VON GREYERZ partner Matthew Piepenburg joins Liberty & Finance’s Elijah Johnson for a plain-spoken examination of the headline-making BTC price rise.
Piepenburg rolls up his sleeves with a blunt assessment of BTC’s so-called “digital gold” slogan, which, based on the very definitional elements of money and the mathematical elements of volatility, clearly makes BTC neither a store of value nor a medium of exchange. Piepenburg makes no direct criticism of BTC as the speculative asset of an era, but the crypto in no real way resembles the characteristics and uses of physical gold nor an anti-fiat money alternative.
In short, BTC is many things, good and bad, to many investors, but it is ultimately an extreme speculation rather than a wealth preservation asset, and as such, the so-called “Gold vs. BTC” debate is no debate at all.
Piepenburg further unpacks the increased centralization and politization of BTC’s otherwise lauded “decentralized” and “apolitical” profile. In fact, Piepenburg suggests that BTC is becoming increasingly politicized as a clever entry drug to stable coin exploitation as a desperate way of mopping up otherwise unwanted US Treasury bonds.