Gold Advocate Peter Schiff Regrets Missing Early Bitcoin Investment Opportunity
Summary:
Gold advocate Peter Schiff, who publicly criticized Bitcoin in the past, now expresses regret for not investing in it back in 2010. Despite having called Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme, Schiff admitted he wishes he'd bought in when the cryptocurrency was around $1. During a recent debate, Schiff suggested he doesn't know what Bitcoin's future holds—whether it will plummet to $0 or skyrocket to $1 million. Schiff has, from time to time, conceded that Bitcoin has done far more than he predicted, including intruding on gold’s market share following the launch of Bitcoin ETFs in the US.
Renowned Gold enthusiast and frequent Bitcoin detractor, Peter Schiff, conceded that he wishes he had invested in Bitcoin (BTC) when a coworker made him aware of the crypto asset back in 2010. During a March 13 debate with the CEO and co-founder of Real Vision, Raoul Pal, on Impact Theory, Schiff suggested that he had missed Bitcoin's initial surge. He commented that he certainly regrets not setting aside thousands of dollars for Bitcoin investments, admitting that doing so might have made him exceptionally wealthy today, assuming he hadn't sold yet—the specifics of which, he remains unsure. The discussion between Pal and Schiff hinged on whether Bitcoin's value is headed towards zero or escalates to a million dollars.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance on Nov. 29, Schiff labeled Bitcoin as a baseless Ponzi scheme, predicting its value through the assumption of selling it at a higher price. However, in a recent revelation, he wished he had seriously contemplated buying Bitcoin when the price was merely a dollar per coin around 2010. Despite his regret, he asserted that such an investment idea was "ridiculous". Yet, even if Schiff had invested in Bitcoin, he stated he would have stayed silent on the matter, having remained skeptical about Bitcoin’s underlying principles all along. He humorously opined that if his Bitcoin investments turned out to be profitable, it could make him feel more like a "sage" than a "bettor", and he might have ended up sharing the same misconceptions as Bitcoin patrons, who he later referred to as “avaricious” and “imprudent.”
Schiff's past efforts have been primarily focused on discouraging his followers from investing in Bitcoin, repeatedly calling it a "fools" venture. However, occasionally, he admits to Bitcoin being more robust than he initially perceived it would be. Interestingly, Bitcoin is often termed as "digital gold", and some market experts suggest Bitcoin has begun infringing on gold’s massive $14.6 trillion market capitalization following the initiation of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States at the beginning of 2024. Schiff, despite his skepticism, acknowledges that gold is losing some grip on the market to the spot Bitcoin ETFs, but he also raises concerns about investors facing challenges in terms of liquidating their holdings whenever Bitcoin undergoes a significant downfall.
Gold commenced 2010 with a price tag of $1130 (per ounce), surging 91.8% to $2,168 since. Yet, it was drastically outflanked by several index funds, such as State Street’s Standard & Poors 500 ETF (SPY), which rose by 350% over the same period. Bitcoin, valued at $1.4 trillion, is currently the eighth largest asset, lagging only behind gold, a few U.S. tech equity stocks and Saudi Aramco, as per Companies Market Cap.
Published At
3/14/2024 8:27:18 AM
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