Ray Dalio Latest Finance Chief to Slam Bitcoin, Calling it 'A Bubble'

A week after Jamie Dimon called bitcoin "a fraud," the founder of the world's largest hedge fund has leveled his own harsh take on the crypocurrency market.

In an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday, Bridgewater Associate's Ray Dalio said bitcoin "is a highly speculative market" that is currently "a bubble." Central to his criticism of bitcoin is Dalio's assertion that consumers can neither make many transactions with it nor spend it very easily.

The investor said there are two important facets to being considered a valid currency: ease of transactions as a medium of exchange and being a "storehold of wealth."

"It's a shame, it could be a currency. It could work conceptually, but the amount of speculation that is going on and the lack of transactions [hurts it]," he said.

As for Dimon, the JPMorgan chief executive predicted at an investor conference in New York last week that that things “wont end well” for bitcoin. The bank bans its employees from investing in bitcoin, which Dimon says is "stupid."

Despite Dalio's criticism of the cryptocurency, Fortune notes that bitcoin actually traded up 33% higher from four days earlier, hitting $4,000 on Tuesday.

Photo: World Economic Forum