Yes, my bad, I did assume "inflation" when you wrote "monetary inflation". So you're talking about money printing by the U.S. government. If Bitcoin only guards against monetary inflation, that makes it inferior to gold, which guards against inflation in general. That doesn't exactly make the case for Bitcoin. It becomes an advertising problem - you need to convince people to fear a problem ("monetary inflation") and use Bitcoin as the solution. But people are only vaguely concerned about money printing - they care far more about price increases, which were a factor in the last U.S. election (and elsewhere).
People are concerned about CPI inflation, yes. But I would argue that the majority of people don't truly understand what drives CPI inflation (primarily money printing/monetary inflation). As I said, scarce asset prices (homes, stocks, bitcoin, gold, art, etc) go up in price because of their scarcity far higher than consumer goods do in response to monetary inflation. But the average person isn't exposed to these assets as much as the upper classes are and therefore over time they're priced out of these scarce assets more and more. If people understood the underpinnings of what drives these asset prices higher, they'd be much more inclined to seek scarce assets that are easy and feasible to acquire; that is, Bitcoin.
Right - like I said, it's an advertising problem. Bitcoin needs to convince people they have this problem ("monetary inflation") and then convince them Bitcoin is the best solution.
Quote where I said Bitcoin was not mainstream. You misinterpreted what I said above, and you're doing it here as well. So quote where I made this claim that Bitcoin is not mainstream. I even quoted factual information - a Pew poll - showing that 1 in 6 adults have owned Bitcoin at some point.
This is why I said "as seen in some of your past comments" as I was not just referring to what you've said in the last few comments in this thread alone, but some of the comments you've made about bitcoin on these forums in general:
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(individual comments quoted below)
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These are just some of your comments in the past (since late 2023 to now) suggesting or implying that either bitcoin isn't mainstream or there are hurdles in place preventing it from being so and that even with spot-ETFs, there would still be barriers. To me it just seemed like sometimes you're trying to hold on to two opposing truths (bitcoin is and isn't mainstream). Maybe that isn't exactly your firmly held belief at the moment, but it comes across that way to others reading your comments. Regardless of that...
Let's not forget that Bitcoin is a global asset and its price reflects global demand for it. Sure, the US is a massive market and so obviously changes in demand within the US plays a large factor in the price of bitcoin. But demand and adoption takes place on the world stage and therefore any changes in demand globally impacts its price.
When most people say "some past comments", they don't mean obsessively tracking what I've said for the past year or two. But okay, you're looking to catch me in hypocrisy, and ignoring the nuance and the context of my comments. I think it is more valuable to quote external sources, but let's dig into my past comments for a bit.
"Some 88% of Salvadorans did not use it in 2023, according to a survey by the University of Central America's public opinion institute. Just 1% of remittances were sent in bitcoin."
https://www.reuters.com/technology/short-cash-el-salvador-doubles-down-bitcoin-dream-2024-02-02/
You've stripped away the context of this quote:
The investment side of El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has clearly been a great success – so far.
I refuted that claim, that the experiment was a success. It had nothing to do with Bitcoin being mainstream or not.
The +50% jump in Bitcoin's price translates to a $600 billion USD increase in its market cap. I'm sure the next administration will have friendly policies, but $600 billion is too optimistic in my view. It assumes mainstream buying of something most people ignore.
Notice the quote says "mainstream buying", not mainstream awareness. You didn't like my 1 in 6 ownership quote from Pew Research, so I found a more precise analysis from a lower quality source.
"About 90% of Americans have heard of Bitcoin.'
88% of Japanese and 93% of people in the UK have heard of Bitcoin.
Another report puts the number at 66% of Europeans having heard of Bitcoin, with 78% in Poland and 79% in Austria."
https://bitbo.io/how-many-users/90% of Americans have heard of Bitcoin, while only 1 in 6 have ever owned crypto currency (mostly Bitcoin, the largest and most well known crypto currency). Bitcoin awareness is mainstream - buying Bitcoin is not.
As an aside, I got this prediction right. After Trump's inauguration, Bitcoin's price dropped for weeks. Anyone shorting when I made the comment, and closing the position after his inauguration, made a profit. But I got another one wrong - see below.
I think Oct 2023 is similar to Oct 2021. The $40B in market cap gains (+13% on Oct 20) anticipate $40B of new spot Bitcoin ETF investment. I suspect the actual investment will be closer to Oct 2021's $1B than $40B. The words Coinbase uses in their monthly analysis ("billions ... long-term") also suggest caution. When I looked at SEC filings for spot Bitcoin ETFs, Coinbase was the Bitcoin custodian half the time.
People who want Bitcoin can buy it on crypto exchanges (most effort), sign up for Robinhood, or buy shares of $GBTC or $BITO. Institutional investors have their own accounts, Bitcoin futures market, or can buy shares of crypto-related companies ($COIN $MSTR $GLXY $RIOT ...). A spot Bitcoin ETF makes it easier, but doesn't remove the barrier to buying Bitcoin.
