Ethereum Watch

On March 15, 2018, venture capitalist Peter Thiel shared his thoughts on cryptocurrency investment at the Economic Club of New York. A co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, Thiel said that he perceives potential long-term value in bitcoin, though not as a payments system.

“I would be long bitcoin, and neutral to skeptical of just about everything else at this point with a few possible exceptions,” he said.

It’s important to take Thiel’s statements with a grain of salt, because according to the Wall Street Journal, his Founders Fund has made multimillion-dollar investments in bitcoin over the last year. Thiel would stand to profit handsomely if bitcoin were to become the “online equivalent [of] gold.”

Nevertheless, the businessman estimated that there is a 50 to 80 percent chance that bitcoin will ultimately become worthless. It’s not apparent whether Thiel or Founders Fund would change their investment horizon if the price of bitcoin fell precipitously.

Also on Thursday, Fox Business published an interview with Thiel.

Speaking with Maria Bartiromo, he said, “”[Bitcoin] has all of these sort of ’99-2000 bubble-like aspects.” But, he noted one major difference: Thiel said that today, “there are almost no Wall Street analysts pushing this, and so it is so out of favor.”

“Even if bitcoin is bubble-like, that doesn’t necessarily rebut it as a store of value,” he added.

Matthew is a writer with a passion for emerging technology. Prior to joining ETHNews, he interned for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the OECD. He graduated cum laude from Georgetown University where he studied international economics. In his spare time, Matthew loves playing basketball and listening to podcasts. He currently lives in Los Angeles. Matthew is a full-time staff writer for ETHNews.

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