PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel: Bitcoin Has ‘Great Potential Left’

[StockBet.com]

PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel: Bitcoin Has ‘Great Potential Left’
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/paypal-co-founder-peter-thiel-bitcoin-great-potential-left/

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel believes bitcoin critics are “underestimating” the cryptocurrency’s “great potential” to become the “cyber equivalent of gold”.

“If bitcoin ends up being the cyber equivalent of gold it has a great potential left,” he said, “Bitcoin is mineable like gold, it’s hard to mine, it’s actually harder to mine than gold. And so in that sense it’s more constrained,” he added.

Store of value will likely be Bitcoin's main application for a few more years minimally.

[worldofcoins]

Peter Thiel has got it wrong on some part.  It is easier to mine then gold to be honest and gold you have to locate, also is strongly volatile compared to gold.  Everything in the stock market can be called a bubble as well, and Bitcoin well compared to gold has way more then enough potential at that.

[Filmmmakerr]

Sounds about right, I'd say its def harder than mining gold which anyone in the world can do with the right devices, mining bitcoin takes some sort of knowledge plus now a days its not even profitable unless you're a mining farm.

[spadormie]

This is the reason why every people should be aware on what's happening in cryptocurrency and should have a literacy in bitcoins and with other crypto. Bitcoin indeed is a great cryptocurrency and has a great potential in every way. I think paypal is now accepting bitcoin payment? Last September to early October, I heard that news.

[erickkyut]

Wow. This is great news! The co-founder of PayPal really knows the value of cryptocurrency. Is it a sign that PayPal will soon accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment? I hope so. That would be another milestone for Bitcoin if a huge company such as PayPal will appreciate its value. Bitcoin is really becoming more popular and well known.

[4p0l4k4y]

I think gold is harder to mine. It requires a lot of manpower and machinery to produce it whike bitcoin only requires a miner and 1 operator. Let me know if i'm wrong.

[Za1n]

I find it interesting that the most stubborn critics are the ones who already made their fortunes on the old economic model so they really have no reason now jump on the bandwagon of something they probably have a hard time even understanding. For example, Warren Buffet is in the news again saying he still believes Bitcoin is a bubble that is going to end badly, similar to someone else we know.

Well there is no doubting his investment skills for much of the last century, but now both technology and the economy are rapidly changing. He is getting up there in years, so he doesn't have anything to worry about, as the fundamentals of the "old" economy isn't going to change overnight, but young investors taking advice from people like him need to consider the current environment we live in. While you probably won't go broke investing in companies like Coca-cola, Procter and Gamble, and other Buffet favorites, you aren't going to make huge returns either. One thing he did say and was (is) probably right about, is only invest in things you know. Well I am not too sure how much he knows about Bitcoin or Crypto's in general, so he is probably right to avoid investing in it and he really has no place advising others either for or against it.

[aesma]

Sounds about right, I'd say its def harder than mining gold which anyone in the world can do with the right devices, mining bitcoin takes some sort of knowledge plus now a days its not even profitable unless you're a mining farm.

To mine gold you must first find a place where there is gold. With crypto, you can mine anywhere.

Usually, to mine gold legally, you also need to acquire mining rights, which is pretty much impossible for "anyone in the world", only an established, large enough mining company can even get the opportunity to do so. Then you need millions of dollars of investment, machines, manpower, chemicals, environmental studies, etc.

What the Paypal guy is saying is only true when talking about large operations. A large BTC mining operation is expensive just like a gold mine, but it might also not yield as much money compared to the investment.

As an example a mining company has a plan to open a gold mine in French Guyana, the investment is 800 millions euros, and the gold they expect to extract is 3 billions euros.

So a good margin.

According to some analysts, large BTC miners and ASIC producers in China have invested gigantic amounts of money with little hope of recouping the investments.

[jseverson]

Wow. This is great news! The co-founder of PayPal really knows the value of cryptocurrency. Is it a sign that PayPal will soon accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment? I hope so. That would be another milestone for Bitcoin if a huge company such as PayPal will appreciate its value. Bitcoin is really becoming more popular and well known.

