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Opinion by: Michael Amar, co-founder of Chain of Events and general partner at v3nture<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Once upon a time, in 1848, a man could walk into the wilderness on the brink of poverty and emerge, caked in mud, dust and days-old sweat, a multimillionaire. The discovery of gold in California in the mid-19th century ignited a fuse, causing explosive ripples that transformed the American economy.<\/p>\n In 2025, a relatively new resource, less shiny but no less brilliant and scarce, looks set to reshape the global economy and spark another race for accumulation. Only this time, there\u00a0won\u2019t be pickaxes and pans. There will be ASICs, algorithms and distributed ledger technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, this refers to Bitcoin (BTC<\/a>), also known as digital gold.<\/p>\n Just as the gold rush spurred on banking, financial systems, lending, trading and changes to monetary policy, history is repeating itself with Bitcoin, digital payments, asset tokenization and crypto-politicians. Laws, regulations and culture changed to accommodate gold. They\u2019re now doing the same for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies at large.<\/p>\n The gold rush created wealth \u201cout of thin air,\u201d and Bitcoin is doing the same. With around $2 trillion in market value, those who adopted early and took the most risk are now millionaires (in fact, over 85,000 are confirmed) and, in some cases, billionaires (there are thought to be 17 of them).\u00a0<\/p>\n From the hundreds of thousands that descended on California, those who struck real gold used their newfound wealth to build railroads, telegraph lines and entire towns. Bitcoin\u2019s early success stories used their financial muscle to stake further claims by developing applications, growing infrastructure businesses and nurturing the industry. Michael Saylor founded MicroStrategy, which had rebranded to Strategy. This business intelligence company holds over $48 billion worth of Bitcoin, while Changpeng Zhao founded the world\u2019s biggest crypto exchange and is worth over $57 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recent: <\/strong><\/em>Coinbase, Gemini CEO throws support behind Bitcoin-only US crypto reserve<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Today\u2019s business analysts and market experts should look into the American gold rush, where they\u2019ll find striking similarities. Just as gold mining once attracted workers and investors, Bitcoin attracts institutions, startups, talent, governments and capital inflows. Gold-backed reserves changed global economics and drove gold demand. Will a US strategic Bitcoin reserve<\/a> do the same?<\/p>\n Men started the gold rush with pickaxes and pans and ended it with hydraulic mining equipment. The earliest Bitcoin users mined with their home computers, whereas now there are enormous energy-efficient Bitcoin mining facilities, cutting-edge cooling apparatus and the Lightning Network. Scalability and efficiency have leaped forward.<\/p>\n Beyond instant wealth, infrastructure, monetary policy and economic ripples, there\u2019s monetary sovereignty. Any country that establishes Bitcoin reserves as a hedge against inflation or geopolitical stability takes the future into its own hands. This is identical to gold, which has been used as a reserve for a long time. Since \u201cThe Nixon Shock\u201d in 1971, however, the US dollar has decoupled from gold<\/a>, creating an overdue opportunity for a new resource to fill its large gilded shoes.<\/p>\n Monetary sovereignty is also a major driving force for retail adoption, with Bitcoin offering protection against inflation and government policy through economic decentralization.<\/p>\n Widespread enthusiasm among tech leaders, libertarians, celebrities, businesses and popular political figures has met with years of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) from regulators, skeptics and some of the world\u2019s most prominent investment managers. They say that Bitcoin has no real value, but let it be said that gold is just a shiny, semi-scarce rock.<\/p>\n Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock \u2014 the world\u2019s largest investment company with $10 trillion in assets under management \u2014 once called<\/a> Bitcoin \u201can index of money laundering.\u201d Over the years, he has gone from the messiah of the skeptics to purchasing 2.7% of the global Bitcoin supply<\/a> and publicly stating his belief that it could reach $700,000 per BTC. \u201cAs I became a student of crypto, it was very clear to me that crypto is a currency of fear,\u201d Fink said<\/a>. \u201cBut that\u2019s OK. If you\u2019re frightened of the debasement of your currency or the economic or political stability of your country, you can have an international-based instrument called Bitcoin that can overcome those local fears.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n If Fink can change his mind, so can other skeptics.\u00a0<\/p>\nExploring the historical parallels<\/h2>\n
Broader implications for international finance<\/h2>\n
Addressing skepticism from different audiences<\/h2>\n