Bitcoin Is Not Digital Gold, Here's Why

So by this point in time, I think it matters more about who is telling you that Bitcoin is digital gold versus the price of Bitcoin today or tomorrow. I think it matters more in October 2026 where I've said that, uh, yeah, I think it's month 1 of 4, and I will expand on that. But one of the most important things right now is to remember that Bitcoin has no visible founder. You know, there's not a Steve Jobs to stand on stage and tell us what it is and how to use it. And more so than ever, we kind of need that, but we're not going to get it because anyone can step into that orange spotlight. Anyone. And the more powerful they are, Whether it's an institution or even a guru that had terrible calls in the past with like real estate or whatever, Bitcoin is like a gift. It's like a gift to a grifter. So it's important to remember who is saying what and why they're saying it. And also, are they showing you their position if they have all these opinions on Bitcoin? I really don't care about your opinion. Show me your position first, because if I look at Michael Saylor, who some people out there might think is the founder of Bitcoin, but really he just runs Strategy, Bitcoin treasury company, um, but he can show you that position. And so where there's a lot of discussion on mainstream media and podcasts and so forth. Show me your position first, and also, you know, show me some more skin in the game. So I think it's really important to remember that as we go forward in October to the following months, where I think that things could happen more rapidly than ever before in this new era of on-chain finance. Whereas before it was RWA FI, now it's on-chain finance. And that's a signal for you to understand that institutions are here, they're revealing things more on the surface, but you know, the shift has already happened. I've said that a lot on my Substack and other places. I'm Chip Mahoney, this is the Chip Mahoney Show, and you know, I invite you to check out my Substack, link in the description. Where you can get Front Run the Week, trade your email for that. And then also my signals pages, if you want to upgrade to that, that's where it's, uh, you know, a watch list and something that can help you get started in crypto, maybe front run a lot of years. Because, you know, right now this is a new asset class, uh, no more fun and games. Yeah, we're always gonna have memes And distractions in this business, but traditional finance is here. They have the full support of the administration regardless of clarity, and DTCC is doing what they're doing in October as well. So I think it's month 1 of 4. I've said that before to Token Trust Network members, and it's just a way of saying that the shift has already happened. And these next 4 months are really important. So I think Signals is important to grab that if you are new in crypto or even existing crypto, because there have been some real runners on Signals. That's a page on my Substack, and there's a link for you that in the description. So yeah, I'm bothered by a few things, um, particularly with Bitcoin. Mainstream media does what it intends to do, and a lot of times I think that it's what they don't tell you. They don't tell you that you don't have to own one Bitcoin. They don't reveal their positions. They don't Really showing anything other than opinion. I think most people are opinionated investors. They're on the sidelines, but they're going to rush the field in this new stadium, this new economy, when Bitcoin does get to a much higher price. And I've said twice the price, even what used to be a starter home 20 years ago, about $200 grand. There will come a day, I think, when people are like, hey, you see what happened to Bitcoin? No, I don't know what happened. They go to the exchanges to find out. And it's $200,000 and some change. And they're like, how do I get one of those? I've heard about it, how do I get one? Well, that's a setup, you know, it's too late. But that's where I say it could be the new American dream, they just don't know it yet. Previous American dream was mortgage, and there's no American dream today. So Bitcoin is it, however, just not today. Believe it or not, it has to be at a much higher price. It's already a success in my opinion. I've written about that, talked about that before. But I think that it's more important to understand, you know, who is saying what. And if you hear them say that it's digital gold, Yeah, that sounds okay. It's a scarce asset, sure. But I say that tokenized gold is digital gold, and that's important to remember. Tokenized gold like PaxG, which you will find on Signals— most people don't know what that is, but I think that's a nice opportunity. And I think about that more when people do have FOMO. They don't have it today. They're busy with prediction markets. They might be doing fantasy football. They're gambling. There's a lot of gambling going on. That's not good investing. This new asset class, Bitcoin, it's a lot of things, but I say it's capital. You know, Michael Saylor would say it's digital capital. I'd say, well, you know, it's capital. If it went down 50% from And last year we saw that drawdown. Then I think that if it went 50% from here, let's say around $86,000 today as I record this video, somewhere in the 40s, and I'm like, yeah, it's capital. 