A Peter Thiel investment fund’s sale of its bitcoin holdings last year reflects a growing corporate divestment from cryptocurrencies.
Founders Fund, a venture capital firm co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel in 2005, first invested in bitcoin in 2014. While it proceeded to buy various cryptocurrencies in large quantities, two-thirds of its total crypto portfolio was made up of bitcoin.
However, it was recently revealed that the fund had sold its entire stake in the crypto eight years after making its initial stake. Founders Fund sold most of its entire cryptocurrency portfolio by the end of March 2022.
The fund generated nearly $1.8 billion in returns after Terra was held in May before the sequential crypto crisis began. Currently, the Fund does not have any significant exposure to cryptocurrencies.
Part of the Greater Saleoff
Founders Fund’s crypto divestment came as part of a strategic selloff on the part of the investment fund. Between the end of 2020 and last year, the fund sold stakes in nine of its largest investments, netting $13 billion for investors. These included initial public offerings from companies that the fund had supported since their initial fundraising, such as Airbnb and Palantir.
With a pair of funds bringing in $5 billion in capital last year, Founders Fund currently has more than $11 billion under management. Since its inception, the company has made strategic investments in over 100 companies.
These include Elon Musk’s SpaceX, ride-hailing app Lyft and defense tech group Anduril. It currently has plans to buy a $29 billion stake in OpenAI, the developer behind chatbot ChatGPT.
crypto investment pivot
News of the sale reflects a pivot that has occurred in cryptocurrency investing over the past year. Tesla also sold nearly three-quarters of its bitcoin holdings in July last year. In addition to cratering prices, many financial institutions have stayed away from cryptocurrencies for fear of cyber security and money laundering.
But while many of these companies avoid direct exposure to crypto, they have instead focused their investments in crypto businesses or in the underlying technology. Last month, Goldman Sachs announced its intention to buy or invest in crypto companies, seeing an opportunity following the collapse of FTX.
Although JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has called bitcoin a “fraud,” his company has invested in a division dedicated to blockchain.
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BeInCrypto has reached out to the company or the person involved in the story for an official statement regarding the recent development, but has yet to hear back.