At Monetarium, our Dialogs series brings together influential thinkers to explore pressing monetary challenges. In July 2025, we hosted PayPal co-founder and Palantir chairman Peter Thiel for an intimate Washington D.C. discussion on “The Debt, the Dollar, and Our Options From Here” with 50 subject matter experts.

In this exclusive clip, Thiel uses his classic PayPal pitch prop — a $100 bill — to explore what gives money its value. The bill states it’s “legal tender for all debts, public and private,” and Thiel reveals the violence implicit in this seemingly simple phrase. You must use dollars to pay taxes; if you don’t pay, “some people will come after you and if you resist them, they’ll come with guns and they’ll put you in jail.” This coercive backing, protected by military superpower status, is what makes the dollar “the best currency in the world” to foreign creditors.

Thiel identifies a fundamental contradiction at the heart of America’s debt crisis: Americans believe “we’re never gonna pay [the debt] off” and we’ll just “keep borrowing more forever,” while foreigners expect to get repaid in valuable dollars backed by military might. These conflicting expectations cannot both be true. The unspoken question becomes whether military power will ultimately protect the Federal Reserve’s ability to print money — or whether foreign creditors might have the military force to eventually demand “real money” instead of printed dollars. As Thiel notes, this critical tension “is never really articulated” in public discourse.

Monetarium Dialogs is an ongoing series that furthers Reserve’s mission to combat inflation by providing access to better financial products and fostering critical conversations about the future of money. Through intimate gatherings with leading thinkers, we explore the monetary challenges and opportunities that will shape tomorrow’s financial landscape.

This meeting was conducted under Chatham House Rules, and this clip was published with the permission of those quoted in order to provide a small window into the nature of the dialog.

To find out about future Moneterium Dialog events, subscribe here.

https://youtu.be/Qux-7amwvBA

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