Peter Schiff: Bitcoin Is Not Money But Yes, It Can Rise

Peter Schiff is a popular economist, financial broker, and a recognized author. He’s also a well-known nocoiner who has bashed Bitcoin for quite some time now. In one of his latest tweets, however, he conceded, saying that the cryptocurrency can, indeed, rise in value, despite failing to serve its purpose as money.

Peter Schiff Concedes On Bitcoin

Peter Schiff is one of the most recognized nocoiners in the cryptocurrency field. For quite some time now, he has done everything he can to dismiss Bitcoin’s inherent benefits, claiming on multiple occasions that it can’t possibly serve its purpose as money or a store of value.

Most recently, Schiff said that Bitcoin’s price would never reach $100,000. Naturally, a price of $100,000 per bitcoin would mean a market capitalization upwards of $1.8 trillion, which, at the time of this writing, seems a lot. But, then again, a market cap of $180 billion also seemed a lot a few years back.

In a new tweet, Schiff admitted that he never said that the price of Bitcoin couldn’t increase. In fact, he even said that he concedes and that anyone who bought BTC 10 years ago and sells it now will make a lot of money.

I concede that anyone who bought #Bitcoin 10 years ago and sells it today will make a lot of money. But I never said the price of Bitcoin could not rise. I only said that Bitcoin would never succeed as money. Nothing that has happened over the past 10 years has proven me wrong!

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) February 17, 2020

Yet, he keeps his main stance and continues to believe that Bitcoin “would never succeed as money.”

Is Peter Schiff Right About Bitcoin?

Well, for once, it’s undeniably true that if people continue to measure Bitcoin for its USD value, then the cryptocurrency still has a long way to go until it becomes a medium of exchange.

Bitcoin was envisioned as a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system,” meaning that its main designation was to serve as scarce, immutable, and censorship-resistance internet money. So far, Bitcoin is mainly used for speculation. People aren’t buying it to spend it but to make more fiat out of it.

On the other hand, however, this brings another exciting quality of Bitcoin. Namely, this is its ability to serve as a store of value. In its relatively brief history, Bitcoin’s price has increased astronomically. This has caused a lot of people, including the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, to consider it as a store of value, similar to gold.

… we haven’t seen widespread adoption. Bitcoin is a good example. Really, almost no one uses Bitcoin for payments. They use it more as an alternative to gold, really. It’s a store of value, it’s a speculative store of value, like gold. – Said Powell.