Pliego also owns TV Azteca, Mexico’s second-largest TV broadcaster, and Grupo Elektra, a financial services and retail company. His net worth is nearly $16 billion, according to Forbes.
Bitcoin has jumped about 4.3% over the past 24 hours, reaching $34,201 per coin, according to Coindesk.
It’s been a rocky couple of months for the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, which hit an all-time high of nearly $65,000 in April, plummeted as low as $28,800 last week after China escalated its crackdown on digital currencies.
As bitcoin attempts a comeback from last week’s collapse, the specter of increased regulation could keep a lid on prices.
On Monday, Randal Quarles, the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision, shared scathing remarks about bitcoin’s prospects.
“Bitcoin’s principal additional attractions are its novelty and its anonymity,” he said. “The anonymity will make it appropriately the target for increasingly comprehensive scrutiny from law enforcement and the novelty is a rapidly wasting asset. Gold will always glitter, but novelty, by definition, fades.”
He added, “Bitcoin and its ilk will, accordingly, almost certainly remain a risky and speculative investment rather than a revolutionary means of payment, and they are therefore highly unlikely to affect the role of the US dollar.”
