Billionaire Peter Thiel, a renowned venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal Holdings and Palantir Technologies, got into Bitcoin BTC/USD investments long before its meteoric bull runs captured the world's attention.
However, the long-held conviction appeared to fade, as apparent from one of his interviews last year.
What happened: During an interview in Jun. 2023, Thiel voiced pessimism about Bitcoin's price rise potential.
"I'm not sure it's going to go up that dramatically from here. We got the ETF edition, and I don't know who else buys it," the venture capitalist said.
Thiel added that the apex cryptocurrency has grown increasingly connected with traditional finance as a result of the launch of spot exchange-traded funds, a deviation from its original cypherpunk, crypto-anarchist narrative.
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When Thiel made these remarks, Bitcoin traded at $60,320.14 per unit. So, if you set aside his skepticism and invested $1,000 in the asset, you'd have received 0.0165 BTC.
Fast forward to January, and the apex cryptocurrency has made significant strides, exchanging hands at $104,988.38 as of this writing.
So if you'd have resisted selling, the original investment would have turned $1740.52, netting a return of 74% in just about seven months.
Why It Matters: Thiel's venture capital firm, Founders Fund, has had a significant history with Bitcoin, first buying the apex digital asset back in 2014.
The fund made a profit of $1.8 billion on its Bitcoin investments by selling just before the 2022 market collapse.
It returned to the market between late summer and early fall of 2023, purchasing $100 million worth of Bitcoin.
Interestingly, in the very same interview where Thiel expressed doubts about Bitcoin, he regretted not purchasing more of the digital currency.
Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin was exchanging hands at $104,988.38, up 2.73% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Year-to-date, the leading cryptocurrency has gained 12.41%.
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Photo By Mark Reinstein On Shutterstock
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