Mike Novogratz said DeFi could destroy banks, shiba inu and doge are unsustainable, and crypto traders should avoid leverage in a recent interview. Here are the 11 best quotes.

• Mike Novogratz said that decentralized finance could spell serious trouble for banks.
• He also told the Binance podcast that he thinks dogecoin and shiba inu coin are unsustainable.
• And he told bitcoin traders to avoid excessive leverage, which can make people lose all their money.

Billionaire crypto investor Mike Novogratz said decentralized finance, or DeFi, could spell serious trouble for banks, that shiba inu coin and dogecoin are unsustainable, and that crypto traders should avoid excessive leverage in an interview with Binance's podcast on Wednesday.

He also revealed that speaking to ethereum entrepreneur Joe Lubin convinced him that crypto would be a revolution, that the 2017 bitcoin rally was a turning point for him, and argued that the crypto community was often too angry.

Here are the 11 best quotes.

Talking to Joe Lubin of ConsenSys

"I walked into that office [in around 2013] and they were like, we're going to disrupt the world and we're going to disrupt art, finance, and IP and music.

"And they had all these things on the wall of how this decentralized revolution was going to happen. And that's when I really got inspired. I was like, this is like religious zeal. And these people aren't going to give up. It's fighting for the little guy, it's fighting for transparency, it's fighting for a more egalitarian system."

2017 was a turning point

"By the time 2017 happened, I made a freaking fortune, which was fun. And that empowered me to do other things. I thought about doing a hedge fund and decided not to. And we had come up the idea of, let's raise permanent capital and really invest for the long term in what we think is going to be a transformational revolution." - Novogratz founded Galaxy Digital in 2018.

Decentralized finance could hit banks hard

"I talked to guys who run banks all the time and they've been very interested in crypto. And I was like, you guys were so wrong worrying about bitcoin. Bitcoin was an asset that you could buy and sell and trade and asset manage and get your clients to, but it wasn't a threat to your enterprise.

"DeFi on the other hand is gonna bite your leg off, bite your hand off, and now it's going to claw your nose off. DeFi's coming right at their business. And so you're going to see them fight back... people don't like to lose their living."

Size is becoming more important in the crypto world

"Days like yesterday or last week when you have literally a crash in the market, it really helped to be well capitalized. I know companies that weren't capitalized and they were hanging on by a hair from life or death. And you know, when you're well capitalized, you can take advantage of opportunities."

Don't trade crypto with high leverage

"The simple advice is this is an 80-vol instrument, 100-vol instrument, right now ethereum vol is 130, 140. That's really, really risky stuff. You don't need to trade it with so much leverage. I know everyone wants to get rich quick... but the more leverage you take the odds of you losing all your money and going back to, as the meme said, flipping burgers at McDonald's go higher and higher." - Novogratz references the volatility of crypto assets.

On shiba inu and dogecoin

"I don't want to discredit the shiba inu community or the doge community or any of the meme-coin investing communities. They have a place and they're fun for people who've made money. They're nihilistic. [But] I don't think they're good for the more long-term sustainable project… If there's not real purpose, then if there's not programming on top of that, I think they will run out of gas and then lead down."

On anger within the crypto community

"I put something out [and] it's not positive, if it's the cardano community or the XRP army, they attack with a meanness and an anger and vigor that isn't healthy. And it's the same thing we're seeing play out between Trump and non-Trump [supporters]."

Institutional interest is important

"Getting the institutional world pay attention brings in capital in the space, it brings in credibility in the space, brings in talent to the space."

Galaxy is close to a big hire

"It's shocking who I can hire these days. I'm real close on a hire, which I hope to announce, that people are going to spin their head three times on their bodies, saying, what just happened? People want to be in our industry. Now that didn't exist a few years back. I'm out-hiring Goldman Sachs and Google in some of our young guys and women."

Galaxy Digital sees itself as a crypto ecosystem company

"Most people go on the same journey. They start with bitcoin. And they're like, oh, we figured out ethereum, what else is out there?

"And then they're like, oh, ethereum's pretty cool, but there're these other ecosystems that run faster. They're not as decentralized, the binance smart chain is a version of ethereum that's much less decentralized and much faster, and there's lots of great stuff being built on them. And so for me as an investor, I think, hmm, there's momentum around this ecosystem."

Why Galaxy bought custody specialist Bitgo for $1.2 billion

"Part of it was our clients were asking for custody… And so we found ourselves losing some business because we didn't have our own custodian… And I thought, I have been a user of the blockchain, and a storyteller about it, I've been an investor in it, but I haven't been a builder, and I think the next chapter for all of us is building on chain."
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