It is great that they see the potential in Bitcoin. The way he phrased it makes me think they're not really considering it as a mode of payment at the moment though. He explicitly praised it as a digital equivalent of gold, even bringing up the parallels in mining. He also went as far as to say that it's a store of value and you don't need to spend it.

He's right to some degree as well. Bitcoin is notorious for its users going the HODL route. It's a digital currency, but that is currently not its main utility. Either way, based from this, I don't think Amazon will accept Bitcoin anytime soon.

[Pearls Before Swine]

I was just watching The Social Network today, and someone played him.  He's a VC guy,
and I don't doubt he's got some wisdom, but I didn't know about him cofounding Paypal.

The gold-bitcoin comparison has gotten very stale, though, wouldn't you guys say?  Bitcoin
can actually be used as money.  Gold can't, and I don't care if the worst hyperinflation
happens, people will be killing for food and shelter, not gold (or bitcoin).

[Beerwizzard]

The general statement is right. Just imagine the bitcoin price when it will be as popular as PayPal, if at least some of the current problems would be solved then it will be a serious competitor to the othercurrencies (gona be the first popular currency that is not attachen to any country). I belive this will happen one day and approximately at that time you will be able to buy a house for 1 bitcoin.

To mine gold you must first find a place where there is gold. With crypto, you can mine anywhere.

Anywhere where you find cheap electricity etc.

[aesma]

The general statement is right. Just imagine the bitcoin price when it will be as popular as PayPal, if at least some of the current problems would be solved then it will be a serious competitor to the othercurrencies (gona be the first popular currency that is not attachen to any country). I belive this will happen one day and approximately at that time you will be able to buy a house for 1 bitcoin.

To mine gold you must first find a place where there is gold. With crypto, you can mine anywhere.

Anywhere where you find cheap electricity etc.

Sure. And that's the trick, it will become more and more difficult, as there is a finite amount of it. Gold is becoming more difficult to mine because you must dig deeper, you find it more diluted in the ground, etc., but the amount still available is large, and in fact at some point I expect companies will extract it from asteroids in space, which could lead to gold becoming less rare and crashing the price.

Not possible with BTC.

[pinkflower]

Store of value will likely be Bitcoin's main application for a few more years minimally.

For now, yeah. But once the Lightning Network is fully developed and running, we will witness BTC's use advancement from an inconvenient payment system, to a global and scalable network that hopefully could compete with Visa and Mastercard.

[CryptoScorpio]

Nice article but my question is why paypal dont accept bitcoin and bitcoin transactions. Is it a hint that paypal is going to accept bitcoin?

[tweetbit]

Nice article but my question is why paypal dont accept bitcoin and bitcoin transactions. Is it a hint that paypal is going to accept bitcoin?

Maybe Yes or maybe Not, after all co-founder means there must be more of them in that level. One heads or his view will not reflect to other founders. So even he like it to make that possible, I don’t and we don’t have the knowledge what is the position of others to cryptocurrency and incorporating it in PayPal may affect them. But we will see after all this many still think were on the right track.

[13abyknight]

When you realise having a chargeback system got you sidelined by a irreversible digital currency, got to give props to it. At least he did the right thing by nodding that Bitcoin is the future with immense potential in it, unlike the stupid ones calling it a fraud, bubble and what not. It gives me a sense of relief that at least now, the big players are realising the real potential and influence of Bitcoin.

[traderethereum]

Nice article but my question is why paypal dont accept bitcoin and bitcoin transactions. Is it a hint that paypal is going to accept bitcoin?

maybe paypal needed to studied first before they accept bitcoin and i think its natural because they operate their business for a long time ago and now with the new technologies come out, they will thinking to use and integrate with their system. i think if its going to be a good new system for paypal, soon they will accepting bitcoin and they will use bitcoin too so their customer will have more choices to send the money or withdraw the money.