Gold advocate Peter Schiff, a well-known critic of Bitcoin, has expressed regret for not buying the cryptocurrency back in 2010 when it was first introduced to him by a colleague. In an interview with Real Vision’s Raoul Pal on March 13, Schiff admitted that he missed the opportunity to invest in Bitcoin early on. He mentioned that he would have liked to invest $10,000, $50,000, or even $100,000 into it and potentially be worth hundreds of millions today. However, he also acknowledged that he’s uncertain about what he would have done if he had made that decision.
During the interview, Pal and Schiff debated whether Bitcoin is headed towards a value of $0 or $1 million. This is in contrast to a previous interview with Yahoo Finance in November 2020, where Schiff referred to Bitcoin as a “pure ponzi” without any underlying value. However, in his latest interview, Schiff revealed that he seriously considered buying Bitcoin when it was priced around $1 in 2010. Ultimately, he decided against it, deeming the potential investment as “ridiculous.”
Despite his regret, Schiff emphasized that he still does not believe in the fundamentals of Bitcoin and would have kept quiet about his investment if he had bought it. He viewed a successful Bitcoin investment as more of a stroke of luck rather than a result of sound decision-making. He criticized Bitcoin investors as being driven by greed and foolishness.
Schiff has long been attempting to dissuade his audience from investing in Bitcoin, consistently labeling it as a foolish investment. However, he has occasionally acknowledged that Bitcoin has not collapsed as he initially predicted. Bitcoin has often been compared to digital gold, and some analysts argue that it has been gaining ground on gold’s $14.6 trillion market cap since the introduction of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US in January.
While Schiff acknowledges that gold may be losing some market share to Bitcoin ETFs, he believes that investors may face difficulties in cashing out their funds if Bitcoin experiences a major decline. He pointed out that gold has increased by 91.8% since the beginning of 2010, with a current price of $2,168 per ounce. However, it has been outperformed by index funds like State Street’s Standard & Poor’s 500 ETF (SPY), which has seen a 350% increase during the same time frame.
Currently, Bitcoin is the eighth largest asset by value, with a market cap of $1.4 trillion, trailing behind gold, several US tech stocks, and Saudi Aramco, according to Companies Market Cap data.