Peter Thiel has a lot of money to spend, and he’s been using that wealth, along with influence, to help create new companies and elect Donald Trump as the President of the United States.
Now we have learned that his San Francisco-based venture capital firm Founders Fund has invested millions of dollars into Bitcoin.
Citing sources “familiar with the matter,” The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says the Fund has put anywhere between $15 and $20 million into Bitcoin, which has grown into hundreds of millions in the past year.
The WSJ report, however, is unclear whether the Fund had sold any of its holdings to date.
Thiel is famous as one of PayPal’s cofounders and an early investor in Facebook. Lately though, he is known for its role on President Trump’s technology advisory council.
He says he’s skeptical of most cryptocurrencies, but thinks that people are a little bit underestimating bitcoin, because it is like a reserve form of money.
“If bitcoin ends up being the cyber equivalent of gold, it has great potential,” he said.
The market loves this sort of moves
The market obviously loves when high-net-worth individuals like Peter Thiel invest in something new. And so, following the WSJ report on the Founder Fund’s investment, the price of Bitcoin has gone up, growing almost 14 percent to a peak of $15,444 a coin. Shortly afterwards though, BTC fell to around $15,000.
But as we know, volatility is the name of this game, and that’s how most people holding crypto assets are making their money. They know that after every rise there will be a bump, only to see their beloved digital currencies yet again appreciate in value.
Speaking of appreciation in value, another thing that helped the world’s first cryptocurrency grow was the introduction of Bitcoin futures on two major American exchanges, allowing investors to both bet on and against crypto. And that’s the way they like it the most.