50% from that into the 20s, it's still capital. Take it down to $1,000 for 1 Bitcoin. And it's still capital. We're not going back to the previous labels. You know, Big TradFi is not going to tell their customers, oh yeah, we said to use it for collateral and we legitimized it even though it was already validated. We put our stamp of approval on it, but now, you know, we're going back to pet rock theory. That's not going to happen. It's too costly to reverse. We're on the Dreamliner, we're on the tarmac, we haven't taken off. And I think that we will take off one day. Bitcoin, crypto is not going to the moon. We need cruising altitude, smooth takeoff, not going back to the previous, uh, airport, new destinations. So it's important to remember who says what and why they say it. And of course, once price goes up, discussions get louder. And those stages get bigger. The orange spotlight expands, and it expands to all sorts of people— celebrities, gurus that should have gone away, but somehow they're back because of the promise of Bitcoin, because it's a success. It's like a boy band that should have gone away years ago, but they're back doing commercials today. They just don't show their faces and they don't do the close-ups. They're older and, you know, Bitcoin, it can make a lot of wrongs seem right. So not a store of value, down 50%. Or more, that's not store of value. Tokenized gold is digital gold. PaxG is something I've talked about on Signals. Signals is something that you can get even on a 7-day look. But if you are looking for something more and you want to front-run this stuff and you like the research, you need that. I'm doing 30 hours a week, been doing that for a long time, certified in DeFi, and I think you do a lot worse. You do a lot worse in crypto. Had some real runners in the last 6, 8 months or so. Leaders in the top 100, 250, and 500 out of the 1,000 into the 500 out of nowhere. But, you know, that's the commitment, that's the capital, that's the infrastructure leading to, let's say, value capture. And what I like to think of as durable value capture, if you can get it. Durable value. Then we see narrative, and then we see price. Sometimes price does pop up, but that's kind of how I want to see in that value capture triangle where we have Bitcoin at one of those intersections. Bitcoin's capital, some other things are capital, and then we have the other point which would be execution layer or contracts, and then there's settlement where things settle. There's a lot of fast blockchains out there, layer 1s, but are they approved by the big guys? They prefer Ethereum, slow as it is, expensive as it is sometimes. That's just where they want to settle. So as that value capture expands, maybe because price does Start to look green and people are like, what's that? It becomes more visible to the room. So it's like my job to make that more visible to you, particularly right now, because in order to front-run things, you've got to kind of see where this is all leading rather than pretend you have a crystal ball. Price doesn't work out on those big-name projects that everyone's talking about, those stages. And then they stop talking about those projects for a minute, double down on some macro conversation they should have no part of. I don't do that. I stick with what I got. And I try to lead you along the right path in order to kind of think of things the way they should. Now, in the next 4 months, I think it's an opportunity I'd say the shift has already happened. I mean, it'd be like an earthquake if you just reveal it all at once. People can't handle that stuff. So month 1 of 4, in my opinion. You know, previous era of finance, let's say SWIFT banking formed in 1973, didn't send out the first message until '77, 4 years later. So in this new economy, this new shift, tokenization, real-world assets, virtually anything on-chain in on-chain finance, not RWA-Fi, not funding-friendly but serious, that I think 4 months instead of 4 years is what I'm saying. I've been saying that for a while. So it's important right now to get aligned. If you're looking for alt season, ALTs in alignment, I think you got to get aligned if you want to be in crypto and you want to survive in crypto. You want to stay in crypto when everybody gets washed out because If they're on the sideline and they're wearing the jersey but their team doesn't win, then they're gonna buy the jersey of the winner and then they're gonna celebrate on the field. But then that's too late because it kind of works out that way. So if Bitcoin does go up and they're thinking, yeah, it's digital gold, I gotta get that digital gold because now it's gonna 5x, man, and if it goes to a million, then I'm gonna be able to afford it all. That's dangerous. Without being invested now in Bitcoin or any other project, then just showing up to try to front-run stuff, you're already too late. And usually