Chris Lowe: Hey, Nick. So bitcoin (BTC) is up 187% since you called it the “new crisis currency” and recommended it to your Casey Report readers June 2018. That’s a heck of a lot more than the U.S. dollar, or other fiat currencies. You wrote one of the most interesting reports on bitcoin I’ve read in a long time. You make the case that the reason you want to own gold and bitcoin over government-issued currencies like the U.S. dollar is because they’re “hard assets.” They’re both hard to produce more of. That means their value can’t inflate away. Gold is a physical thing. And a lot of folks view it as the hardest currency in the world. But you’ve been making the case that bitcoin is an even harder currency than gold, and potentially an even better store of value as a result. A lot of folks may get confused and think, “How can bitcoin be hard money? It’s digital. It’s not physical.” Could you explain why you’re so bullish on bitcoin? Why not just go all-in on gold? Why have bitcoin in the portfolio at all? Nick Giambruno: It’s an interesting question. And I know it’s one a lot of our readers are thinking about. Bitcoin is an entirely new phenomenon and asset class. It doesn’t fit into the mental frameworks most people have when they analyze investments and currencies. It’s a completely new thing – genuine digital scarcity. And that’s a very profound invention. You’re absolutely right – hard does not necessarily mean physical. It means hard to produce relative to its existing supply. That’s the proper use of the word, in the context of a hard asset. Another way to think of it is like this: Hardness is simply resistance to inflation, and in my view, that is the most important attribute of a good money. Chris: But if bitcoin is digital – like most dollars these days – how is it hard to produce? I think that’s a big stumbling block for a lot of folks. Nick: This is a subject we could talk about all day. But the thing you’ve got to grasp about bitcoin is, its rate of inflation is constantly decreasing. Readers may have heard of the “halving.” About every four years, the supply of new bitcoin gets cut in half. Look at gold, for example. The rate of increase in the supply of above-ground gold is about 1.7% a year. Bitcoin is right around that sweet spot, too. But unlike gold, the supply of bitcoin gets cut in half every four years. Here’s an easier way to think of the halving… There’s a euphemism that central bankers use for printing money. They call it “quantitative easing.” Well, here’s something that’s not a euphemism – bitcoin’s halvings are quantitative hardening. That’s really all you need to know about bitcoin. Bitcoin is becoming harder and harder, as government currencies are getting easier and easier. Over time this is going to cause a lot of people to dump their government confetti currencies and buy bitcoin – and gold – to protect their buying power. 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The folks at the head of Ethereum (ETH) don’t even know what their monetary policy is going to be in a few years. Bitcoin isn’t like that. It’s truly decentralized. As a result, none of the other cryptos have a credible monetary policy like bitcoin. They are not hard assets. That’s the whole value proposition of bitcoin: No group of insiders can get together and alter the bitcoin protocol. You Don't Need Gold Coins to Profit From This Gold Boom We saw an attempt to do that with the whole Bitcoin Cash (BCH) fiasco. That’s where the most powerful group of bitcoin insiders tried to get together and alter the bitcoin protocol. It was an abysmal failure. They couldn’t do it. Actually, it was a terrific reinforcement of bitcoin’s value proposition – nobody can control it, not even the most influential crypto folks. That means bitcoin has a monetary property that no other crypto has – namely it is truly immutable. Here’s the bottom line. Don’t be fooled by bitcoin knockoffs and other cryptos claiming they are better than bitcoin. The imitators cannot copy bitcoin’s immutability, decentralization, hardness, liquidity, economics, or its network effects. The issue is clear to the market, where real people are voting with their money. The market values these knockoffs and other cryptos as mere fractions of the real bitcoin’s market cap. Today, bitcoin is about to reach new all-time highs. While Bitcoin Cash is about to hit an all-time low, and is on its way to zero in my opinion. Recommended Link | THIS DEMANDS YOUR FULL ATTENTION
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