Gold Bug Peter Schiff Says He Wishes He'd Bought Bitcoin in 2010

One of bitcoin's (BTC) staunchest critics said he wished he'd bought some regardless of his belief in its long-term thesis.

Peter Schiff, a prominent stockbroker and gold investor, recently said he'd looked at bitcoin back in 2010 – when it was valued around a few dollars – but didn’t see the investment value at the time. The largest cryptocurrency is currently trading around $73,000.

Schiff had predicted bitcoin’s decline in a 2014 interview with CoinDesk and likened it to “tulip mania 2.0” in a 2013 CNBC interview. He hasn't changed his stance since, but wouldn’t have shied away from investing given the potential for profit.

“Do I wish I had made the decision to have thrown $10,000, $50,000, $100,000 into it?” Schiff said on an Impact Theory podcast on Wednesday in a debate with crypto investor Raoul Pal, discussing if bitcoin was going to $1 million or zero. “Sure. I may be worth hundreds of millions assuming I didn’t sell. But again, I don’t know what I would have done had I made that decision.”

Bitcoin has surged over 200% in the past year on multiple catalysts, such as growth in underlying technology and demand from spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offered in the U.S. Gold has risen 13% over the past year, data shows, with an estimated market capitalization of $14 trillion.

“I would have bought it just betting on other people being dumb enough to buy it and pay a higher price,” he said, likening a successful bitcoin investment to a gamble rather than a “genius” move.