Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder of SoftBank Group Corp., made a huge personal bet on bitcoin just as prices for the digital currency peaked, losing more than $130 million when he sold out, according to people familiar with the matter.
Son, who launched the world’s biggest venture-capital fund on the strength of his long-term investing acumen, made the investment in late 2017 at the recommendation of a well-known bitcoin booster, whose investment firm SoftBank 9984, +0.56% bought that year, the people said.
The exact size of the bet couldn’t be determined, but it came at the peak of the bitcoin frenzy after the digital currency had already risen more than 10-fold in 2017, the people said. Bitcoin peaked at nearly $20,000 in mid-December 2017, and Mr. Son sold in early 2018 after bitcoin had plummeted.
Bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.51% was trading up 3.8% at $5,586.88 late afternoon Tuesday.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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