PayPal’s Peter Thiel: ‘Longing’ Bitcoin Is ‘Hedge Against World Falling Apart’

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel described Bitcoin as “a hedge against the whole world falling apart” in new bullish comments March 15.

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York quoted by CNBC, the Facebook and rumored $20 mln Bitcoin investor said that while he did not foresee Bitcoin fulfilling the role of a currency as yet, its ability to replace gold as a store of value was different.

“I’m not talking about a new payments system,” he said

“It’s like bars of gold in a vault that never move, and it’s a sort of hedge of sorts against the whole world going falling apart.”

Bitcoin continues to trade around $8000 this week as continued downward pressure from regulators, Google and Mt. Gox sell-offs unsettle markets.

Thiel, less concerned with short-term price performance, appeared to suggest “longing” Bitcoin rather than shorting it was now key. Despite this, he gave a probability of up to 80 percent the world’s first cryptocurrency would ultimately become worthless.

“I would be long bitcoin, and neutral to skeptical of just about everything else at this point with a few possible exceptions,” he continued. “There will be one online equivalent to gold, and the one you’d bet on would be the biggest.”

Nonetheless, the now-infamous Bitcoin bull remains on the positive side of cryptoassets, not discounting the possibility that Ethereum or a future alternative could usurp Bitcoin’s number one status.