6/23/17: ANDY HOFFMAN - IS BITCOIN MONEY? What do YOU think?

Given my role as the Marketing Director of Miles Franklin, one of the nation's oldest, trusted bullion dealers - who has invested in, and publicly commentated on, Precious Metals for 15 years, I think it's safe to say I know a thing or two about "money."

To that end, since first investing in the Precious Metals space in 2002 - since 2011, entirely in physical gold, silver, and to a lesser extent platinum, I have scoured the planet for anything else with similar monetary value. Historically, NOTHING has served that role for more than a few decades - from salt, to wampum, and finally "fiat currency." Yes, there have been thousands of fiat currency regimes over the past millennia, but no single regime has lasted more than a few decades - including the U.S. Continental Dollar and Confederate Dollar. Moreover, if the Civil War has lasted another or year or so, Abe Lincoln's "greenback" would have been lost to hyperinflation as well.

To serve as "money," as asset needs to be fungible, divisible, portable, and scarce; plus, it needs to serve as a universal medium of exchange, and long-term store of value. "Dollars" and other fiat currencies are fungible and divisible, but that's it. And trust me, they are far less "universally" accepted than you think - dollars included.

As for Precious Metals, they have been the best stores of value known to mankind - and yes, they are fungible, divisible, and scarce. However, their "portability" leaves a lot to be desired, and they are not divisible enough to be universal mediums of exchange, despite being more universally accepted than any asset class on the planet. Moreover, whenever governments attempt to commandeer them to back "gold standards" - which won't ever occur again - they abuse them (by covertly selling, leasing, swapping, and over-backing them with fiat) as much as they do fiat standards. In other words, gold and silver are best served as stores of value, not day-to-day, utilitarian money.

This is where crypto-currency comes in - more specifically, Bitcoin. Per the below article, it is rapidly taking on monetary properties, despite having existed for less than a decade.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/bitcoin-money

This, amidst countless "glitches" along the way, and relentless anti-Bitcoin propaganda from everyone from governments, to Precious Metal advocates, opportunistic altcoin holders, and the Bitcoin community itself. To me, it is already a significant store of value; and frankly, assuming the scaling process occurs smoothly, it could reach top tier store of value status - on a par with even Precious Metals - within the next year's time.

This is why I last year deemed Bitcoin and Precious Metals the "twin destroyers of the fiat regime"; and why, given my view that, as I call it, history's largest, most destructive - and for the first time, global - fiat Ponzi scheme is in its terminal, malignant phase, the potential for "PMs" and Bitcoin to surge dramatically in 2018 is extremely high; the former, due to a loss of confidence in fiat currency AND the destruction of the "gold Cartel" suppressing them; and the latter, due to the same loss of confidence in fiat currency AND a growing belief that it will be the utilitarian money of the future.

https://www.milesfranklin.com/precious-metals-and-bitcoin-twin-destroyers-of-the-fiat-regime/

In my very strong view, decentralization is the future of monetary value; in Precious Metals' case, to store wealth over time - as it has successfully done for millennia. And as for Bitcoin, it too can serve that same function, with the additional potential of actually replacing, either wholly or (more likely) partially so, fiat currency as the premier utilitarian transactional currency.

https://www.milesfranklin.com/decentralization-the-future-of-monetary-value/

Only YOU can answer the question of whether Bitcoin is money, as there is no "right answer." However, in time, there may well be a right answer - and either way, assuming the Bitcoin community takes care of itself (by not allowing bad actors to commandeer it), I strongly believe that it won't be too long before said "right answer" is YES!