Data analytics firm Palantir Technologies announced during a recent earnings call that it accepts bitcoin as a form of payment from customers and is considering holding BTC on its balance sheet.
“During the call, an investor asked ‘could you ever see Palantir having bitcoin or any other type of cryptocurrency on its balance sheet?’” according to TheStreet Crypto. “In response, Palantir’s CFO, David Glazer said, ‘The short answer is yes. We’re thinking about it and we’ve even discussed it internally. If you take a look at our balance sheet there’s $2.3 billion in cash at quarter-end including $151 million in cash flow in Q1. So it’s definitely on the table from a treasury perspective as well as other investments as we look across our business and beyond.”
Glazer went on to note that “in terms of accepting bitcoin from our customers, we do accept it as a form of payment. We’re open for business there.”
Palantir is a publicly-traded company with a market capitalization of more than $37 billion. It was founded by PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, whose Founders Fund venture capital firm bought some $15 million worth of bitcoin in 2017. Palantir reported 49% revenue growth in the first quarter of 2021.
In accepting bitcoin for payment, Palantir is among a wave of many other large companies that have recently added this option — including, Camping World, WeWork and Caruso. And if it were to follow through on its consideration and hold BTC on its balance sheet, Palantir would join the likes of Tesla, MicroStrategy, Square and Nexon.