Here’s what 6 Silicon Valley giants think about cryptocurrency

The high-tech industry continues to make active inroads into the blockchain industry, proposing and developing new solutions that make Web3 products better and more usable by ordinary people as well as sophisticated industry participants. .

1. Block CEO Jack Dorsey – Bitcoin Bull

In 2021 at the Crypto Council for Innovation’s “The B-Word” conference, on a panel alongside Cathie Wood and Elon Musk, Dorsey said:

“It’s a beginning deep down, it’s weird as hell (and) it’s always evolving. It just reminded me of the Internet as a kid.”

You could say that the social founder of Twitter, Block and Bluesky is a fan of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. The Silicon Valley boy genius started Block (formerly Square Payments) shortly after founding Twitter.

Additionally, their payment processing company bought CashApp and started offering users easy and hassle-free Bitcoin custody so they could buy BTC with a credit or debit card on their phone.

Just a few days ago, Twitter Dorsey announced that Block had completed development of its proprietary Bitcoin mining chip. This is an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) designed at the nanometer hardware level to be optimized for nothing but Bitcoin mining:

“Our mining chip will use the most advanced semiconductor process available today and deliver the performance needed for miners of all types to survive and thrive in the fifth era of mining (the period after the recent fourth half of the grant of block) and beyond.”

Also, in Block’s first-quarter earnings report to investors, a note from Dorsey announced that going forward, the Oakland, Calif.-based Web3 company will invest 10% of the profits of all Bitcoin related operations in buying Bitcoin every month.

“Historically and going forward, our investment in bitcoin transcends technology; it is an investment in a future where economic empowerment is the norm. This commitment propels our business into new territories, unlocks new opportunities for our customers and ensures lasting value for you, our shareholders.”

“What really drove my thinking and my passion behind it is, if the internet has an opportunity to get a native currency, what would it be? For me, it’s bitcoin because of those principles, because of its resilience.” says Dorsey.

2. PayPal founder Peter Thiel – Cautious Bull

PayPal founder and Silicon Valley’s most successful investor, Peter Thiel, is a Web3 donor. Its Founders Fund has held and sold massive whale-sized tranches of Bitcoin for years. His Thiel Foundation helped launch Ethereum in 2014 with a $100,000 grant to Ethereum inventor and founder Vitalik Buterin.

The price of Bitcoin rose to $60,000 per coin in February after local issuers of Bitcoin ETFs in the United States received the green light from the SEC in January. The last time BTC traded above $60,000, Thiel gave this cautiously bullish advice while speaking at an event in the Bitcoin Mecca of Miami, Florida:

“I don’t know if you should put all your money in bitcoin at $60,000 a bitcoin right now. But certainly the fact that it’s at $60,000 is a very hopeful sign. It’s the canary in the coal mine. It’s the most honest market that we have in the country”.

“I feel like I’ve been underinvested,” Thiel said at a time when all Bitcoin investors felt that way. Debating whether investors are still too early or too late for Bitcoin, he said: “I think the answers are still to be made… maybe it’s still secret enough.”

Since 2021, Thiel’s Founder’s Fund has shown excellent timing of massive inflows and outflows on and off the Bitcoin blockchain. The firm revealed in early 2023 that it had exited a large position in Bitcoin, built up over eight years, just before the crypto market collapsed in 2022 after the price of Bitcoin fell. There were a number of insolvencies at several major crypto exchanges and other companies that failed to competently handle the wild swings of the new coin market during its four-year cycle.

Sources familiar with Reuters revealed in February this year that the fund has returned to Bitcoin and Ethereum for about 200 million dollars in the past year.

3. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg – Bitcoin Maximalist

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has his hands pretty full with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. But that hasn’t stopped him from making forays into blockchain and VR headsets, even renaming his company Meta to focus its future on cyberspace.

In fact, Zuckerberg tried to launch a cryptocurrency in 2019, Libra Coin, which would have added a blockchain-based payments feature to Facebook, Inc.’s apps. But it didn’t happen after top supporters folded following pressure on Facebook from global regulatory agencies to halt the project.

Regardless, the Facebook CEO is a big fan of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. You may even be a Bitcoin maximalist (someone who believes that Bitcoin will be the largest global reserve currency in the future).

Their goats are named Bitcoin and Max.

4. Microsoft’s Bill Gates: Impressed but bearish

Microsoft founder Bill Gates said in 2022 that he was not optimistic about Bitcoin. “If you have less money than Elon, be careful,” he said. However, Gates is also known for his frugality and calculated and responsible risk-taking in the high-tech business.

“Elon has tons of money and is very sophisticated, so I’m not worried about his Bitcoin going up or down randomly,” Gates said just before the markets crashed and burned in 2022. “I think people he gets into these fads that he might not have that much money to spare, so I’m not bullish on Bitcoin.”

However, he once said that “Bitcoin is a technological tour de force,” so he respects the innovative way Bitcoin brought together different Internet techniques to create digital scarcity in an area where making copies of digital items is almost free

5. Sundar Pichai, Alphabet CEO, Blockchain Supporter

“Anytime there’s innovation, I find it exciting,” Pichai said in response to a question about the technology on an Alphabet earnings call in 2022. “I think it’s something we want to support as best we can.” .

“We’re definitely looking at blockchain,” Alphabet’s CEO said later that year. “It’s such an interesting and powerful technology with wide applications.”

6. X Owner Elon Musk – Father Dox

Musk has been a big proponent of blockchain for years.

In 2021, he said: “(cryptocurrency) bypasses currency controls… Paper money disappears. And crypto is a much better way to transfer value than a piece of paper, that’s for sure” .

Musk has long been a big fan of cryptocurrencies, especially Dogecoin. He has been called “The Doge Father” and often tweets and speaks fondly of Dogecoin. Its most recent mention coincided with a 14% increase in Dogecoin’s price and market cap.

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