In his keynote speech at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami Thursday, Thiel blamed the finance titans for the digital currency’s failure to reach US$100,000, a benchmark popular among the asset’s die-hard supporters.
“What is it going to take for this to happen?” he asked, before pinning blame on Buffett, 91, whom he called a “sociopathic grandpa,” as well as Dimon, the 66-year-old chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Fink, 69, who runs BlackRock Inc. All three have said they’re skeptical of Bitcoin or digital currencies in general.
A spokesman for BlackRock said the company declined to comment on Thiel’s remarks. But he pointed to Fink’s letter to shareholders last month in which the CEO said a thoughtfully designed digital-payment system “can enhance the settlement of international transactions while reducing the risk of money laundering and corruption.” Digital currencies can also help bring down costs of cross-border payments, Fink wrote.
JPMorgan declined to comment, and a representative of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Gerontocracy. That’s a Wikipedia deep cut right there.