The billionaire and co-founder of PayPal Peter Thiel (Peter Thiel) once again expressed optimism in relation to bitcoin.
At the meeting of the Economic club of new York, held this week, Thiele reiterated his position against the leading cryptocurrencies, noting that only bitcoin can become “the equivalent of gold.”
“There is only one on-line equivalent of gold,” said Thiel, adding that to bet on the largest cryptocurrency.
Billionaire and major investor suggests that cryptocurrencies should be considered as a storage medium, not a tool “new payment system”: being a rather cumbersome instrument of payment, he makes the process daily transactions too “time consuming”.
“This compares with gold bullion that never leave the vault, and is kind of a tool to hedge against the risk of collapse of the entire world,” said Thiel.
Contrasting the rest of the bitcoin virtual currency, the investor assumes that the leading cryptocurrency will hold its position.
“Gold remains gold, as this is the main class of assets. Perhaps it could replace silver, but this is not happening,” said co-founder of PayPal, who had previously expressed skepticism about other cryptocurrencies.
It is noteworthy that Thiele still implies that with a probability of 50% to 80% of bitcoin will have no value in the future. However, according to him, the likelihood that the leading cryptocurrency will increase in price, ranging from 20 to 50%.
“The probability is measurable — it’s good,” said Thiel, adding that the question is when this will happen.
Note, VC is a long-time supporter of bitcoin. He has previously said that critics “underestimate” cryptocurrency.
Recall that in early March, PayPal has filed a patent application for “a system of accelerated transactions using virtual currencies”.
