Peter Thiel Calls Bitcoin 'Moderately Big Invention' Compared With The Internet: It Was 'Systematically Underestimated' For A Decade

Venture capitalist and businessman Peter Thiel weighed in on Bitcoin BTC/USD, while he discussed technological innovation in the recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast aired Friday.

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What Happened: “Bitcoin was a big invention. We can debate whether it was good or bad but it was a pretty `big deal and was systematically underestimated for at least… the first 10-11 years,” said Thiel in the podcast. He took the example of the cryptocurrency to make the case for artificial intelligence as the technology makes slow progress amid polarizing views.

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Bitcoin was traded and it went up smoothly for 10 to 11 years but it didn’t get repriced all at once, he said, adding that “we are in a world where nothing big ever happens and so we have no way of processing it when something pretty big happens.”

The Palantir and PayPal co-founder thinks the Internet was a very big innovation in 1999 and Bitcoin was moderately big.

AI passing the Turing test on the same scale as the internet is really big, he added. The Turing Test is a simple method of inquiry in artificial intelligence for determining whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being.

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Why It’s Important: Thiel may have termed Bitcoin as a “moderately big” innovation but this innovation, invented in 2008 and began to be used as a currency in 2009, is yet to gain large-scale adoption and mainstream acceptance.

The king crypto and its ilk confer several advantages such as decentralization, protection against inflation due to its controlled supply, lower transaction costs, and safety and security. The scandals involving cryptos and crypto-exposed companies, government regulation, susceptibility to internet fraud, and a lack of inherent value all act as impediments to widespread adoption.

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That said, cryptos are being traded as a speculative asset in a big way. Bitcoin was one of the best-performing financial assets in 2023 and outperformed the equity markets.

Thiel-founded Founders Fund, a venture capital firm, reportedly invested $200 million in cryptos, both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETH/USD from late summer to early fall in 2023.

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