The high-tech industry continues to make active inroads into the blockchain industry, proposing and building out new solutions that make Web3’s products better and more usable by mainstream folks as well as sophisticated industry participants.
1. Block CEO Jack Dorsey – Bitcoin Bull
Back in 2021 at “The B-Word” conference by Crypto Council for Innovation, on a panel alongside Cathie Wood and Elon Musk, Dorsey said,
“It’s deeply principled, it’s weird as hell [and] it’s always evolving. It just reminded me of the Internet as a kid.”
You might say the Twitter, Block, and Bluesky social founder is a fan of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. The Silicon Valley whiz kid started Block (formerly Square Payments) soon after founding Twitter.
Moreover, his payments processing company bought CashApp and began offering users easy, 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 Block had completed the development of its proprietary Bitcoin mining chip. It is an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) designed at the hardware level in nanometers to be optimized for nothing other than mining Bitcoin:
“Our mining chip will utilize the most advanced semiconductor process currently available and will deliver the performance required for mining operators of all types to survive and thrive in the fifth mining epoch (the period following the recent 4th halving of the block subsidy) and beyond.”
Furthermore, in Block’s Q1 earnings report to investors, a note from Dorsey announced that moving forward, the Oakland, California-based Web3 company will invest 10% of the profits from all Bitcoin-related operations into buying Bitcoin each month.
“Historically and moving forward, our investment in bitcoin transcends technology; it is an investment in a future where economic empowerment is the norm. This commitment drives our business into new territories, unlocking novel opportunities for our customers, and securing enduring value for you, our shareholders.”
“What really drove my thinking and drives my passion behind it is, if the Internet has a chance to get a native currency, what would that be? To me, it’s bitcoin because of those principles, because of its resilience,” Dorsey says.
2. PayPal Founder Peter Thiel – Cautious Bull
PayPal founder and Silicon Valley’s winningest investor, Peter Thiel, is a Web3 don. His 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.
Bitcoin price rallied to a floor above $60K per coin in February after spot Bitcoin ETF issuers in the U.S. got a 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 that you should put all your money into bitcoin at $60,000 a bitcoin right now. But surely the fact that it is at $60,000 is an extremely hopeful sign. It’s the canary in the coal mine. It’s the most honest market we have in the country.”
“I feel like I’ve been underinvested in it,” Thiel said at a time every Bitcoin investor felt that way. In the debate over whether investors are still early or too late to Bitcoin, he said, “I think the answers are still to go long… maybe it still is enough of a secret.”
Since 2021, Thiel’s Founder’s Fund has exhibited excellent timing of massive entries and exits onto and off of the Bitcoin blockchain. The firm revealed at the beginning of 2023 that it had exited a large position in Bitcoin— accumulated over eight years— just before the crypto market collapsed in 2022 after Bitcoin price crashed. There was a string of insolvencies at several major crypto exchanges and other companies that did not competently manage the new currency’s wild market swings over its four-year cycle.
Sources familiar to Reuters revealed in February this year that the fund is back in Bitcoin and Ethereum to the tune of some $200 million over 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 virtual reality headsets, even renaming his company Meta to focus its future on cyberspace.
In fact, Zuckerberg attempted to launch a cryptocurrency in 2019— Libra Coin— that would have added a blockchain-powered payments feature to Facebook, Inc’s apps. But it didn’t happen after key 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. He may even be a Bitcoin maximalist (someone who believes Bitcoin will be the largest global reserve currency in the future).
His goats are named Bitcoin and Max.
4. Microsoft’s Bill Gates – Impressed But Bearish
Microsoft founder Bill Gates said in 2022 that he’s not bullish on Bitcoin. “If you have less money than Elon, watch out,” he said. However, Gates is also known for his frugality and responsible, calculated risk-taking in the high-tech business.
“Elon has tons of money, and he’s very sophisticated, so I don’t worry that his Bitcoin will randomly go up or down,” Gates said right before markets crashed and burned in 2022. “I do think people get brought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare, so I’m not bullish on Bitcoin.”
However, he did once say that, “Bitcoin is a technological tour de force,” so he respects the innovative way Bitcoin put different Internet techniques together to create digital scarcity in a realm where making copies of digital items is almost free.
5. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai – Blockchain Supporter
“Any time there is 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 the best we can.”
“We are definitely looking at blockchain,” the Alphabet CEO said later that year. “It’s such an interesting powerful technology with broad applications.”
6. X Owner Elon Musk – Doge Father
Musk has been a big supporter of blockchain for years.
In 2021, he said, “It [cryptocurrency] bypasses currency controls… Paper money is going away. And crypto is a far better way to transfer values than a piece of paper, that’s for sure.”
Musk has long been a big fan of cryptocurrencies, especially Dogecoin. He has styled himself, “The Doge Father” and frequently tweets and speaks fondly of Dogecoin. His most recent mention coincided with a 14% spike in Dogecoin price and market capitalization.
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