Peter Saddington on the Bitcoin Lamborghini, VinWiki, and Putting Colleges on the Grid

Peter Saddington is the Bitcoin Lamborghini guy. Years ago he called Throttlecast host Grant Brewer, then at Motorcars of Atlanta, and told him he wanted to buy a Lamborghini and pay for it in Bitcoin. Grant calls it the first exotic car ever bought with Bitcoin, and he remembers the story running in headlines across the country.

Peter is an engineer who has held Bitcoin since 2011. He was also one of the founders of VinWiki, runs a venture fund, and co-founded the Collegiate Racing Series, which puts university teams on track. Grant has known him for more than a decade.

How the Lamborghini bought with Bitcoin came together

In October 2011 Peter read an Ars Technica article about a piece of software that had lost 90% of its value. As a developer, that made no sense to him. Code doesn’t lose value. He spent the next 30 days so deep in Bitcoin that he lost 15 pounds. What hooked him was the idea that as an engineer, “I could program my own money.” He bought his first Bitcoin that November.

By the time he had owned Porsches, BMWs, and a white Audi R8, Reddit’s advice was that you should never spend your Bitcoin on an exotic car. Peter took that as a challenge. “When Lambo” is a Bitcoin meme, and he says that if you search it, you’ll find his face. He called Grant, who told him they’d find a way to take it. The car was on consignment, which gave them room to make the deal work.

The press followed, and so did the calls to the dealership from people asking whether it took Bitcoin. Peter says thousands of relationships came from being “the Bitcoin Lambo guy.”

He didn’t keep the car stock. He wanted the V10 to sound like a V10 Formula 1 engine, so the headers were shaved and two pipes ran straight out the back, which destroyed the bumper. When the pipes glowed but wouldn’t shoot flames, he cut through the firewall and wired a button in the center console. It cut the engine while fuel kept flowing, with spark plugs at the ends of the pipes. He also went through tires fast enough to visit Butler Tire every month.

He sold it on Bring a Trailer to a buyer in Houston who had seen it on VinWiki. The listing is still there under “Bitcoin Lambo.”

Samsung, a $17 million exit, and three venture funds

Peter graduated from Florida State. In 2003 he went to Seoul to work for Samsung as the product lead on a music player meant to compete with the iPod. After 18 months it failed. The iPod held more songs, and Samsung couldn’t match its scale in the American market. Looking back, Peter says he was 20 years early. His lesson: the one thing you can’t manufacture is timing. “I don’t care if you have best tech, best idea, best team, the market is not ready, it doesn’t matter.”

He came back to Atlanta in 2004 and spent nine years building a consultancy, which he sold for $17 million. Then came three venture funds: a $2.5 million friends-and-family fund that returned its capital, a $5 million fund that returned 10 times its size, and a $16 million fund, fully deployed in 2023. He invests only in the lanes he knows: AI, Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining, DeFi, and staking. His pitch to founders is short. He’s buying their spreadsheet.

Peter Saddington, VinWiki, and person-market fit

Peter met Ed Bolian while buying Lamborghinis and Porsches. Peter wanted a way to track the history of his cars. Ed had an idea for it and a name: VinWiki. Four founders started it in 2016, and Peter was the CTO, building the back end. He also started the YouTube channel, which is where he learned a lesson he had never heard of before: person-market fit.

He was the wrong face for car stories. “You want an Ed Bolian,” he says. Peter spent nine months convincing Ed to do the interviews. Once Ed agreed, the channel worked. At last check it was close to 2.4 million subscribers. Peter’s takeaway is that a company needs the right timing for its product and the right person telling the story.

Nitrous, a Radical, and the $5,000 car problem

Peter did half a season in the Radical Cup in a Radical SR3 until his wife asked how long the $25,000 weekends would last. Later Grant sold his matte black Mercedes-AMG GT S, which had three stages of nitrous, air ride, and a subframe shaved to get it to the ground.

He calls roughly 2012 to 2017 the best vintage years for the cars he and Grant came up around. What worries him now is access. His first car was a 1986 Chevy Celebrity that cost $500. His second was a 1993 Mazda MX-3 hatchback he bought for $7,000 and planned $20,000 of upgrades for. Young drivers today can’t find cool cars at $5,000 or $7,000, and he thinks losing that first junker to tear apart and tune is hurting the whole car world.

Racing with his son

Before cars, Peter and his son spent six years racing karts as a privateer constructor team. Peter built the chassis and rebuilt more than 20 of them. What he valued most was teaching his son to explain what the kart was doing. His son would come in, say the kart was too loose, ask for a spacer change, and go back out two tenths faster. “This is why I do it.”

Peter built his son’s Spec Miata in 220 hours and has never sat in it, on purpose, so his own opinions never bias his son’s feel for the car. The minimum age for a pro license is 14. Peter petitioned the licensing bodies with video and results, and his son got a provisional license at 12 on the condition that he finish four races cleanly. He finished races in Miami and New Orleans in the top 10 and received his pro card on December 19. Peter says he is now the youngest pro Spec Miata driver in America. The long-term goal is GT3 cars in IMSA and WEC.

The Collegiate Racing Series

The idea is college athletics for motorsports, with universities racing wheel to wheel. Peter co-founded it with Jack Hobbs and others. They spent 18 months building the program and launched it about 10 months before this recording. More than 600 schools showed up to the first webinar, and 61 US schools are building their first motorsports programs.

• The first season starts in July at Road Atlanta, Peter’s home track. Nine schools were ready to race at recording time, including Clemson, Virginia Tech, and the University of Cincinnati. The goal is 12 to 15 schools in 2026 and 60 in 2027.
• The cars are Spec Miatas, supported through a relationship with Mazda. Peter says they can get a school trained, licensed, and into a car for less than $50,000.
• The curriculum is accredited. At Clemson, engineering students take two semesters of it. Peter wrote the 800-page, 26-chapter junior curriculum for karting from ages 6 to 12. Jack Hobbs wrote the curriculum for ages 12 to 25.
• The teams are run by students. Engineering, race control, marketing, sponsorship, and operations. The driver is about 1% of the job, and the program connects students to internships and jobs in motorsports.

Rapid fire

• Car he’ll always love: a 2015 Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4. He plans to buy one again.
• Risk that paid off: Bitcoin.
• Lesson learned the hard way: trust your gut.
• What he drove to the show: a Chevy 2500 HD work truck, for hauling 20-foot trailers.

Watch the full episode

The full conversation with Peter Saddington is above and on YouTube.

The Friday before this taping, Peter hosted the Future Tech Forum, a nonprofit he started to help Atlanta businesses put AI to work, on the lounge floor at The Ride Lounge. Fifty-four people registered and 72 showed up. The Ride Lounge is a private car club with climate-controlled storage in Peachtree Corners and Midtown Atlanta, and the same space that holds members’ cars works for forums, launches, and company nights. Host your event at The Ride Lounge.