Barstool Sports Founder Dave Portnoy Returns to Bitcoin With $1.1M Purchase

Dave Portnoy, founder and CEO of sports and pop culture blog Barstool Sports, bought 29.5 bitcoins for $1.1 million on Friday, returning to a market he once said he did not “trust.”

“F***ed around and bought 29 bitcoins today,” the stock market trader announced on Twitter. Portnoy spent $36,924 for each bitcoin (BTC), on the average. He took advantage of bitcoin’s 40% decline from its Nov.10 all-time-high of $69,000 to jump back into the market.

Many in the cryptocurrency industry welcomed Portnoy back into bitcoin, with MicroStrategy chief executive officer Michael Saylor leading the pack of those that did so, tweeting: “Welcome back to Team Bitcoin.”

Portnoy’s love-hate relationship with bitcoin

The 44-year-old American blogger has had a love-hate relationship with BTC. In August 2020, Portnoy said he did not “trust this [bitcoin] market at all” after he lost $25,000 and threatened “never [to] come back.”

He had earlier spent around $1 million on bitcoin and Chainlink (LINK), when BTC traded at $11,500. But when prices began to fall some two weeks later, Portnoy panicked and sold all his bitcoin at a loss of $25,000.

“I’m never buying bitcoin. Never. Never-never. I don’t believe a thing about it,” he proclaimed in a video last February. “But I do think it’s profitable. I think with enough steam, that it may just continue to go up forever, but I don’t buy the underlying junk behind it.”

Portnoy appears to have re-entered the market at some point between April and May 2021, as he took a pot-shot at Elon Musk, accusing the Tesla CEO of “flip-flopping about bitcoin.” He had just sold all his Dogecoin (DOGE) and bought one bitcoin at $48,000 after Tesla said it was investing in BTC.

Portnoy also put $40,000 into Safemoon. That investment is now worth under $4,000 at current market prices.

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