Is Bitcoin a Chinese Financial Weapon? Peter Thiel Ignites a Geopolitical Debate

Recent comments from the PayPal founder, early Facebook investor and renegade libertarian political donor ignite a discussion about the battle around the world’s reserve currency.

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Recent comments from the PayPal founder, early Facebook investor and renegade libertarian political donor ignite a discussion about the battle around the world’s reserve currency.

This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io and this week’s special product launch, Exodus.

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Peter Thiel is nothing if not good at igniting controversy. For the last 24 hours or so, Bitcoin Twitter (and really, FinTwit and TechTwit and Politics Twitter as well) have been hotly debating his assertion in recent remarks that bitcoin had become a “Chinese financial weapon.”

In today’s episode, NLW breaks down:

The debate around Thiel’s comments
Why bitcoin is more likely a threat to Chinese aspirations around the digital yuan’s future status as a global currency than the U.S. dollar
Why digital dollars like tether and USDC might make this whole debate moot from the get-go

Image credit: John Lamparski/Getty Images Entertainment

HOST

Nathaniel Whittemore

NLW is an independent strategy and communications consultant for leading crypto companies as well as host of The Breakdown – the fastest-growing podcast in crypto. Whittemore has been a VC with Learn Capital, was on the founding team of Change.org, and founded a program design center at his alma mater Northwestern University that helped inspire the largest donation in the school’s history.