In a somewhat surprising turn of events, the full-time bitcoin critique Peter Schiff acknowledged that BTC’s price could have another impressive leg up by reaching $100,000.
In a recent interview with Coin Stories, the ‘gold bug’ also touched upon his regrets about the cryptocurrency but ultimately remained as bearish as he ever was.
The Debate: Bitcoin Vs. Gold
Peter Schiff is known for many things – from calling the 2008 financial crisis to supporting gold on every occasion. But he’s famous within the cryptocurrency community as the ultimate basher, as he takes every opportunity to take a stab at BTC and the altcoins.
While speaking to Natalie Brunell from Coin Stories, the gold bug didn’t shy away from repeating his negative stance on bitcoin. For example, he refuted the belief that the asset will ever be employed as a means of payment by the mass population, which is bitcoin’s ultimate goal, according to the whitepaper.
After referring to AMC Entertainment’s recent decision to accept BTC as a payment tool, Schiff argued that even bitcoin proponents, like Anthony Pompliano, don’t believe anyone would ever want to spend their holdings for tickets or popcorn.
Additionally, the economist said no landlord will decide to accept BTC for rent, as its price goes up and down with massive proportions. As such, he believes bitcoin’s only merit is for people to speculate on it.
Instead, gold could have multiple purposes – from being used for medals on Olympic games to electronics and even in space. Its historical usage as a means of payment is also another benefit that differentiates it from bitcoin, Schiff argued.
Schiff Regrets Not Buying BTC as it Could Go to $100K or $1M
Despite all the negative stuff Schiff had to say about bitcoin, and they were quite many, he couldn’t dispute the fact that the cryptocurrency has indeed been among the best performers in terms of USD price since its existence. In fact, it provided an ROI of 8,900,000% last decade and trumped the precious metal by a massive margin.
Keeping this in mind, the economist, somewhat reluctantly, had to admit that he should have bought some portions of the asset when he first heard about it in 2011. On a question about his financial regrets, Schiff said:
“Clearly, I wish I had bought bitcoin when I first heard about it – that was a keen mistake. Could have I put $100,000 in it – yeah, I could have. I mean, I put $100,000 in other things that turned out poorly.
I could have been one of the bitcoin billionaires now, as obviously I knew about it early on. If I could go back in time, that’s one of the things I would do.”
Furthermore, Schiff also spoke about BTC’s potential price increases. He admitted that it’s entirely possible that it could go as high as $100,000 or even $1,000,000 per coin. However, he made it clear that the expanding price tag doesn’t mean that bitcoin is less of a bubble.
In fact, he asserted that BTC could become such an enormous bubble that it would replace the term “Ponzi scheme.”