Gold bug Peter Schiff gives Bitcoin permission to hit $100K

The man who once said "Bitcoin will never hit 50K" has doubled down on the bearish prediction that Bitcoin (BTC) will eventually go to zero.

Back in 2019, CNBC host Joe Kernen speculated that Bitcoin's price would reach $55,000 by May 2020. Peter Schiff mocked him at the time, saying "Bitcoin will never hit 50k."

Though somewhat delayed, the price of Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of more than $50,000 this morning after rising 8% this week. Members of Crypto Twitter — including the gold bug's own son — threw Schiff’s words back at him. 

In the wake of his predictions proving to be false, Schiff upped the ante, saying a Bitcoin price of $100,000 “can't be ruled out,” but a “permanent move down to zero is inevitable.” Schiff’s son Spencer, a Bitcoin proponent, was quick to poke some fun at his father's seeming inability to admit that he might have been wrong about Bitcoin.

A well-known Bitcoin detractor, Schiff has made several incorrect predictions about the crypto asset’s price movement over the years, choosing instead to push gold investments. During the price crash of March 2020, the gold bug said that Bitcoin would drop much further than $4,000. His prediction turned out to be the bottom, not the top, of a major price movement. 

Schiff said he "got that one wrong" regarding the new all-time high, but still called a $50,000 Bitcoin "the biggest bubble" of all financial assets. However, even some of his gold predictions have proven to be less than accurate. In 2010, Schiff reportedly said the price of gold would be "$5,000 to $10,000 per ounce in the next 5 to 10 years." In fact, the price of the precious metal barely passed $2,000 in 2020 before retreating to the $1,700s.