I can't for the life of me grasp why a bag containing $1 worth of bitcoin, wrapped in a MSTR blanket, trades for $1.90-$2.10 (#975448).
It's weird. It seems unnatural and ready to collapse, as the FT film on Saylor recently hinted (#980092). Matt Levine's words echo in my mind: What Would Satoshi Say?!
Mr. Wankum, known as the real estate guy, having written about bitcoin in real estate for years, takes a more optimistic approach. This is the cure. This is the lifeboat.
"I’ll explain why I believe corporate Bitcoin adoption is a net positive for the entire ecosystem and what risks are associated with it.”
At first, it can seem frustrating to see today’s newcomers appear uninterested in the cypherpunk ethos or libertarian spirit that originally shaped Bitcoin. But this shift reflects a deeper economic reality: currency no longer represents the bulk of the world’s money.
Real estate and bonds ($300trn worth each) + equity (150trn) and art ($20trn) do.
The legacy financial infrastructure is not natively compatible with the Bitcoin network, which is decentralized, open, and permissionless. As a result, legacy financial products will increasingly integrate and be exposed to bitcoin, not to reinvent the system overnight, but to gradually harden existing structures (see $STRK & $STRF).
THE KICKER:
In the industrialized world, where payment infrastructure generally functions well, bitcoin is being adopted differently: it is gradually replacing asset classes like bonds, real estate, art, and, partially, equities, especially index funds, which have taken on the role of store of value since fiat money lost that function through continuous debasement.
Since the store-of-value component doesn't work in the rich world, but the payments-component does, it's perfectly natural that a better money, organically developing off Cypherpunk-y and crypto-anarchist-y origins, would take this path:
Bitcoin is being held for increasingly longer periods as it continues to monetize rapidly in response to persistent fiat inflation. As people recognize bitcoin’s value as collateral in an era of rising fiat inflation, two behaviors emerge: (1) they borrow inflationary fiat to buy bitcoin, and (2) they leverage existing bitcoin holdings to obtain fiat, either for spending or to purchase more bitcoin. (#852354)
And here's a finish for the history books:
Bitcoin-backed financial products make it possible to learn through insight, instead of the system having to collapse and people having to learn through suffering.'