Share this article
Peter Thiel: Bitcoin Is Like A 'Reserve Form Of Money'
Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, believes that critics of bitcoin are "underestimating" the cryptocurrency.
By Stan Higgins
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 7:05 a.m. Published Oct 26, 2017, 4:00 p.m.
Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, believes that critics of bitcoin are "underestimating" the cryptocurrency.
In remarks made on the third day of the Financial Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia, Thiel said that while he is "skeptical of most [cryptocurrencies]," he believes bitcoin has a promising future depending on the trajectory it takes, according to CNBC.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Speaking with Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo, Thiel said that those criticizing bitcoin are "underestimating [it] especially because ... it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments."
He went on to say:
"If bitcoin ends up being the cyber equivalent of gold it has a great potential left."
Thiel has previously argued that bitcoin doesn’t work well for payments. Back in 2014, during a Reddit Ask-Me-Anything session, he said that "the payment system is badly lacking" and that he wasn't ready to take a more bullish position just yet.
"I will become more bullish on bitcoin when I see the payment volume of bitcoin really increase," he said at the time.
He notably remarked that bitcoin mining – the energy-intensive process by which new transactions are added to a blockchain – is more difficult than gold mining. His comments highlighted the limited issuance of coins encoded in the cryptocurrency's software, as only 21 million bitcoins will be created.
"Bitcoin is mineable like gold, it's hard to mine, it's actually harder to mine than gold. And so in that sense, it's more constrained," he said.
Image via Wikimedia
This piece has been updated for clarity.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Ether, Dogecoin, Solana Slide as Bitcoin Fails to Sustain Early-Week Breakout
The pullback followed Tuesday's brief spike above $94,500, a move that triggered a minor short squeeze but failed to break the resistance that has capped bitcoin for most of the past three weeks.
What to know:
- Bitcoin fell toward $90,000 as crypto markets lost ground despite a Federal Reserve rate cut.
- Over $514 million in leveraged positions were liquidated, with major tokens like Ether and Solana also declining.
- Analysts suggest Bitcoin must surpass $94,000 to signal a significant rebound, amid concerns over macroeconomic conditions and market liquidity.
Top Stories
