2018.01.1707:13:00UTC+00T. Boone Pickens Finds Cryptocurrencies A Real Turnoff

American oil tycoon and financier T. Boone Pickens is not at all enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies. The reason is the term itself.

"At 89, anything with the word "crypt" in it is a real turnoff for me," the 89-year old famed Texas corporate raider said on Tuesday, in a reply to a question on his Twitter account.

A cryptocurrency is a digital asset that works on a medium that uses cryptography, the science of hiding information from prying eyes, to secure its transactions.

The recent surge in prices of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has attracted huge interest from investors and hedge fund managers. But, many prefer to avoid actual investing due to the wild swings in the prices and also due to the unregulated nature of these currencies.

Traditional finance has kept cryptocurrencies at arm's length, but many in the field are positive about the future for the distributed ledger technology or blockchain that underlies them.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has warned that cryptocurrencies are set to have a bad ending and he would not bet any money on them.

The Bank of America's brokerage arm Merrill Lynch reportedly banned its clients and financial advisers from buying bitcoin-related investments due to concerns over the investment standard of the cryptocurrency and related products.

Jamie Dimon, who is JP Morgan Chase CEO and chairman, however, regretted calling Bitcoin "a fraud" earlier, but expressed little interest in investing in cryptocurrencies.