Bitcoin Investor Peter Thiel Joins President Trump's Transition Team

"A new chapter in history has begun, and it's time to think about our problems from a new perspective," Peter Thiel, a billionaire investor in the Bitcoin company BitPay, told the New York Times after the US election, as he was about to join President Trump's "transition team."

“I’m going to do everything I can to help the president,” Thiel said.

Since Trump won the presidency in the US election last Tuesday, the transition between current US President Obama and incoming President Trump has begun.

After being elected president, Trump appointed a number of Republican members, such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, U.S. House Representative Newt Gingrich and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

In addition, Trump also announced that his three children and Peter Thiel will join the executive committee of the presidential transition team.

Donald Trump gets support from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel

“This outstanding team of advisors, led by Vice President Mike Pence, and led by Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, will help us build a transformative administration from day one,” President Trump said. “Our team’s mission is clear: bring together successful leaders of the highest caliber to implement our transformative agenda in Washington. We will begin rebuilding this country, especially on jobs, security, and more. This team will get to work immediately to make America great again.”

It is reported that Trump will take office as the President of the United States on January 20 next year.

Joining President Trump's transition team means Peter Thiel can help vet the president's appointments and decide which campaign promises can evolve into policy.

Thiel, who previously donated $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign, told the media a week before the election:

"We voted for Trump because we recognize that the current management of the country is a failure."

Peter Thiel and Bitcoin

In addition to investing in the Bitcoin company BitPay, Peter Thiel has also expressed his views on Bitcoin. As early as 2013, he said that the success probability of Bitcoin was only 20%. Later, he answered questions from Bitcoin enthusiasts in an AMA event, saying:

“PayPal built a payment system but sadly failed to create a ‘new world currency’ (our slogan in 2000), whereas Bitcoin appears to have created a new currency (at least speculatively), but the payment system is severely lacking support. I’ll be more bullish on Bitcoin when I see payment volumes rising.”