Bitcoin price
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Bitcoin’s price just hit an all-time high at $124,688, pushing its market cap past $2.47 trillion. As Wall Street debates whether it’s a risk-on or risk-off asset, BlackRock says it’s something else entirely.
Before we go any further, let’s get one thing out of the way. Bitcoin is not a currency in the way that the dollar or peso is and it is unlikely to ever become a currency in the way that some advocates imagine it to be, with daily purchases being the global norm. A decentralized means of exchange is a lovely democratic idea, but no government (left or right) seems to prefer a decentralized currency to run its books, which would reduce the government’s power over both monetary and fiscal policy.
A good example is the Great Depression. In 1931, the U.S. experienced of the worst financial crisis in history. But, unlike today, the Fed’s hands were mostly tied. It couldn’t print more dollars to prop up the economy because the currency was linked to gold.
So President Franklin Roosevelt passed Executive Order 6102, later dubbed the “Great Confiscation.” In short, it forced Americans to turn in their gold and sell it to the government at well below market rates.
Banning bitcoin today would be a political walk in the park compared to the Great Confiscation and some measures that other governments have taken in the past, like the way that Argentina briefly restricted citizen bank accounts in 2001. That’s because a smaller percentage of the population owns bitcoin, even today, than owned gold or bank accounts in the previous examples. But that doesn’t mean bitcoin is worthless.
Bitcoin doesn’t compete with paper money. It competes with insurance against paper money. So the real story behind bitcoin’s rise today isn’t the price but how quickly institutions are adopting it and how much it’s grown out of a speculative asset label into something of a “hedge.”
Last month, BlackRock stopped just short of naming bitcoin a risk-off asset, calling it a unique “diversifier.” First, bitcoin has a relatively low correlation with stocks. It has little to no exposure to the macro variables that drive traditional assets. And it’s well positioned for global monetary instability because it’s not tied to any jurisdiction.
Perhaps more interestingly, bitcoin has risen in six out of six major global crises within 60 days since 2020 — more often, and at a much higher rate, than gold.
“In most instances, including with the recent global market sell-off of April 2025, bitcoin has recovered back to its prior level within days or weeks, and in many cases has rallied further as a recognition of the positive potential impact of such disruptive events on bitcoin’s fundamentals begins to predominate,” wrote BlackRock analysts.
So even if bitcoin never becomes a global reserve currency or daily transaction currency, it can still carry a lot of perceived value as a “unique diversifier,” “store of value,” or a digital alternative to gold.
After all, gold is not a legal tender (with few exceptions), you generally don’t buy anything with it. Gold’s industrial and jewelry applications make up just a sliver of demand. Yet private investors, institutions, and central banks still hold $26 trillion worth of it, just in case. And, as we see the price of bitcoin continuing to rise, some may argue that the same dynamic is unfolding with digital gold as well.
