U.S. venture capitalist and billionaire Peter Thiel is concerned that China is using bitcoin to harm the United States.
In comments made Tuesday (April 6) at an online forum hosted by the Richard Nixon Foundation, a California-based think tank, the PayPal co-founder said bitcoin “poses a threat to fiat currencies, particularly the U.S. dollar. “
In a tweet, the Nixon Foundation quoted Thiel as saying, “While I am one of the biggest proponents of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, I do wonder if, at this point, Bitcoin should also be seen in part as a financial weapon for China against the United States.”
Thiel said China would like to see two global reserve currencies, not just the U.S. dollar as the default reserve currency. But China doesn’t want the yuan to play that role and has used the euro “partially” as a weapon against the dollar in the past. That didn’t “work,” he argued, so now China is trying to boost bitcoin.”
Also attending the forum were former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former White House national security adviser Brian O’Brien.
Thiel said, “If China is long Bitcoin, perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how it works.”
Talking about China’s recent blockchain-enabled electronic version of the yuan, Thiel wasn’t impressed, saying, “That’s not really a cryptocurrency, it’s just some sort of totalitarian metric.”
Bitcoin rose 0.71 percent to more than $56,000 on Wednesday, nearing its record $60,738 to a bitcoin again, according to Coindesk. The bitcoin has risen 95 percent in value over the year and has surged 674 percent in the past 12 months.
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