Peter Schiff, one of Bitcoin’s most vocal critics, took the stage at the Bitcoin 2025 conference on Thursday and didn’t hold back. During a fiery conversation with journalist Natalie Brunell at the Venetian Convention Center in Las Vegas, the longtime gold advocate dismissed the Bitcoin BTC community as “a giant cult” and said the digital asset resembles a “memecoin.”

Schiff, who rose to prominence as a stockbroker and gold bug, has long argued that bitcoin has no intrinsic value. On stage, he reiterated that claim and pointed to global central banks still accumulating gold — not bitcoin — as evidence that gold remains the true reserve asset.

“Every time I tell people not to buy bitcoin, they buy more,” he quipped. “I’m probably responsible for more people owning bitcoin than anyone else at this conference.”

His comments came in response to U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, who said earlier that day that bitcoin had created “unparalleled wealth” over the last decade. Schiff pushed back, arguing that the wealth generated by the crypto asset doesn’t represent value creation but rather a transfer of wealth from latecomers to early adopters. “It’s a pyramid structure,” he said, “not innovation.”

While the crowd responded with a mix of laughter and groans, Schiff stayed on message: bitcoin’s price, he said, is propelled by hype, not economic fundamentals. The jab stood in contrast to the rest of the week’s festivities, where many speakers celebrated bitcoin’s growing institutional acceptance and financial footprint.

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