, and local demand shifts. Bitcoin’s supply schedule doesn’t care about any of that. It just keeps doing its thing, block after block, while the rest of the financial system tries to catch up and usually looks a bit embarrassed in the process.
His views on scarce assets didn’t come out of nowhere. Salinas said family discussions about gold after the collapse of the gold standard in the 1970s shaped his thinking. That historical backdrop matters. Once money stopped being tied to gold, governments gained far more flexibility to expand fiat supply. To supporters of sound money, that was not liberation; it was the beginning of a long, polite robbery. Gold used to be the obvious hedge against that problem. Bitcoin is the digital version, with better transferability, easier storage, and a stronger censorship-resistance profile.
He also nodded toward the same circle of hyper-bullish bitcoin voices that includes Cathie Wood and Michael Saylor, both of whom have floated dramatic long-term price targets. Salinas went further and said bitcoin could eventually reach $1 million per coin.
“Bitcoin could eventually reach $1 million per coin.”
No timeline was attached, which is probably wise. Price targets without timeframes are the financial equivalent of “trust me, bro.” They may be directionally useful, but they are not a plan. A million-dollar bitcoin is not impossible, but it depends on adoption, macro conditions, liquidity, regulatory pressures, and a lot of capital flows behaving exactly as the bulls hope. Markets rarely cooperate that neatly.
There’s also a crucial risk point here that deserves more than a passing shrug: borrowing against home equity to buy bitcoin is an extremely aggressive move. If BTC falls sharply, the loan remains. If interest rates rise, the borrowing becomes more expensive. If the homeowner needs to sell into weakness, the losses can compound fast. That’s not “optimizing capital.” That’s leveraged exposure to one of the most volatile major assets on the planet.
Billionaire conviction is not the same thing as universal advice. A person with billions, diversified business holdings, and the ability to absorb volatility can survive a drawdown that would financially wreck a normal household. That distinction gets blurred constantly in crypto, where a risky decision is often relabeled as courage after prices go up. Convenient, isn’t it?
That said, Salinas’s stance does reflect why bitcoin continues to attract serious capital. The case is not that BTC is perfect. It’s that fiat money is structurally vulnerable to dilution, and hard assets tend to outperform when that dilution is persistent. Bitcoin fits that thesis better than almost anything else because it combines scarcity, global liquidity, and digital ownership in a way gold never quite managed.
And if the comparison with real estate feels a little too abstract, that’s the point. Many people still treat housing as the ultimate safe asset while ignoring that it can be beaten badly over long time horizons by a harder monetary asset. A house can shelter you. Bitcoin can’t. But bitcoin can preserve purchasing power with a ferocity that housing often cannot match. Different jobs, different rules.
Salinas’s comments matter because he’s not a random influencer with a laser-eyed avatar and a paid promo link. He’s a wealthy, visible business figure making a public, repeatable case for bitcoin as a long-term monetary asset. That won’t make BTC less volatile or magically erase the downside risk. It does, however, reinforce the idea that bitcoin is no longer just a speculative sideshow for crypto degens and forum prophets. It is increasingly treated as a serious macro position by people with real skin in the game.
Key questions and takeaways
Why is Ricardo Salinas so bullish on bitcoin?
He believes bitcoin is a superior long-term store of value and a stronger hedge against fiat currency devaluation than cash or other government-issued money.
What does 70% of his portfolio in BTC mean?
It means he is making an extremely high-conviction bet on bitcoin, far more aggressive than what most investors or advisers would consider normal.
Why does he compare bitcoin with real estate?
He uses property to show how much bitcoin has outperformed over time, especially when measured against assets that are still tied to local markets and slower-moving supply dynamics.
Should people use home equity to buy bitcoin?
That is a very high-risk move. It can work in a strong bull market, but it can also backfire hard if bitcoin drops, borrowing costs rise, or the homeowner needs liquidity.
Can bitcoin reach $1 million?
It’s not impossible, but it remains a long-term speculative target rather than a forecast with a reliable timeline.
What’s the bigger message here?
Salinas is betting that scarce assets will keep winning as fiat currencies continue to lose purchasing power. He may be right on the thesis, but the execution is still a dangerous game for anyone who doesn’t have billionaire-level margin for error.
Salinas is making a classic bitcoin bet: scarce money beats soft money. That idea has real intellectual weight, and bitcoin has the track record to keep earning attention. But conviction only counts if it survives a bear market. Otherwise it’s just bravado wearing a bull hat.
