Tim Draper on Bitcoin: “Why Would I Sell the Future for the Past?”

One of the most intriguing things about the cryptocurrency space is the diverse, eclectic, and often eccentric characters it attracts. Everyone from Wall Street brokers to cypherpunks and from industrialists to anarchists can be found staking their claim in the fledgling crypto economy and saying their piece. In a recent interview, venture capitalist Tim Draper was on fine form, producing a number of memorable quotes which encapsulate the bullish mood permeating the cryptoverse once more.

Also read: Kathleen Breitman: Tezos Will “Go Rogue” and Launch Soon

Hodling the Future in Place of the Past

“I think bitcoin is the future currency,” opined Tim Draper on Thursday. In a typically upbeat interview, the entrepreneur, whose net worth has been placed at $1 billion, had a lot of nice things to say about bitcoin. In the most quoted segment of his Bloomberg interview, Draper reasoned, ““People ask me, ‘Are you going to sell your bitcoin [for fiat]?’ and I say, ‘Why would I sell the future for the past?’” This augments previous remarks when Draper was quoted as saying: “I don’t know why anyone would want to go back to fiat when crypto is distributed, secure and global, while fiat is subject to the whims of political forces”.

While bitcoin’s status as a pure currency is a matter of some debate, it and the crypto assets it shares a space with are forming a new class of wealth storage and money transfer that offers a viable alternative to the status quo. Like most business moguls who are heavily invested in crypto – Michael Novogratz; the Winklevoss twins – Draper is very bullish about where bitcoin is going. The 59-year-old made his money at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the venture capital firm famed for its investment in billion-dollar startups.

Fortune Favors the Brave

More than 30 years since Draper founded his company, which oversees assets of $5 billion, he’s reinvented himself as a crypto entrepreneur willing to put his money where his mouth is. An entrant in Forbes’ recent Crypto Rich List, Draper made much of his crypto wealth through having the perspicacity to snap up the Silk Road bitcoins auctioned by U.S. Marshals in 2014. He was fortunate, of course, to have the capital and the accreditation required to acquire those 32,000 bitcoins, which now look like a snip at $18 million.

For all the success that foray brought him, Draper’s immersement in all things crypto hasn’t been without its controversies. A high profile backer of Tezos, he’s been forced on the defensive as delays have dragged on and the lawsuits have piled up. One of the biggest bones of contention with the Tezos affair is the extent to which bitcoin has since grown in value. This has benefited Tezos but has done nothing for the investors who parted with their BTC last year on the promise of XTZ tokens.

When questioned about bitcoin’s volatility on Bloomberg, Draper brushed aside suggestions that this was a turn-off for “regular people”. Instead, he chose to focus on the confidence he has in bitcoin, averring: “My bitcoin is more secure than my dollars in the banks…my bitcoin is very secure”. While some entrepreneurs, most notably Steve Wozniak, have conceded that the rough and tumble of the cryptocurrency markets is not for them, Tim Draper seems to be enjoying the ride, and has no intention of selling “the future for the past”.

Do you think Tim Draper is correct to call bitcoin the currency of the future? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Wikipedia.

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that enables near-instant, low-cost payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: transaction management and money issuance are carried out collectively by the network. Read all about it at wiki.Bitcoin.com.