What Pepsico CFO thinks of the volatility and speculations around Bitcoin

Repeated price surges can do only so much for the allure of Bitcoin investments, and top executives worldwide miss no chance in underlining the fact. The Chief Financial Officer of Pepsico reiterated the same recently when he also mentioned that the prospect of Bitcoin making its way to the company’s balance sheet soon is unlikely.

In a recent interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, Hugh Johnson, who is also the Vice-Chairman of beverage behemoth Pepsico stated that he has always been taught to “never say never.” However, he added that he just couldn’t bring himself to imagine his company buying Bitcoin with its cash reserves.

The reason? The digital asset is “too volatile and too speculative.” He further said,

“When we have cash balance, we generally look at safety and liquidity in businesses more than anything else.”

Hence, the exec thinks it will be “an awfully long time” before BTC can be used by Pepsico as functional money.

This is not the first time that Johnson expressed criticism towards the novel asset class. Earlier this year, he had revealed that while Pepsico had toyed with the idea of buying Bitcoin with its cash. However he had echoed similar views at the time, stating,

“The conclusion we came to pretty quickly was Bitcoin is too speculative for the way we manage our cash portfolio.”

These earlier comments had come in the wake of electric car producer Tesla announcing its $1.5 billion BTC purchase. Along with Tesla, MicroStrategy has been the top publicly traded company to hold billions worth of the virtual currency, with CEO Michael Saylor adding more routinely.

Proponents such the abovementioned, as well as others, believe the price volatility to be a minor factor when compared with Bitcoin’s price appreciation over time, and its prospects as a long-term investment.