“I felt compelled to buy it — I really did,” El-Erian said in an interview with CNBC’s Dan Murphy on Monday.
He subsequently held on to his position until late 2020, when bitcoin regained the $19,000 level.
Bitcoin is now trading well above the $60,000 mark, hitting a new all-time high of more than $68,000 last week.
Still, bitcoin and its smaller competitors — which include ethereum and XRP — are notoriously volatile assets.