‚Paid for the language‘: PayPal CEO who called Bitcoin ‚biggest scam in history‘ lasted a month in office
Controversial co-founder of PayPal Bill Harris defined Bitcoin as a „coup“ in 2018, but his departure was decisive for the company to accept cryptomoedas.
The global cryptomoeda market is in flux following the announcement by the PayPal payments network that it will accept payments in cryptomoeda from 2021. However, one of the co-founders of the famous company is one of the biggest Bitcoin critics that is being reported.
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In an article published by Recode Tuesday on April 24, 2018, PayPal co-founder Bill Harris was very emphatic in defining Bitcoin:
„[Bitcoin] is a blow… a colossal pump-and-dump scheme that the world has never seen“.
In the article, Harris went even further: he said that Bitcoin was useless as a form of payment, had extreme volatility and „no intrinsic value“. He also lists the „Bitcoin criminal mining exploitation“, the action of hackers and the bubble of the initial offers of coins (ICO), which burst precisely in 2018.
The article concluded that the „majority“ of Bitcoin buyers were breaking the law „in all spheres“ and that „the ones who use Bitcoin the most are the criminals“.
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An article in the Cointelegraph at the time recalls that in the text „Harris does not mention the political arguments in favor of cryptomoedas in the context of the post-2008 financial fall, including resilience to censorship, consensus proofing adulteration and decentralization.
In the following years, Harris confirmed his statements in other participations in programs and interviews. For him, the largest cryptomoeda remains „the biggest blow in history. However, he has not yet spoken about the initiative of his former company.
CEO for a month
Harris‘ relationship with PayPal ended with the merger of X.com and Coinfinity – the company that would later become PayPal – in April 2000. Named CEO of the company, he left the position just one month after the merger.
At the time, he was invited to leave the position under accusations of not being able to deal with challenges brought by PayPal’s growth, besides being responsible for „unproductive approaches“.
Harris’s departure was decisive for Bitcoin and cryptomoedas to gain the company’s sympathy and enter PayPal’s front door in 2020.
The other co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, who became CEO of Paypal after Harris‘ expulsion, is famous for his optimism with Bitcoin, comparing it to gold and defending its potential to revolutionize the financial sphere.
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Thiel commanded the company until 2002, when PayPal was bought by eBay for US$ 1,5 bi. Since 2015, the CEO of the company is Daniel Schulman, who has already publicly admitted being a Bitcoin investor.