PayPal co-founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel is a cryptocurrency advocate, but he also thinks the digital asset may be undermining the U.S. dollar’s position as a global currency.
A “pro-Bitcoin maximalist,” Thiel warned that bitcoin (BTC) could be a “Chinese financial weapon” used to dethrone the greenback’s monetary status.
Thiel urged the U.S. government to consider tighter regulations on digital currency as he accused Chinese video app TikTok of creating “privacy-invading” technologies during a virtual discussion on Tuesday.
China’s assumed dominance
Appearing alongside former U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien at a virtual roundtable held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel indicated that his hawkish attitude toward China outweighs his enthusiasm for the crypto.
The Paypal executive’s comments come at a time when worries over China’s assumed dominance over bitcoin are resurfacing. “Even though I’m a pro-crypto person, I do wonder whether if at this point Bitcoin should also be thought of in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.”
The conversation between Thiel, who has frequently slammed U.S. companies that engage in business with China, and two hawkish former members of the Trump administration, was mostly focused on U.S.-China ties.
The big leverage
“From China’s point of view… they don’t like the U.S. having this reserve currency because it gives us a lot of leverage over Iranian oil supply chains and all sorts of things like that,” the South China Morning Post quoted Thiel as saying.
More than being an avid backer of bitcoin and owning the virtual asset himself, Thiel’s foundation played a major role in the creation of Ethereum when Vitalik Buterin secured a $100,000 grant to start working on the blockchain.
Thiel also suggested that the U.S. should follow India in getting rid of TikTok, the social app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, and which he called “this sort of incredible exfiltration of data about people.”
Image courtesy of Alesia Kozik/Pexels
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Source: https://bitcoinerx.com/bitcoin/paypal-co-founder-bitcoin-investor-peter-thiel-calls-crypto-a-chinese-financial-weapon/
