Bitcoin Is the First New Religion of the 21st Century

I think it does parallel a religion to some extent, in that it's like being called a heretic by a religion of which you are not a member. It's just hard to take seriously.

And I doubt it's the first since 2000... I hear about stupid new cults trying to recruit members and cash every week.

[1] https://churchofbitcoin.org/

If you approach some notion of valuing bitcoin, the clearest store of value reasoning is that it can act as an intermediary between different fiat currencies without being beholden to any source currency.

For example, gold has the advantage over bitcoin of being a physical tether - you can make stuff out of gold, people like pretty gold things, etc. But to deal with gold you typically are tied to some source fiat currency. I don’t just mean at the time of purchase when you buy gold in dollars or yen or whatever, but the entire process. Unless you yourself take physical possession of the gold and interface to the exchange, then gold as a store of value can only be retrieved by selling in the source currency you bought it, that is used by whatever custodian is holding it for you. Maybe they would agree some exchange rate to give you the proceeds of your sale in a different currency, but it would amount to the same transaction as selling it in the custodian’s original currency then paying an exchange fee to switch to another fiat currency. Most people, even large investors, won’t bother. Gold purchased in dollars is basically just a store of dollars with transaction costs to get to anything else.

Cryptocurrency has significant potential to be different. I could buy bitcoin in dollars, but open a French bank account and realize the proceeds (without transaction costs) in Euro if I want.

For most stable world currencies, it’s not a big deal (though hedging away from fiat currency for some small amount of cash could be valuable for some). But for people truly exposed to hardship due to devalued currency, poor regional governments or fiscal policy, decline of undiversified sources of GDP, this ability to store value without going through the friction of a volatile fiat currency is a huge value.

So then valuing bitcoin overall would be a function of estimating what total asset level across the globe represents the market demand for this decoupling from fiat currency.

I don’t see bitcoin ever growing to the monetary totals of stable world currencies, it will never grow to the size of precious metal markets, but does that mean its current total asset level is right? I doubt it. There’s lots of room for it to grow just based on this minor usage as a shield from fiat currency for store of value.

The biggest risk in my eyes is whether governments will development ways to regulate bitcoin such that it loses any of this benefit of decoupling from fiat currency, and it becomes like modern gold markets where it’s entirely fronted by a particular source fiat currency depending on geography where you want to transact.

A big risk of course, but the point is that it’s not trivial to dismiss actual tangible benefits of crypto as a value store over alternatives.

You could compare it to fine art markets and freeport holdings in that sense, just without requirement of custodians and more accessible to average people.