MARA CEO: Bitcoin Has Missed Its Opportunity as a Payment Tool
Fred Thiel, CEO of MARA, one of the largest publicly listed Bitcoin mining companies, stated in an interview on July 23 that the opportunity for Bitcoin to serve as a medium of payment and exchange has passed.
In commercial scenarios with thousands of transactions per second and low profit margins, even slight fluctuations in Bitcoin's price can alter the actual value received. Therefore, applications of cryptocurrencies in fields like AI are more likely to be realized through stablecoins. However, Bitcoin remains suitable as a store of value that is detached from central control and can be transferred quickly.
The shift of payment use cases to stablecoins leads to funds and transaction flows moving from the Bitcoin network to stablecoin settlements; event-driven volatility matches commercial demand, benefiting stablecoin issuers and payment infrastructure while putting pressure on the Bitcoin payment narrative.
Source: Public Information
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Fred Thiel is leading MARA's transition from pure mining to energy and AI data centers, having previously sold some Bitcoin to reduce debt; he believes that high volatility and lack of yield make Bitcoin unsuitable for high-frequency, low-margin trading, while stablecoins provide price anchoring.
This assessment positions Bitcoin as a store of value rather than a means of daily payment, motivated by the feasibility of real commercial scenarios; similar to how other mining companies and institutions view Bitcoin as "digital gold" rather than currency, resources are shifting from payment expansion to energy arbitrage and AI computing power.
This perspective echoes the long-standing debate over Bitcoin's monetary attributes; currently, crypto payments are in a phase where stablecoins dominate high-frequency scenarios while Bitcoin focuses on value storage.
Essentially, this represents a technological substitution and transfer of pricing power: volatility excludes the payment role, driving commercial flows toward stablecoins and accelerating Bitcoin's reconstruction from an all-purpose currency narrative to a dedicated store of value.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- Volatility kills payment use cases
- Stablecoins take away high-frequency trading
- Store of value is Bitcoin's ultimate role