Peter Theil’s Founders Fund Has Heavily Invested in Bitcoins
Bitcoin has remained as one of the best investments picks by several fund managers across the globe. In one such disclosure, The Wall Street Journal has reported that - Peter- Theil - one of the most noted venture-capitalist from the Silicon Valley has been an active investor in Bitcoin.
WSJ reports that Founder Fund - a venture-capital firm that has been co-founded by billionaire Peter Theil has invested millions of dollars in Bitcoin. WSJ writes: “Founders Fund, a venture-capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of the volatile cryptocurrency” sighting the people familiar with the matter.
The firm is said to have started investing in Bitcoin for the first time in the mid-2017 and it is being said that the bet has spread across several of the firm’s recent funds. As per reports, Founders Fund had pumped up investment worth $15 million USD to $20 million USD in Bitcoin. Having followed the meteoric rise in the price of Bitcoin during the second half of 2017, the firm told investors that its investment is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
However, it is not clear whether the firm has booked any profits when Bitcoin was at its peak before the latest downfall. But Bloomberg says that the firm has yet to return gains to its investors and also stated that the firm’s major purpose was to test initial waters in the cryptocurrency space.
In addition to investments in Bitcoins, the Founder Fund has more than $3 billion USD under management and has made lucrative bets in more than 100 companies that include big giants like Airbnb, Facebook, and Lyft.
The report by WSJ states that “The representatives have told firm backers that a cascade of cash into technology companies has stretched their valuations to historic highs, making stakes in startups as dangerous a risk as ever. Bitcoin, on the other hand, could multiply several times over in the coming years.”
In addition to its direct investment in Bitcoin and other companies, the Founders Fund is also said to have invested in different hedge funds like Polychain Capital and MetaStable Capital.
Soon after the news was out, the price of Bitcoin jumped by more than 13% and is currently trading at $15,248.30 as per our data. The market cap of the cryptocurrency which slipped considerably in now again back over $250 billion. This news comes as a big breather to Bitcoin enthusiasts especially when the markets have been undergoing a huge selling pressure in the past two weeks.
In an October 2017 conference, Peter Their also compared Bitcoin to Gold. WSJ quoted him saying “If bitcoin ends up being the cyber equivalent of gold, it has a great potential left.”