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Here’s what 6 Silicon Valley giants think about cryptocurrency
The high-tech industry continues to actively make inroads into the blockchain industry, proposing and building new solutions that make Web3 products better and more usable by both mainstream people and sophisticated industry participants.
1. Block CEO Jack Dorsey – Bitcoin Bull
In 2021 at the Crypto Council for Innovation’s “The B-Word” conference, in a panel alongside Cathie Wood and Elon Musk, Dorsey said:
“It’s deeply principled, it’s weird as hell [and] it is always evolving. As a child it reminded me of the Internet.”
It could be said that the founder of the social networks Twitter, Block and Bluesky is a fan of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. The Silicon Valley wizard started Block (formerly Square Payments) soon after founding Twitter.
Additionally, its payment processing company purchased CashApp and began offering users simple, hassle-free Bitcoin custody so they could purchase BTC with a credit or debit card on their phone.
Just a few days ago, Twitter Dorsey announced that Block had completed development of its proprietary Bitcoin mining chip. This is an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed at the nanometer hardware level to be optimized for nothing other than Bitcoin mining:
“Our mining chip will use the most advanced semiconductor process currently available and will provide the performance needed for mining operators of all types to survive and thrive in the fifth mining era (the period following the recent fourth block subsidy halving) and beyond . “
Additionally, in Block’s first-quarter earnings report to investors, a note from Dorsey announced that, moving forward, the Oakland, Calif.-based Web3 company will invest 10% of profits from all Bitcoin-related trades are invested in purchasing Bitcoin every month.
“Historically and moving forward, our investment in bitcoin transcends technology; it’s an investment in a future where economic empowerment is the norm. This commitment pushes our business into new territory, unlocking new opportunities for our customers and ensuring lasting value for you, our shareholders.”
“What really drove my thinking and drives my passion is, if the Internet had the ability to have a native currency, what would it be? To me, it’s Bitcoin because of these principles, because of its resilience,” Dorsey says.
2. PayPal Founder Peter Thiel – Cautious Bull
PayPal founder and Silicon Valley’s most successful investor, Peter Thiel, is a supporter of Web3. Its Founders Fund has held and sold huge, whale-sized tranches of Bitcoin for years. His Thiel Foundation helped launch Ethereum in 2014 with a $100,000 grant to Ethereum inventor and founder Vitalik Buterin.
The price of Bitcoin rose to a level above $60,000 per coin in February, after spot issuers of Bitcoin ETFs in the US got the green light from the SEC in January. The last time BTC traded above $60,000, Thiel gave this Cautiously bullish advice while speaking at an event at the Bitcoin Mecca in Miami, Florida:
“I don’t know if you should invest all your money in bitcoin at $60,000 a bitcoin right now. But certainly the fact that it is at $60,000 is an extremely promising sign. It’s the canary in the coal mine. It is the most honest market we have in the country.”
“I feel like I underinvested,” Thiel said at a time when every Bitcoin investor felt that way. In the debate over whether investors are still early or too late for Bitcoin, he said: “I think the answers are still out there…maybe it’s still quite the secret.”
Since 2021, Thiel’s Founder’s Fund has shown excellent timing of massive entries and exits on and off the Bitcoin blockchain. The company revealed in early 2023 that he abandoned a large position in Bitcoin, built up over eight years, shortly before the cryptocurrency market collapsed in 2022 after the price of Bitcoin collapsed. There have been a series of defaults at several major cryptocurrency exchanges and other companies that failed to competently manage the new currency’s wild market swings over its four-year cycle.
Sources familiar to Reuters revealed in February of this year the fund returned to Bitcoin and Ethereum to the tune of approximately $200 million over the past year.
3. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook – Bitcoin maximalist
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is quite busy with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. But that hasn’t stopped him from making forays into blockchain and virtual reality headsets, even renaming his company Meta to focus his future on cyberspace.
In fact, Zuckerberg attempted to launch a cryptocurrency in 2019— Libra coin– which would have added a blockchain-based payment feature to Facebook, Inc.’s apps. But that didn’t happen after key backers caved in following pressure on Facebook from global regulatory agencies to stop the project.
Regardless, the Facebook CEO is a big fan of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. He may also be a Bitcoin maximalist (someone who believes that Bitcoin will be the largest global reserve currency in the future).
His goats are named Bitcoin and Max.
4. Microsoft’s Bill Gates: Impressed but bearish
Microsoft founder Bill Gates She said in 2022 which is not bullish on Bitcoin. “If you have less money than Elon, be careful,” he said. However, Gates is also known for his frugality and his responsible and calculated risk-taking in the high-tech sector.
“Elon has a lot of money and is very sophisticated, so I don’t worry about his Bitcoin going up or down randomly,” Gates said right before markets crashed and burned in 2022. “I think people are being led into these manias that may not have as much money to spend, so I’m not optimistic about Bitcoin.”
However, he did it once To say that “Bitcoin is a technological tour de force,” so he respects the innovative way in which Bitcoin has brought together different Internet techniques to create digital scarcity in a realm where making copies of digital objects is almost free.
5. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai – Blockchain Advocate
“Anytime there is innovation, I find it exciting,” Pichai said in response to a question about the technology during an Alphabet earnings call in 2022. “I think it’s something we want to support as best we can.”
“We are definitely looking at blockchain,” the Alphabet CEO said later that year. “It’s a powerful and interesting technology with broad applications.”
6. X Owner Elon Musk – Father Doge
Musk has been a big proponent of blockchain for years.
In 2021, He said“It [cryptocurrency] bypasses currency controls… Paper money is disappearing. And cryptocurrencies are a much better way to transfer value than a piece of paper, that’s for sure.”
Musk has long been a big fan of cryptocurrencies, particularly Dogecoin. He has called himself “The Father Doge” and often tweets and speaks fondly of Dogecoin. Its most recent mention coincides with a 14% spike in Dogecoin price and market capitalization.