This comes as no surprise.
I believe we will read more of these articles in the future about,not only bitcoin, but alt-coins too. The marketcap went from $250B to $625B in less than a month...that only happens with big money players entering the picture. Thiel is not the only one.
The leading edge financial guys are all over crypto...bet the ranch on that. They see the opportunity to get ahead of everyone else. So while most on Wall Street are still trying to attack Bitcoin since it is a threat, they guys are dumping plenty of cash into them.
They know the multiples they will gain very soon.
I look for 2018 to be another enormous year for the price of many of the cryptocurrencies.