[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee] Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas (리카르도 살리나스) said he has allocated about 70 percent of his personal investment portfolio to bitcoin, laying out a bullish scenario for the cryptocurrency.

On June 17 local time, blockchain media outlet Bitcoin Magazine reported that Salinas said in a recent CoinDesk interview that he raised bitcoin to 70 percent of his portfolio from about 10 percent in October 2020. He is founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, a Mexican conglomerate spanning telecommunications, media, financial services and retail.

He cited the possibility of state intervention as a core reason, viewing bitcoin as an asset superior to fiat currency or a gold standard. He said bitcoin is hard to confiscate and can be transferred instantly worldwide, adding that a gold standard has also always been subject to government intervention.

He said his view is not newly formed. Salinas said he had long been exposed to issues of gold and currency value declines at the family dinner table, and explained that his concerns about the erosion of fiat currency value grew after former U.S. President Richard Nixon ended the direct exchange of dollars for gold.

Salinas' bitcoin investment expanded in stages. Around June 2021, he said he would push for his Mexican bank Banco Azteca to become Mexico's first bank to accept bitcoin, but the plan stopped after Mexico's financial regulators issued warnings related to cryptocurrencies. He said his personal conviction became stronger, though.

That year, he sought a $150 million loan to invest $400 million in bitcoin, using $416 million worth of shares in home appliance retailer Grupo Elektra as collateral, but the counterparty turned out to be a fraudulent company.

His investment stance did not change after those incidents. At the Bitcoin Conference in 2022, Salinas criticised centralised institutions for undermining a currency's purchasing power while promising to preserve assets across generations. He said, "There is a difference between understanding something in theory and experiencing it firsthand," stressing that his conviction is based on personal experience.

Salinas said he also urged his family to use bitcoin in managing its assets. He said, "I know it is a controversial topic, but I persuaded my wife to take out a loan against a house she owns to buy bitcoin." He also urged ordinary investors to consider switching at least part of their home assets into bitcoin exposure.

He also offered a comparison with real estate to explain bitcoin's price potential. He said that in January 2016, when bitcoin traded around $400, the average home in central London cost $1.6 million, equivalent to about 4,000 BTC. He said that while London home prices have not changed much since then, it now takes less than 30 BTC to buy the same home.

He described bitcoin as an asymmetric upside bet and said demand will increase as more people learn about bitcoin. Asked whether bitcoin could reach $1 million, as long-term projections by bulls such as Cathie Wood and Michael Saylor suggest, he replied, "It will reach $1 million, but I do not know when."

Salinas' comments show that the bitcoin holding strategies of wealthy individuals are becoming more aggressive, separate from Mexican financial regulation. In particular, after a bank-level adoption attempt was blocked, he raised its share in his personal portfolio to 70 percent, suggesting he is continuing to expand bitcoin as a long-term holding.

JUST IN: Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas says Bitcoin is a better investment than real estate, predicting it will eventually reach $1,000,000 He holds 70% of his estimated $5 billion net worth in BTC pic.twitter.com/DKnNmexjAd