Those with the most money to invest, older investors, hate crypto. Investment firms will face an uphill battle suggesting Bitcoin for most clients. Younger investors who favor crypto have already bought it. I suspect the audience for spot Bitcoin ETFs is much smaller than expected.
Ten Bitcoin ETFs were approved on Jan 10 2024, yet the price was flat for a couple weeks. Then the price spiked from late Jan to early March 2024, which proved me wrong about $1 billion in Bitcoin ETF purchases. Your graph shows the market was wrong as well, as far less than $40 billion in buying happened in the first couple months, including the spike in price.
The price spike ended on March 9 2024, with a Bitcoin price of $68,469 BTC/USD. Bitcoin's price on Nov 5, right before the U.S. presidential election, was $68,318 BTC/USD. Over almost 8 months, Bitcoin's price fell -0.2%. The price was flat after the initial excitement of Bitcoin ETFs, and stayed flat until the U.S. election.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/history/In 2024, Bitcoin ETF approval and the U.S. presidential election moved the price higher. But between those events, from March 9 to Nov 5, Bitcoin's price was essentially flat (-0.2%). That is a key point, which you or others can see from the link I provided. Or search "BTC USD price", and Google will display the data.
That isn't what I said. I did not say "over the years" or "over the last 16 years". I said specifically from late 2023 until now. Are you changing the time frame because I'm right? The two biggest movers of Bitcoin's price since late 2023 were expecting approval of Bitcoin ETFs, and expecting a crypto-friendly president. I notice you provided no counter examples, and simply attack my "credibility" without yourself saying anything.
You may think that the ETFs and presidential elections are the only drivers of bitcoin price since 2023, but that makes the assumption that the approval of Bitcoin spot-ETFs were a one-and-done price action on the news and this isn't true or how the market operates. It makes the assumption that now that the approvals of those ETFs are past us, then they play no further role in price appreciation for bitcoin. This ignores the fact that ETFs continue to have on-going in-flows regularly since their approval and therefore has shown that there has been on-going demand increases for those ETFs, post-approval news. This is the point that I was making. And maybe that was part of the point you were making, but you contradict that point by saying bitcoin is "mainstream" and thus won't see much more price appreciation because of it. This flies in the very face of all the market information we have about the ETFs to date. The ETFs have continued to see in-flows of demand since their approval and thus shows there is still increasing demand for bitcoin in the market overall.
Demand increases for ETFs, yes, but not for Bitcoin. If there was new demand for Bitcoin, why didn't the price increase from March 9 to Nov 5 2024?
Since late 2023 to now, I think only two things have driven up the price of Bitcoin: ETFs and Trump. Trump's election, his creation of meme coins, his inauguration, and his announcement of the SBR. Anticipation of Bitcoin ETFs pushed the price up, and again after approval, peaking at $73k BTC/USD on March 14 2024. It stayed below that level until Trump won the election, hitting $75k on November 7 2024. Am I missing other moves by Bitcoin, driven by something else?
This statement ignores that fact that post-ETF approval there has been over 500k bitcoin acquired for these ETFs. About $20billion new in-flows have taken place with these ETFs in 2025 alone, which would suggest that there is plenty of demand outside of the ETF approval and Presidential election news cycles you seem to imply here. The ETF inflows also suggest steady increased demand and not news-cycle driven demand as you might be suggesting:
...(removed large image, see earlier post)...
I notice you don't quote the price of Bitcoin at all. I said "driven up the price of Bitcoin" and "pushed the price up", followed by quoting prices. Yet somehow in quoting that post, you're ignoring Bitcoin's lack of price changes (Mar 9 to Nov 5 2024)?
EDIT: apologies for the massive image, I couldn't resize it down. You can zoom-out in your browser if it makes it easier to read.
Also, since when is 1 in 6 people owning something "mainstream"? "Nearly all of those people have heard of bitcoin" is an irrelevant statement when it comes to the main original argument you made being that you don't see where new market demand will come from for its price to appreciate. It seems like your definition of "mainstream" is based on just awareness of the asset rather than actual purchasing demand for the asset. Only the latter actually impacts its market price. In that regard, bitcoin is hardly "mainstream" by any measure.
I haven't had to resize images in awhile, but I think there's a "width=300" you can use to shrink it.
A crypto website claims 90% of Americans know about Bitcoin. Not an ideal source, so feel free to correct it with a better one. It also mentions awareness of Bitcoin in various countries, and Europe overall. Awareness is mainstream - buying is not.
All of your comments about demand in Bitcoin ETFs have a flaw - why didn't the price move up? If there is significant new demand, the price should increase, reflecting increased demand for Bitcoin. But the price went sideways for about 8 months, - because there wasn't increased demand for Bitcoin. Whatever happened, the price went nowhere, which meant there was not significant new demand for Bitcoin from March 9 to Nov 5 2024.
Bitcoin has been mentioned by both of the past two Presidents, has its own futures exchange, and is mentioned on the standard IRS 1040 tax form. That seems mainstream to me. How could Bitcoin get more mainstream than this?
Mainstream awareness, not mainstream ownership / buying.
