Peter Thiel is actually known as a Bitcoin friend. Did the fear of China cause the conservative American to rethink?
PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel believes Bitcoin is a potential threat to US financial stability. The Chinese government could therefore use BTC to attack the global supremacy of the US dollar.
The venture capital investor and crypto enthusiast voiced his concerns at a virtual roundtable of the Richard Nixon Foundation, which was also attended by Donald Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. At the April 6th event said he:
Even if I am a pro-crypto, pro-Bitcoin maximalist, I wonder whether Bitcoin is now partly to be seen as a Chinese financial weapon against the US that threatens fiat money. But most of all it threatens the US dollar.
Thiel thinks that China wants to push the US dollar out of its position as the sole reserve currency. Beijing is not interested in heaving its own renminbi into this position. Instead, they want to establish a system with several reserve currencies. In addition to Bitcoin, the euro is therefore also a target of Chinese intervention.
E-yuan not comparable to Bitcoin
Relations between the USA and China were in the foreground of the discussion group. In addition to his comments on Bitcoin, Thiel criticized the big tech companies in particular. Above all, he attested that Google and Apple were willing to cooperate with the Chinese rulers. But even Facebook, on whose board Thiel sits, did not know enough flag during the Hong Kong crisis.
Thiel finally gave the e-yuan a sharp rebuff. Unlike Bitcoin, China’s planned digital central bank currency is not a crypto currency, but a “totalitarian control instrument.”
In addition to Thiel and Pompeo, Trump’s former security advisor Robert O’Brien also took part in the conservative event. Thiel is considered a major financier for conservative Republicans. In 2016 he supported Trump’s election campaign.