BREAKDOWN: Is Bitcoin a Chinese Financial Weapon? Peter Thiel Ignites a Geopolitical Debate

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CoinDesk

Business News, Daily News, News, Tech News

4.7 • 698 Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2021

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Recent comments from the PayPal founder, early Facebook investor and renegade libertarian political donor ignite a discussion about the battle around the world’s reserve currency. This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io and this week’s special product launch, Exodus. Peter Thiel is nothing if not good at igniting controversy. For the last 24 hours or so, Bitcoin Twitter (and really, FinTwit and TechTwit and Politics Twitter as well) have been hotly debating his assertion in recent remarks that bitcoin had become a “Chinese financial weapon.” In today’s episode, NLW breaks down: The debate around Thiel’s comments Why bitcoin is more likely a threat to Chinese aspirations around the digital yuan’s future status as a global currency than the U.S. dollar Why digital dollars like tether and USDC might make this whole debate moot from the get-go - Nexo.io lets you borrow against your crypto at 5.9% APR, earn up to 12% on your idle assets, and exchange instantly between 75+ market pairs with the tap of a button. Get started at nexo.io. - Exodus empowers people to control their wealth through a safe and reliable non-custodial crypto wallet, placing the ownership of digital assets back into the user’s hands. Your keys, your crypto. Download Exodus today and learn more at exodus.com. - Image credit: John Lamparski/Getty Images Entertainment See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:43.9	Wondery, UK. That's audible.com slash Wondery UK.
0:49.8	My read is that Peter Thiel thinks that China recognizes themselves as locked in a series of
0:55.0	existential geopolitical battles with the U.S., much more than the U.S. sees the inverse.
1:00.4	This is because we are currently in the catbird seat, the leadership role.
1:04.5	We are the incumbent who doesn't realize they're being competed with until they've actually
1:08.6	been disrupted.
1:10.0	China is long anything that disrupts
1:12.5	dollar dominance. Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro,
1:21.5	Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. The breakdown is sponsored by
1:27.2	nexus.io and Exodus andO. and Exodus. And produced and
1:29.9	distributed by CoinDesk. What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, April 8th. And today we have a juicy one.
1:38.4	We're talking about a question brought up by Peter Thiel yesterday, is Bitcoin a Chinese financial weapon?
1:46.7	So some days, I'll be honest, it's a bit of a struggle figuring out what to dedicate a show
	...

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