A 16-year-old discussion board put up by Bitcoin’s mysterious creator was just lately dusted off to defend the asset’s “digital gold” narrative.
Alex Thorn, head of firmwide analysis at Galaxy Digital, has provide you with an in depth rebuttal to critics who declare Bitcoin has failed as a hedge towards foreign money debasement.
Thorn argues that the true “digital gold” thesis is extra a few basic imaginative and prescient laid out by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010 as a substitute of short-term worth fluctuations.
Satoshi’s 2010 Put up Sheds Gentle on Bitcoin-Gold Comparability
Morning Crypto Report: Europe Leads Ripple USD Exercise on XRP Ledger, Dormant Ethereum Pockets With 6,335x Revenue Fails 1 ETH Deposit, Solana Data $31 Million Weekly ETF Inflows Amid ‘Buoyant’ Sentiment
The “failed” commerce
Since September 2025, Bitcoin has notably decoupled from gold. Thorn admits this divergence has been damaging to sentiment.
card
“Bitcoin’s failure to commerce like gold as a part of ‘the debasement commerce’ since Sep. ‘25 broken its narrative with new entrants,” Thorn wrote on X.
Nevertheless, he contends that the market is complicated “beta” with “fundamentals.”
Satoshi’s thought experiment
Thorn pointed to a seminal put up by Satoshi Nakamoto on the Bitcointalk discussion board, which dates again all the best way to Aug. 27, 2010. It’s dedicated to the intrinsic worth of the then-nascent cryptocurrency.
Satoshi requested readers to think about a “base metallic as scarce as gold” however stripped of all its helpful bodily qualities (boring gray in color, not a great conductor of electrical energy, not significantly sturdy, not helpful for any sensible or decorative objective).
Regardless of these deficiencies, he assigned this metallic “one particular, magical property: may be transported over a communications channel”.
Satoshi concluded that this property alone might monetize the asset.
“If it someway acquired any worth in any respect for no matter motive, then anybody desirous to switch wealth over a protracted distance might purchase some, transmit it, and have the recipient promote it.”
The “magical” delta
In keeping with Thorn, this thought experiment is the “digital gold” thesis in its purest kind.
It describes an asset that mimics gold’s shortage and sturdiness however provides the “magical” utility of immediate, international transferability.
“The delta between bitcoin’s basic gold-like properties and the market pricing it in relation to gold, and the probability that bitcoin will ultimately shut the hole, is the ‘digital gold’ funding thesis,” Thorn defined.
For traders prepared to look previous the latest volatility, this could possibly be a major alternative, based on Thorn.
“And if you happen to consider that the market will ultimately worth bitcoin like gold, that’s your alpha.”