people stay way too long at the party, and you know how it goes, the cops show up and everybody gets busted. So you don't want to be that. You want to, you know, go to the pool party early, you know, so you can kind of experience that and have some fun, then get out of there. But you want to survive in crypto, you know, take profit where you can, celebrate small wins, um, and survive, you know, survive what's coming. Because if it's, you know, does get good and prices do go up, Bitcoin goes to all-time highs, if it does go somewhere, as I've said, you know, the price of a starter home 20 years ago, in my opinion, new American dream. If I get one Bitcoin, then I can afford it all. Going to the exchanges for the first time can be very dangerous because those are financial operators. Those are different places these days. So that's where things can look pretty good. You know, Solana could be up at a high number, not on signals, but it could be up at a higher number than some others. Wow, this is the future of Solana. I've heard a lot about it. Charles Schwab says you can have Solana, and it's a topic of conversation on mainstream shows. But TradFi can wrap anything and sell it to you, you know, it's their job to do that. So if, you know, the public is conditioned to buy one even though they're not invested right now, I think they could have sticker shocks. What I'm saying, FOMO into something like Solana, FOMO into something like ICT. And just stay too long because it's like this false reward for nothing, um, invested. You know, it's fair-weather fan in crypto, and that's not going to work. So I warn against that stuff because that's kind of how I think things might happen. So If they don't tell you that you don't have to own one, you could just do this. And if they don't reveal their positions, and if they continue with the digital gold narrative and they don't tell you what tokenized gold is or what the digital dollar is or anything that might be useful, then, you know, I think with Substack and what you can get from me, even checking out Alan, my alignment engine, just can help you Go in the right direction. More signal, less noise. Because ultimately, I think that it would make sense for what TradFi doesn't talk about, what institutions don't talk about much, but they're heavily involved with. Now, if it's a new shift, if it's a new economy— I've given the stadium analogy so many times on my Substack that people are probably like, yeah, dude, we get it. Dreamliner, the new stadium, Highmark Stadium. You might have seen my writing before, but the names on the stadium matter. The commitment, that $2 billion or so. What happens when people are overleveraged? They get liquidated. They need products to help them and kind of rescue them. So if that does happen, they're too late at the party. Sticker shock going into alts that have already run, staying too long, maybe leveraged. Somebody does need to rescue them. So that's why I would think if I were, you know, big TradFi and trying to do that to people, I'd be like, yeah, let them get overleveraged and we'll rescue them because we're the good guys, get them in credit debt, and then we'll take collateral on that credit debt. How much Bitcoin you got? Well, I got this. And how about this one? No, no, no, we're not taking this one. Have you got any XRP? And that's what I'm saying. I think that's important to remember. So as I leave you today in this episode here, um, Bitcoin is capital. It's a— you know, other things, yeah, it could be a store of value at some point, maybe. It's kind of like digital gold, maybe because of the scarcity, but tokenized gold is more digital gold than Bitcoin. PaxG is important. I would recommend at least looking into that because when people only have heard about Bitcoin and maybe a few others like Solana, but they don't know what it is, don't know what it does, they've just heard that. They certainly haven't heard about PaxG. And of course there's Tether, but that's not something I have on Signals. They won't know about that opportunity. They won't know how to maybe trim profits, take profits, and go into something like that, or maybe USDC and work with that, um, with, uh, you know, a bot or something that I've covered before plenty of times. So it's surviving this, it's understanding what Bitcoin is, and you know who you're hearing it from, what's their position. Show me your position before You give me your opinion. It's good to have some Bitcoin. It's good to be invested in crypto. If you need a watch list, it's there for you. Link in the description. Appreciate you checking out the episode today. I'll have more for you. But, uh, you know, again, who is telling you that it's digital gold? You know, there's no Steve Jobs to stand on stage and defend the position, say, this is what it is, this is what I'm doing with it because I made this, and so on and so forth. Anyone can step in that orange spotlight, and as Bitcoin gets to a higher price, more people will. Consider that and consider everything that I've offered to you today. Links in the description. I'll see you next time. Thanks for being here.