I’m not a fan of Bitcoin, sowwyy, and I’ve also never understood the constant bashing that goes on within the crypto crowd. It’s always coin vs coin, Ethereum fans trolling Bitcoin maxis, the XRP army calling everything else a scam. It’s just noise. Investing is investing. Whether you’re into crypto, commodities, stocks, or stamps, the goal is the same, make money, ideally without going broke in the process.
That said, some of the loudest voices in this space aren’t even crypto people, they’re the anti-crypto crusaders. And few have been louder (or more relentless) than Peter Schiff. Gold’s loudest cheerleader and probably crypto’s longest-running hater, is back at it. He’s spent years slating Bitcoin on Twitter, calling it worthless, fragile, and basically one big Ponzi. And now he’s taking aim at something else, USD-pegged stablecoins.
Yet Schiff now admits he actually gets Bitcoin. Not that he likes it, but that he understands the argument for it – particularly the idea of it being “digital gold.” That’s… new. He’s still not buying it (literally or figuratively), but the fact he’s stopped calling it total nonsense is mildly surprising.
Stablecoins, though? He’s having none of it. Schiff reckons backing a digital coin with US dollars is laughable, because (in his view) the dollar itself is fundamentally broken. So what’s his grand alternative? A gold-backed token. Of course it is. He wants to launch one through his company, SchiffGold, and wrap it in all the modern bells and whistles, blockchain, real-time spending, redemption for physical metal. Basically, he wants to reinvent money, but shiny.
It sounds like a contradiction coming from someone who’s built his brand on anti-crypto rants, but it’s more of a pivot than a U-turn. Schiff doesn’t like digital currencies backed by government money. But digital gold? That he can live with. Because it’s not about the tech, it’s about the asset behind it.
And in fairness, it’s not a ridiculous idea. Most stablecoins today are just tokenised IOUs, they live or die by the trust in the issuer. A gold-backed coin at least gives you something real at the end of the chain. Not everyone wants to speculate on meme coins or hold dollars that lose value every year.
Still, there’s something a bit ironic about Schiff embracing blockchain to push his eternal love of gold. After years of sneering at “digital nothing,” he’s now trying to digitise the only thing he thinks is worth anything. You couldn’t make it up.
Thing is, whether you agree with him or not, this move says something bigger. The walls between traditional finance and crypto are falling, brick by brick. The gold crowd is experimenting with tokens. The Bitcoin crowd is talking about central bank reserves. Even the critics are now playing the game, just with their own rulebook.
So yes, Peter Schiff still thinks gold is king. But now he’s embracing blockchain technology to back his beloved metal. And that shift says a lot more than all his anti-Bitcoin tweets ever did.
If you fancy a laugh reading the back-and-forth clashes between Peter and the crypto community, you can follow him on X @PeterSchiff.