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For years, I lumped Bitcoin into the same category as gold:

It didn’t produce cashflow and its value is based almost entirely on belief.

And if I’m being honest, the cult-like energy around Bitcoin turned me off.
The memes, the maximalism, the “this is the only asset that matters” mentality…it felt unserious.

But at some point, you have to put emotions aside and focus on reality.

So I did.

And here’s what I learned.

1. The Lindy Effect: Survival Is a Signal

The Lindy Effect says:
the longer something survives, the longer it is expected to survive.

Bitcoin has:

• survived 16 years

• survived 70–80% crashes

• survived China bans

• survived exchange failures

• gained global liquidity

• attracted institutional adoption

• launched an ETF

• built a durable worldwide user base

You don’t need to love Bitcoin to acknowledge its staying power.

Okay, so it’s likely sticking around. But what problem does it actually solve?

2. What Bitcoin Is Actually For

After digging into it, here’s how I now think about Bitcoin’s purpose.
For the average person, Bitcoin has two meaningful roles:

A. Bitcoin Is a Digital Savings Layer

You work → you earn → you save.
But you can’t leave savings in cash because inflation erodes the value.

So you have two options:

1. Put savings into productive assets that create cash flow.

2. Put savings into a store of value that maintains purchasing power.

Gold historically filled bucket #2.

Bitcoin is the digital version of that bucket — with modern advantages:

• scarce

• durable

• globally transferable

• instantly verifiable

• permissionless

• resistant to seizure

• politically neutral

For people living under unstable currencies (which is most of the world), this matters.

Gold worked for 5,000 years.
Bitcoin works in a digital age.

B. Bitcoin Is Geopolitically Neutral Collateral

This is the underrated angle.

Large institutions — and increasingly nation-states — want:

• apolitical collateral

• instant settlement

• global liquidity

• assets not tied to the U.S. or China

• 24/7 market access

Bitcoin checks every box.

It’s the first globally neutral, digitally native monetary asset.

3. Should You Own Bitcoin and Gold?

If you like gold, you should probably like Bitcoin too.

They serve similar roles but are different enough to work well together.

Gold’s advantages:

• 5,000 years of adoption

• physical and tangible

• industrial + jewelry demand

• no reliance on electricity

• extremely stable store of value

Bitcoin’s advantages:

• easier to store and transfer

• impossible to seize without keys

• supply is transparent

• ideal as institutional collateral

• global, 24/7 settlement

They respond to different macro forces:

• Gold reacts to fear and geopolitics

• Bitcoin reacts to liquidity and technology adoption

They’re not perfectly correlated — which increases resilience.

4. A Reality Check: Rehypothecation (and Why It Impacts Both Bitcoin and Gold)

Before moving on, we need to address an uncomfortable truth that applies to any asset held by custodians:

Rehypothecation.

Rehypothecation is when institutions issue more claims to an asset than the asset itself.

It’s the same mechanism behind fractional reserve banking and modern credit creation.

• You deposit a dollar

• A bank lends it out 5–10 times

• Multiple people believe they “own” the same dollar

This can happen with gold and with Bitcoin.

Here’s what it does:

1. Increases the effective supply.

Even if Bitcoin has a fixed supply, claims on Bitcoin can multiply.

2. Dilutes scarcity in practice.

Price responds to supply and demand.
If synthetic supply grows, scarcity weakens.

3. Makes the asset behave more like credit than money.

Once claims multiply, it becomes part of a broader credit system.

4. Can suppress long-term price growth.

This is why gold’s price has grown slowly over decades despite strong demand — the “paper gold” market absorbs it.

So what does this mean?

Bitcoin is:

• not perfect

• not immune to financial engineering

• not guaranteed to go up forever

• not magically protected by the protocol

But — and this is the important part:

Gold has lived with this for decades.
Treasuries deal with it.
Even equities face synthetic supply through lending and derivatives.

Rehypothecation doesn’t kill Bitcoin.
It just means Bitcoin is not a flawless, risk-free savings vehicle.

Which brings us to the real question:

5. So Where Does Bitcoin Fit in a Rational Portfolio?

Here’s the stance I feel confident in:

✔️ Bitcoin can be a legitimate savings asset

✔️ Bitcoin belongs in a diversified portfolio

✔️ Bitcoin should be sized, not worshipped

If your portfolio is:

• >70% Bitcoin → you’re speculating

• 0% Bitcoin → you might be missing a hedge

• 1–5% Bitcoin → smart asymmetric bet

• 5–10% Bitcoin → strong macro thesis

The mature stance:

This is how responsible investors think.

6. Is Now a Good Time to Start?

Bitcoin recently pulled back.

If you’ve been waiting for:

• lower hype

• a more sober market

• a cleaner entry

• a moment where fundamentals matter

This is a reasonable time to start a small, steady position.

Not because “number go up,”
but because neutral assets become more valuable when the world gets weird.

7. Final Takeaway

Bitcoin doesn’t need to be perfect.
It doesn’t need to replace the dollar.
It doesn’t need to hit $1M.

It just needs to:

• remain scarce

• remain neutral

• remain global

• remain durable

• remain verifiable

• remain outside political control

That’s enough to justify a measured place in a modern portfolio.

A small allocation.
A thoughtful allocation.
A risk-aware allocation.

Nothing more — and nothing less.

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