Conversation

SBF
@SBF_FTX
OK time to rant about prices and market cap. 1) What is up with this 'only 21m people can own 1 BTC' meme? You could equally say '10^15 people can each own 1 SAT'.
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
2) We could use BTC, 100 BTC, or 0.0001 BTC as units, and it doesn't change fundamentals. Stocks split all the time; everyone ends up with 2x as many shares each worth 1/2 as much. It has no real impact other than making it easier to type the price in a table with other stocks.
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
3) It's true BTC isn't inflationary but USD inflation is only a few % and you get interest. So you can either hold BTC in a wallet or get paid a few % to buy USD govt bonds.
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
4) It's market cap that matters, not price or supply on their own. The real question is what's worth more: a) All BTC b) 2% of all gold c) 10% of Canada's GDP d) Mastercard e) Jeff Bezos f) 20% of money US spent on food in 2019 All of those are valued at ~$150b (+-50%)
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David Ex Machina
@DavidGibbons
Replying to
@SBF_FTX
and
@SBF_Alameda
No economy on Earth measures the market cap of their currency. It's a useless metric for currency - co-opted from capital and equity markets where it has meaning. Currency markets, or economies, are measured in GDP. Monetary quanta are meaningless to macro-economics.
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
Replying to
@DavidGibbons
Yeah, true, to some extent it's not clear exactly what BTC is--is it a currency? A commodity? But I don't think that GDP refers to currencies--it refers to countries, which often line up with currencies. But BTC isn't tied to a country.
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SBF
@SBF_FTX
Replying to
@DavidGibbons
Agreed it has less of a cap but I don't think that's the important part of a commodity for pricing purposes, I think it has more to do with the intrinsic uses. And right now the intrinsic uses of gold are tiny compared to the valuation it gets from being a collector's good.
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