The thread sparked by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas has revived one of crypto’s oldest debates: whether Bitcoin’s core value proposition has been diluted as institutional intermediaries take the lead. What started as a demonstration of a real-world crypto resource quickly turned into a straight-up argument about whether BTC can be credibly called “devaluation-resistant” while still being highly volatile.
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Balchunas gained weight after Cooper Turley, founder of Coop Records, wrote that crypto feels “in a strange place” since 2017 and that without speculation “it’s hard to see how it can add significant value to people’s lives.” Balchunas’ answer framed Bitcoin less as a product category and more as a set of currency properties.
“Seeing this a lot. My two cents: the novel value of bitcoin is that it’s a user-friendly currency that can be audited and hacked,” wrote Balchunas. “As far as I know nothing has changed about that. However bc the current admin is going along with it, the research part might seem less important, but just wait a few years, that might work well (it already does in many emerging/mkt side countries).. and the reduction is alive, even the dogs know it’s never ending.”
He argued that Bitcoin’s “newness” causes volatility, and that the market price often hijacks the narrative. “Price is a smoke screen that most successful investors have learned to see/ignore,” he added, extending the criticism to traditional markets as well.
The “co-opted” question came up clearly when Balchunas talked to long-term managers who were not comfortable with BTC being reached according to Wall Street papers. His take: the property didn’t change; so did the gatekeepers.
“And for the OGs who feel that the institution has chosen their ‘foreign’ money .. all that has happened is that the consultants have been promoted,” wrote Balchunas. “You went from paying huge fees to SBF only to ‘lose’ your money to Larry Fink et al, who do the same thing (withdraw your btc) but in a much cheaper and safer way. The underlying btc hasn’t changed all the time.”
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That formation did not satisfy critics who see Bitcoin’s volatility as a threat to the “defiant resistance” label. Chicago Future of Finance host Oliver Renick pushed back, arguing that a fiat currency like Bitcoin effectively meets “debasement events” by any practical standard.
“Resisting the downgrade is a big mistake here IMO,” Renick wrote. “If the dollar was as low as btc can be in any given week, the world would be fine, that is, bitcoins volatility happens in the event of a 3x annual devaluation against the dollar where 2% is a big deal. Very bad money.”
Balchunas conceded this point slightly during the time limit: “I think it’s too long but it’s a fair point” but the exchange escalated when Renick questioned the staying power of Bitcoin. “And when it is crushed again against the dollar and gold. Bitcoin may not make its 20th birthday, who knows,” he wrote.
Balchunas responded by pointing to recent performance as evidence that Bitcoin is “set” for big gains, citing “2023 and 2024” and “450%”. Renick’s denial remained categorical: “Again, currency volatility is intolerable.” Balchunas acknowledged that Bitcoin is “too volatile to be a widely circulated currency” and needs “maturity and stability,” but rejected the conclusion that this reduces Bitcoin to only audit resistance.
“So that leaves you with censorship resistance,” Renick wrote, suggesting that the price could be much lower — “maybe a $10k coin” — before Balchunas returned to the original principles: “It can’t stand defamation, the govt can’t clean it up — that’s true even if it’s volatile.”
Balchunas closed by challenging the idea that short windows are empty, comparing the rise of gold “20%” in “2023 + 2024” with the movement of Bitcoin “450%”, and returning to the concept of “small assets”: “it becomes ahead of itself and it falls.”
The thread leaves the usual fault line exposed. For Balchunas, institutional pipelines do not change the properties of Bitcoin, and volatility is a maturity issue that may be accompanied by resistance to long-term dilution. For critics, the revolution is not an outcome, it is a reversal, a collapse of the “money” narrative and the imposition of a short argument against only research.
At press time, BTC traded at $66,207.
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
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