u.today
According to Reuters, billionaire Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, Founders Fund, is investing again in Bitcoin and Ethereum, suggesting Silicon Valley's renewed interest in the cryptocurrency markets.
The fund invested $200 million between late summer and early fall last year to acquire crypto assets, half of which were in Bitcoin and half in Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported, citing sources.
As one of the first institutional investors in cryptocurrency, Founders Fund began aggressively buying Bitcoin in 2014 but unloaded it before the crypto market imploded in 2022, earning over $1.8 billion in gains. Bitcoin's price fell to roughly $15,000 in 2022, the lowest it had been since 2020.
Last summer, Founders Fund began buying Bitcoin when it was less than $30,000, and it continued to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum for several months.
Peter Thiel, a cofounder of PayPal and Palantir, has publicly endorsed Bitcoin, describing it as a store of value similar to gold and a hedge against central bank monetary policy.
The Bitcoin and Ethereum prices have steadily increased over the last year, with Bitcoin reaching $50,000 for the first time in more than two years this week but still falling short of its top of $69,000 in November 2021.
Bitcoin investors can be said to be having a great year thus far, with the BTC market reaching new multiyear highs of $50,200 and a positive year-to-date return of 18.5%. Only 141 days in 2021 have had a daily closing price higher than $50,200, accounting for 2.84% of Bitcoin trading history.
Bitcoin is also up 130% in the previous 12 months and over 207% since the November 2022 lows, and it is now trading down 28.6% below its all-time high (ATH).
At the time of writing, Bitcoin had retreated from its recent highs of more than $50,000, rising only 1.54% in the last 24 hours to $49,064. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has risen 5.93% in the previous 24 hours to $2,649.