Peter Thiel is a lot of things—a Republican megadonor, an avowed fan of monopolies, and the guy responsible for this website’s former parent company, Gawker Media, going bankrupt some years ago.
Then, the real Thiel took the stage and said he’d start his talk the same way he’d start investor pitches in PayPal’s early days: ripping up several hundred dollars and negging onlookers for their naively shocked reactions at the guy who just ripped up several hundred dollars.
But if that example of absolute Fiscal Alpha Maleness wasn’t enough for you, don’t worry, because things only got more combative from there.
If you asked anyone else that same question, they’d likely offer opinions backed by tangible evidence: that the world’s already buckling technological infrastructure can’t support an energy-sucking Bitcoin wallet in every pocket, or that these currencies are too volatile to be useful for everyday transactions.
The regulator has expressed that he has no plans to ban cryptocurrencies and even agrees that they could very well make electronic payments cheaper and faster.
After secretly bankrolling a lawsuit against Gizmodo’s former owner Gawker Media, resulting in the company’s bankruptcy, the tech investor was one of the only prominent members of Silicon Valley to publicly endorse Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.
Eric Weinstein, a managing director at Thiel Capital, wrote of the address, “Peter Thiel making a clear declaration in Miami: the Financial Gerontocracy has declared war on Bitcoin as a revolutionary youth movement for good reason.