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Thiel said China would like to see two global reserve currencies, rather than the dollar being the default reserve currency. But China doesn’t want its renminbi to fill that role, and in the past has used the euro “in part” as a weapon against the dollar. That hasn’t worked, so now China is trying to elevate bitcoin, Thiel argued.

“[If] China’s long bitcoin, perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works,” he said.


Appearing alongside former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien at a virtual event held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel warned that Bitcoin may be a threat to the United States, indicating that his hawkish attitude toward China outweighs his crypto enthusiasm (Thiel is a major investor in virtual currency ventures and in cryptocurrencies themselves, Bloomberg notes).

Thiel explained that China isn't fond of the fact that the U.S. dollar is the world's major reserve currency because it gives the U.S. global economic "leverage," and he thinks Beijing may view Bitcoin as a tool that could chip away at the dollar's might. "I do wonder whether at this point, [if] Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.," he said, video from the event obtained by Bloomberg reveals. "It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar ... perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works."