PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel Refers to Bitcoin As a Chinese Financial Weapon Against the U.S.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel recently urged the U.S. government to bring strong regulatory rules on the use of cryptocurrencies while referring to Bitcoin (BTC) as a Chinese financial weapon.

Speaking at the virtual event hosted by the Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel said: “Even though I'm a pro-crypto, pro-Bitcoin maximalist person, I do wonder whether if at this point Bitcoin should also be thought of in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.”

Note that Thiel himself has himself invested in different cryptocurrencies in the past and has also been an investors in other crypto-related firms as well. Sharing his views further on Bitcoin, Thiel said: “It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar." He added: “[If] China’s long Bitcoin, perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works.”

On the other hand, it also a fact that China has the largest concentration of Bitcoin miners currently and its caters to 75% of BTC hash rate.

Paypal is one of the biggest financial giants and online payments company that has recent entered the Bitcoin game. Few months back in November 2020, PayPal started its crypto trading facility for the U.S. customers and it already been a big hit with massive response from its users.

Recently, the company also allowed merchants to accept Bitcoin payments on its platform. Although the facility is only available in the U.S, PayPal is planning to launch it worldwide very soon ahead this year.

Guess who’s joined Thiel in the demand of having strong crypto regulations? The old-time Bitcoin critic and Jamie Dimon is back again with his strong comments. In his recently released letter to shareholders, Dimon wrote: “There are serious emerging issues that need to be dealt with—and rather quickly: the growth of shadow banking, the legal and regulatory status of cryptocurrencies, the proper and improper use of financial data, the tremendous risk that cybersecurity poses to the system, the proper and ethical use of AI, the effective regulation of payment systems”.

At this point, cryptocurrency regulations are at the forefront of every financial regulator worldwide. Regulations will only bring more legitimacy to the crypto space while allowing big players to participate.