Peter Thiel Labels Warren Buffet a ‘Sociopathic Grandpa from Omaha’ at Fiery Crypto Conference
Billionaire and co-founder of PayPal Peter Thiel targeted a “gerontocracy” he says is stalling the progress of cryptocurrency at a Miami, Florida event this week.
Thiel’s harshest criticism was saved for fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, whom he labeled a “sociopathic grandpa from Omaha.” In Thiel’s talk at the 2022 Bitcoin conference, he dubbed Buffet “enemy no. 1” of Bitcoin.
Also on Thiel’s hit list were other crypto critics like JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Dimon has said he does not consider crypto a real currency because they do not have “rules of law behind them, central banks, and tax authorities.” Fink, meanwhile, seems to have recently changed his tune on crypto, but previously referred to it as an “index of money laundering.”
Enemy number one though is the “the sociopathic grandpa from Omaha,” Thiel declared. Thiel threw up images of Buffett and others during his presentation, one referring to Buffett calling Bitcoin “rat poison.” Before targeting the men, Thiel also threw out $100 bills to the crowd as a showy slight against non-crypto currency.
The Geretocracy v the youth pic.twitter.com/qMJxVlNKSP
— Kyle @ BTC Miami (@kylewestaway) April 7, 2022
“This is what we have to fight for bitcoin to go 10x or 100x from here,” Thiel announced to the crowd, which included Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, a frequent crypto promoter.
Buffett at one point said he would never own crypto, but his company Berkshire put $1 billion into Nubank, a popular bank among crypto investors. Buffet and Dimon did not respond to Thiel’s accusations, but a spokesperson for Fink pointed to a letter in a statement from Fink touting digital currencies as a way to “enhance the settlement of international transactions” in light of the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Thiel, who kicked up controversy in Silicon Valley when he endorsed former President Donald Trump, framed crypto as a primarily political issue at the conference. The bias against Bitcoin and crypto from traditional investors currently, he said, and the decision not to “allocate” Bitcoin is a “deeply political choice.” Thiel also insisted that Bitcoin would never be controlled by the government the way “woke companies” can be.
“Even being in a stock, you’re effectively being in something that’s like a government-linked entity. Companies — woke companies — are sort of quasi-controlled by the government in a way that Bitcoin never will be,” he said.
Bitcoin, he argued, gives more control to the consumer, something that scares stock investors.
“The real competitor for Bitcoin is not Ethereum. That’s a payment system,” he said. “It’s not even gold. It’s something like the S&P 500. It’s the stock market as a whole. This is the way Bitcoin trades every day.”
