Peter Schiff Admits That He Wishes He Had Bought Bitcoin

Diehard gold bug and notorious crypto critic Peter Schiff has finally admitted that he regrets not buying Bitcoin (BTC).

“Of course – I’m not an idiot,” said Schiff during an interview published on Tuesday, when asked if he’d have bought the digital currency sooner if he could go back in time.

Peter Schiff Regrets Fading Bitcoin

The commentator said that he’d considered investing up to $50,000 into Bitcoin back in 2010, when the asset still traded for well under one dollar. He ultimately refused to buy, calling the idea “ridiculous.”

“Yeah, clearly I wish I’d have bought it,” Schiff said in a conversation with Tom Bilyeu and Raoul Pal.

“But even if I would have bought it, I wouldn’t have told other people to buy it,” he continued. “I would have had to keep quiet about it because I never believed in it.”

Schiff has referred to Bitcoin as “fools gold” for years, repeatedly insisting that the asset isn’t comparable to precious metals as a store of value or inflation hedge. His thesis remains the same: Bitcoin has no underlying use case, making its value entirely speculative, thus creating the risk that its price will collapse to zero.

“I didn’t see this kind of bubble potential,” he said. “I thought yeah, maybe it could go up, but I just didn’t want to deal with it.”

ETF Buyers Are Just Gamblers

Since the start of the year, Bitcoin’s price has rallied to new all-time highs following the debut of several U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs, which are widely agreed to have been the most successful ETF launch in history.

Schiff believes that investors in such ETF – which have absorbed over $11.8 billion since launch – are merely gambling. “The ETFs have simply provided yet another way to gamble on Bitcoin,” he asserted.

Raoul Pal, CEO of Real Vision and prominent crypto bull, asked Schiff if his opinion might have changed on crypto had he invested early, made money on it, and engaged more with the community. Schiff admitted that “it’s possible.”

“It’s easy for me to see the bubble when I’m not inside it,” he said. “So maybe if I was in the bubble with you guys, maybe if I was a crypto billionaire, that would distort my perception.”