The mainstream media debate over Bitcoin as a success or failure approached live comedy this week after a “brawl” broke out between guests on a CNBC panel.
In an exchange which ended an edition of the network’s increasingly notorious Fast Money segment, regular contributor and RiskReversal.com editor Dan Nathan told Evercore ISI technician Rich Ross to “go piss off” after he criticized Bitcoin’s performance.
Ross had previously maintained that Bitcoin was a poor investment choice in the past few months due to its near-50% fall this week. Traditional stock investments, on the other hand, had allegedly fared better, with Ross giving the example of Boeing’s 200% gains since 2016.
As Zerohedge notes, reproducing the unedited version of the exchange, Ross had failed to note Bitcoin’s annual gains of over 1000% in 2017 alone. Nathan labeled him “glib” to deride it.
“You’ve been wrong, so don’t say that I’m glib,” Ross retorted before Nathan weighed in with the fateful remark:
“You don’t know what I’ve done, you don’t know what my call is, so go piss off, seriously.”
The episode continues Fast Money’s somewhat bizarre approach to Bitcoin reporting. In December, the segment made headlines for suddenly switching allegiances to become extremely bullish on altcoin Bitcoin Cash.
At the time, its dedicated Twitter account began publishing material which strongly criticized Bitcoin, telling respondents to “deal with” the rise of Bitcoin Cash instead.
That style of content has since not made a return.