Can the price of a centralized cryptocurrency rise? Yes, and its operators can pump, control, and dump it even more aggressively. Larger examples include ETH, SOL, and BNB; more casual examples include TRUMP and DOGE. But you should understand that if you begin participating only in the secondary market, you will definitely not be the person who gets the meat during the pumping cycle. You will either get a little soup or be harvested—the latter is more likely.
Can U.S. stocks rise? Yes. Although all stocks are centralized, they are entirely suitable for investment because they are regulated and reviewed: Nvidia, Apple, Google, and Tesla.
From an investor’s perspective, Silicon Valley no longer waits until the secondary market to harvest retail investors; it starts in the “1.5-stage” market. OpenAI and Anthropic have trillion-dollar valuations. Once they enter the secondary market, small retail investors will be waiting to take over, and the prices will gradually fall. But when these companies raise funds, you cannot invest even if you have the money. There are no opportunities in the primary market for truly top-tier companies, while the VCs in less exceptional companies harvest one another. Whether or not they eventually complete an IPO and harvest retail investors, the VCs have already taken their cut.
Why do people buy cryptocurrencies? They want enormous price increases and hope to make money. There is no faith in the crypto market; if there is any faith, it is faith in money. Financial markets are all about money. Nobody buys Bitcoin out of faith in and idealism about decentralization.
Returning to Bitcoin’s original purpose, what was Bitcoin trying to do? Bitcoin was designed to resist inflation. Modern governments and financial systems depend on continuously expanding balance sheets to keep society running, which means fiat currencies are continuously issued in increasing quantities over time.
Bitcoin has a supply cap precisely to counter inflation. Therefore, ETH and every other public-chain token without a supply cap cannot achieve the goal of resisting inflation, even if their token supply becomes deflationary under certain dynamic conditions.
In 2008, the total global supply of fiat money was approximately 21 trillion U.S. dollars, and Bitcoin’s total supply was therefore designed to be 21 million. Under the vision at the time, if Bitcoin one day replaced the functions of fiat money worldwide, the price of one BTC would equal one million U.S. dollars at 2008 values.
This is not a coincidence. Bitcoin has eight decimal places and its smallest unit is the sat. If 1 BTC = 1 million dollars, then 1 sat = 1 cent, making the smallest unit of the U.S. dollar equal to the smallest unit of Bitcoin.
In 2009, cryptographer Hal Finney became the first person in history to receive a Bitcoin transfer, receiving 10 BTC from Satoshi Nakamoto.
In 2009, total global household wealth was approximately 100 trillion to 300 trillion U.S. dollars. Based on that amount of wealth, if Bitcoin came to dominate global asset reserves, one BTC would be worth approximately 10 million U.S. dollars at 2009 values.
In 2027, the global money supply will be approximately 70 trillion U.S. dollars, and total global household wealth will be approximately 530 trillion U.S. dollars. Mapped onto Bitcoin, each BTC would be worth 3.33 million U.S. dollars based on the M1 money supply. Based on total wealth, each BTC would be worth 26.5 million U.S. dollars.
This is what makes Bitcoin special. Bitcoin was not designed to create the next millionaire, but to protect everyone’s assets from loss. The price of BTC should not continue to surge dramatically; it should rise steadily in value as the supply of fiat currency increases.
Under the inflation-resistance logic, Bitcoin and gold belong in the same category, while altcoins and U.S. stocks belong in the same category.
The conclusion is therefore:
Two negative rules: