Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel is worried that China is using bitcoin to undermine the U.S.
In comments Tuesday during a virtual event for the Richard Nixon Foundation, and first reported by Bloomberg News, the co-founder of PayPal PYPL,
“ “Even though I’m a pro-crypto, pro-bitcoin maximalist person, I do wonder whether at this point, bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.” ”
Thiel said China would like to see two global reserve currencies, rather than the dollar being the default reserve currency. But China doesn’t want its renminbi to fill that role, and in the past has used the euro “in part” as a weapon against the dollar. That hasn’t worked, so now China is trying to elevate bitcoin, Thiel argued.
“[If] China’s long bitcoin, perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works,” he said.
Also see: U.S. is ‘behind the curve’ on crypto regulations, says SEC Commissioner Peirce
China recently launched a blockchain-enabled, digital version of its currency, the yuan, but Thiel dismissed that move. “That’s not a real cryptocurrency, that’s just some sort of totalitarian measuring device,” he said.
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