Bitwise Invest CIO Matt Hougan Defends Bitcoin with a Comparison to Gold

• Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan has referred to the current situation of Bitcoin as a teenage state.
• His defense comes as a response to a post shared by Nate Geraci on X.
• Volatility of BTC remains very high, above 10%.

Matt Hougan, CIO of Bitwise, has come out in defense of Bitcoin. His defense comes as a response to ETF Institute Co-Founder Nate Geraci sharing a post by Tom Essaye wherein BTC has been tagged as a speculative asset. Matt earlier drew a parallel between Gold and Bitcoin based on Gold’s history.

Matt Hougan on Bitcoin

Bitwise CIO has published a post on X, calling Bitcoin an emerging store of value. Matt Hougan has defended BTC’s position by saying that one cannot ask bitcoins to mature without emerging from something. Matt has said that every gradient has to be ticked to travel from 100% speculation to 0% speculation.

There is an acknowledgment in his post, underlined by mentioning that it does not fit any box at the moment. But, he has explained that it’s only because the crypto is in the middle, which seems to be uncomfortable and a necessary part of the journey.

In fact, Hougan has termed the current situation as a teenage stage as the other choice to believe that it is impossible to create a digital store of value.

Why Defend BTC?

Matt Hougan came out in defense of BTC after Nate Geraci shared a post by Tom Essaye. Tom urged the community to realize Bitcoin for what it has always been, a speculative asset. The Founder of Sevens Report, in the post, asserted that Bitcoin was neither replacing Gold nor was it digital Gold. Tom based this statement on the belief that BTC does not offer the same utility as Gold.

He added that BTC also does not come as an inflation hedge.

Nate Geraci previously shared that Bloomberg has been asking questions about bitcoin. One major question that he pointed out was related to its utility. Bloomberg asked if BTC is not the best hedge, then what exactly is it for?

Hougan on Bitcoin and Gold

Matt Hougan, back in 2018, published an article emphasizing what the history of Gold teaches about Bitcoin as a store of value. He referred to a scenario from the 1970s when the US Dollar was backed by Gold and the metal’s value was vouchsafed by the faith and credit of the government.

He, in the same post, pointed out that a new store of value paints two features – a rapidly appreciating price initially before slowing down; and, volatility that’s high but declining with time.

Simply put, this is not the first time that BTC has come under the scanner, and it has been defended by someone from the community. Except, this time it has come at a time when the flagship cryptocurrency has lost a lot of value, with a very high volatility of over 10%.

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