Peter Thiel, the notable entrepreneur and Silicon Valley venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, has expressed his dissatisfaction with the current volume of bitcoin payments, saying a payment system to surround its technological base is "badly lacking".
Thiel made the comments while participating in a Reddit AMA (ask-me-anything) earlier today, where several questioners asked his opinion on bitcoin and other digital currencies.
He responded:
"PayPal built a payment system but failed in its goal in creating a 'new world currency' (our slogan from back in 2000). Bitcoin seems to have created a new currency (at least on the level of speculation), but the payment system is badly lacking."
"I will become more bullish on Bitcoin when I see the payment volume of Bitcoin really increase."
Thiel did not respond to follow-up questions on the matter.
Person of interest
Given his anti-establishment political stance and past involvement with PayPal and hardcore libertarian projects like The Seasteading Institute, German-born Thiel has long been watched by the bitcoin community. As he noted himself, a key goal behind the original PayPal concept was to create an internet-based global currency.
His Founders Fund was also an early investor in BitPay, to the tune of $2m.
His views on bitcoin otherwise, however, have been lukewarm. While he appears to believe in its underlying principles, in 2013 he said bitcoin had a "20% chance of success".
Just a couple of months later he appeared more optimistic, telling a conference that bitcoin and encrypted money systems had the potential to change the world.
He said at the time:
He also noted that many of the arguments against bitcoin, including that its value was fake or the result of a bubble, also applied to the world's fiat currencies including the US dollar.
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