Peter Thiel, billionaire entrepreneur and co‑founder of PayPal and the software company Palantir, has named Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett as bitcoin’s “number one enemy.”
Thiel made the remarks about Buffett and others on a “list of enemies” during the Bitcoin 2022 conference held in Miami. In his keynote, Thiel said the person expressing the most direct negativity toward cryptocurrency is the American tycoon and investment guru Warren Buffett.
According to the PayPal co‑founder, it is time to call out those working to block bitcoin adoption, putting the “sociopathic grandfather from Omaha” — a reference to Buffett — at the top of that list.
In some of his earliest public comments about bitcoin, Buffett described it as “rat poison” and said he would never own the cryptocurrency.
“Deeply political” choices
Beyond Buffett, Thiel singled out JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.
He argued that the reluctance of major funds and banks to invest in bitcoin stems not from a lack of understanding of blockchain technology but from institutional and political bias on Wall Street. He suggested that many money managers and institutional investors are ready to promote blockchain’s benefits — but when it comes to bitcoin itself, they label it worthless and risky.
“They have to allocate some of their money to bitcoin,” he said, adding that the crypto community must “push back” to make that happen.
Thiel described the failure to allocate to bitcoin as a decision that is “deeply political” rather than rooted in a genuine comprehension of cryptocurrency.
He also expressed confidence that bitcoin’s value can continue to grow exponentially, arguing that community pressure to correct misleading narratives is essential if bitcoin is to realize another “10x or 100x from here.”
At the time of the conference, bitcoin traded around $43,000 on Friday, down roughly 5% over the past week. The cryptocurrency had pulled back from recent highs near $48,000; in November 2021, bitcoin reached an all‑time high above $69,000.