Peter Thiel has spoken out on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in what appears to be a grand strategy to maintain the United States’ leadership position on the world stage amidst a rising Eastern power.Peter Thiel is a “pro-crypto” and “pro-Bitcoin maximalist,” but in a recent podcast with the Richard Nixon Foundation he outlined the possibility of crypto undermining America and inadvertently aiding its rivals in the East.Various interpretations made headlines after the comments, but as Anthony Pompliano pointed out on CNBC, Thiel is likely sending a message to the US to avoid falling behind on the crypto trend by competing with other countries on the global stage.The venture capitalist and conservative political donor urged the US government to consider various regulations on crypto in the appearance in light of the country’s political situation with China.During the appearance held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation, he said: “I do wonder whether at this point, Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the US It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar.” He added: “[If] China’s long Bitcoin, perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the US should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works.”Thiel was joined by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien. The discussion between Thiel, who has been an forthcoming critic of (American) companies that do business with China, and two hawkish ex-member of the Trump administration, were mostly focused on US-China relations.In his talk, Thiel expanded on previous criticisms of Alphabet’s Google, which he accused of working against American interests in a 2019 speech. On Tuesday he pressed employees in the company’s artificial intelligence division as to whether their tech was being used in China’s Xinjiang region, where the US…