Comedian and author Trevor Noah said that not buying Bitcoin at the rock-bottom price of zero dollars was his biggest mistake as a technology investor.
“Not buying Bitcoin when it was nothing,” Noah said during a fireside chat at Web Summit Qatar on Monday. “It cost nothing at some point. That was maybe the biggest mistake I’ve made and not taking the time to understand it.”
The former Daily Show host’s comments come as the price of Bitcoin surged past $56,000 per coin, and nearly a dozen spot Bitcoin ETFs approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are swelling with billions of dollars from investors.
Launched 16 years ago, Bitcoin has a market capitalization of over $1 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Technically, Bitcoin was worth $0 when its network went live in January 2009, and didn’t hit $1 until February 2011.
When asked how he recovered from that mistake, Noah said it’s important to understand that life is full of mistakes and risks someone did and didn’t take.
“Every country that exists, exists because somebody didn’t go to it and somebody did,” Noah said. “That’s how I always see the world.” He added, jokingly, that everyone is alive because someone said no to our fathers and someone else said yes.
“Understanding that and applying that to business is a good way to live in life,” he said. “You’re going to make a mistake, and you’re going to learn something from it, but you won’t—and you can’t—get everything right.”
Noah argued that if a person thinks they did get everything right, they are not challenging themselves enough or aren’t in a challenging enough environment.
“So you make the mistakes, you understand what happened, and you look at whether or not you would do it again, or if there was something you could have done or if there’s something you would change if there is try changing going forward,” he said. “If there isn’t, [say] I made the mistake, I learned from it, and now I move on with my life.”
While Noah encouraged investors to learn from mistakes, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is rife with them, some more catastrophic than others. Regulators continue to sound the alarm around investing in cryptocurrencies and the inherent risk of the crypto market.
Before the SEC approved the Bitcoin ETFs in January, chair Gary Genser took to social media again to warn investors about the risk involved.
“Those offering crypto asset investments and services may not be complying with applicable law, including federal securities laws,” Gensler wrote on Twitter. “Investors in crypto asset securities should understand they may be deprived of key information and other important protections in connection with their investment.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.