PayPal founder warns of “bumpy ride” and questions Bitcoin’s value proposition

In a surprise interview, billionaire, long-time Bitcoin (BTC) supporter and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel questioned the value of Bitcoin. Although he holds a “small position,” Thiel warns of a “volatile, bumpy ride” in the future and does not expect “dramatic” price increases.

The interview was conducted for CNBC during the Aspen Ideas Festival and aired on June 28. In a two-minute clip, Peter Thiel begins to question whether Bitcoin is achieving his fundamental vision, which piqued his interest.

Thiel specifically mentioned the ideals of cypherpunk, crypto-anarchism, libertarianism, and “anti-central government” as core to Bitcoin’s value proposition. However, he immediately raised the question of whether BTC really works as it is intended.

“Is that really how it (BTC) works? Or has that thread somehow gotten lost? So when people at the FBI tell me they’d rather have criminals using Bitcoin instead of hundred-dollar bills, that suggests that maybe it’s not working quite as it should.”

– Peter Thiel, for CNBC

Peter Thiel predicts a “bumpy ride” for the Bitcoin price

When successful investor and billionaire Peter Thiel spoke about his investment position on Bitcoin, he showed a neutral attitude.

Interestingly, he confirmed that he still holds a small position in BTC and has not bought as much as he wanted in the past. Still, Thiel doubts that the price can rise much from this point and warned of a “volatile, bumpy ride.”

“I’m not sure it (BTC) will go up that dramatically from here. We got the ETF addition and I don’t know who else is going to buy it quickly from here. I still have a small position, it can probably go up a bit more, but it’s going to be a volatile, bumpy ride.”

– Peter Thiel, for CNBC

The PayPal founder has increasingly questioned Bitcoin’s core values, which has a negative impact on its current perception.

“My reason (for the prediction) is twofold. One is this kind of ideological, decentralized future of computing that I really believe in. I really believe it would be better, and it (Bitcoin) seemed like the perfect vehicle for that for so long, but I’m much less convinced of that now.”

– Peter Thiel, for CNBC

Finally, Thiel expressed his fear that Bitcoin may have been co-opted by traditional financial forces.

This recent interview has sparked controversy in the Bitcoin community, especially on X (formerly Twitter). In particular, the Bitcoin-only reporting account Pledger has denounced a “strange attempt by clickbait Bitcoin Twitter accounts to misrepresent Peter Thiel’s CNBC interview.”

At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $60,000, a key support level that is at a four-month low. Moreover, Bitcoin miners have capitulated with both an accelerated pace of selling and a drastic drop in the network’s hashrate, threatening the security of the cryptocurrency, as Finbold reports.

Conversely, technical analysts and Bitcoin traders continue to predict that there will be a massive bull run in BTC in the coming months.

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