Gold through fiber optic cable

Last week I came across two sharp analyses on X, both reaching the same conclusion: the crypto market no longer needs bitcoin. Speculation has moved to artificial intelligence, transactions to the dollar via stablecoins, and returns to protocols that actually generate revenue. For this cycle, that holds up. But it says nothing about the question that matters thirty years from now: which asset can no one take from you?

Both authors reach the same conclusion, but read it differently. Nikshep Saravanan sees progress: the market has matured, and the real money now flows toward projects that actually deliver value rather than pure speculation. Macro-analyst Alex Krüger sees a reckoning: crypto as an asset class has largely failed, riddled with fraud and empty promises, and what remains is useful technology stripped of the hype. On this cycle, both are right. Speculative capital has drained from bitcoin, crypto transaction volume now runs through stablecoins, and many loose tokens have indeed turned out to be worthless. But all of that describes what happened in this cycle. Whether bitcoin also loses its function as money is an entirely different question, and one that plays out not over a year but over decades.

There is an old principle of law: no one may be a judge in their own case. The international monetary system does not recognize that separation. The issuer of the world reserve currency is simultaneously its greatest beneficiary and the one who decides who gets cut off. In 2022, that became visible: when Russia was disconnected from the payment network (SWIFT) and its reserves were frozen, access to the dollar turned out to be conditional. And power over money that can be used will, sooner or later, be used. You don't yet see the exodus in the bitcoin price, but you do see it in gold. In its June 2026 report, the European Central Bank notes that gold has overtaken U.S. Treasuries as the largest official reserve holding, for one reason: geopolitical tension. Central banks are looking for an asset no one can freeze. Gold solves that, but it does not fit through a fiber optic cable.

That is exactly where the monetary function of bitcoin begins. It carries that same neutrality across the entire chain: scarce without an issuer, transferable without permission, verifiable without having to trust anyone. This is the separation of money and state, and just like the separation of church and state, it unfolds over decades, nearly invisible in the moment. The dollar will not collapse next year, and anyone selling you that story is a charlatan. Measured over thirty years, bitcoin is therefore not the speculation the analysts see fading away. It is what gold has always been: an asset no one can take from you. Except this version fits through a fiber optic cable. And that is precisely the significance that still escapes the analysts today.