저자: ChamathPalihapitiya · 외국인
요약 보기
결론: 은행 시스템 취약성 논의는 타당하나 비트코인을 그 해법으로 보는 주장은 과장이며, 더 중요한 과제는 부채한도·상업용 부동산 위기 등 실물 리스크다. 달러 패권: 과거 큰 돈 풀기는 승자·패자를 없애려는 시도였고 이는 잘못된 판단이었다고 평가. 달러 패권 강화: 위기 때 각국 중앙은행의 달러 의존도가 오히려 커진다. 연준이 주요 중앙은행과 스왑라인을 열고 유동성 창구를 주간에서 일간으로 바꾼 점을 근거로 듦. 달러 흐름: 위기 때 달러 흐름은 줄지 않고 전 세계 통화 배관 전반으로 분산되며 증가한다. FTX/SEC: FTX가 SEC 승인 직전이었다는 소문이 있었으며, 겐슬러 위원장의 입장이 친(親)FTX에서 반(反)크립토로 급변했다고 평가. 다만 음모론적 해석은 생산적이지 않다고 봄. 비트코인 비판: 전 세계 비트코인 지갑 수(최대 1억 개 가정)는 70억 인구에 비해 적고, 금융 불안 속에서도 비트코인이 35,000달러에 못 미치는 점(당시 약 28,000달러대)을 근거로 실제 헤지 수요가 아니라 소매 단타 중심이라고 주장. 다만 본인은 2011~2012년부터 비트코인 지지자였고 포트폴리오 내 자리는 있다고 봄. 비트코인 맥시 경계: 비트코인에 몰입하면 더 중요한 주제에서 주의가 분산된다고 지적. 실물 리스크: 부채한도 문제가 다가오고 있으며, 상업용 부동산 위기가 진행 중이다. 연준이 금리를 충분히 올리지도, 내리지도 않은 어중간한 상태라는 평가. 이는 대출, 창업, 위험자산 투자에 영향을 준다.
다듬은 글
I'm sorry, the million dollar biology... Bitcoin bet that this is the end of days? I think it's not the end of days, but I think you're conflating a bunch of things together. So, MMT—yes, I am. Yes, in hindsight it was idiotic. In the moment it never quite made sense, but in hindsight it's clearly idiotic, and I think we can properly dispense with that.
But the reason we print so much money is sort of what Friedberg says: we just want a well-functioning society, and the simplest, shortest way to do that is to make sure there aren't any winners and losers anymore. And the most effective way to do that in the markets is with money. Print a bunch of money, and there are no more winners and losers, so everybody can kind of win. Some people may win more, but nobody really ever loses. I think that's the mode we're operating under.
The thing is, I know something unhealthy is in your mouth—you alluded to it. But "no losers" is a more philosophical commentary on capitalism and a bunch of other things, and you're right, I don't think it makes sense. I do think you need winners and losers to really make society function well. But the other part is: does it reinforce or decay U.S. dollar hegemony? I think it actually reinforces it. Practically speaking, look at how dependent other countries are on the U.S. dollar. In times of stress they actually become more dependent, and that has a lot to do with the boring plumbing—the amount of dollars central banks need outside the United States.
So what did you see in a moment of stress? The Fed opened swap lines to all the central banks it works with, its most important operating partners: Europe, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, et cetera. They moved the liquidity window from weekly to daily, and they pounded the swap lines. So most people who take that view are like the boy crying wolf. Maybe at some point somebody will be right, but you're going to lose so much money trying to take a point of view on this topic that it's more practical to just look at dollar flows. And dollar flows go up in moments of stress, not down, and they go up in a distributed manner across the monetary plumbing of the world.
On the other point—there's a rumor going around, I don't know how true it is, that FTX was days away from getting a critical approval from the SEC to further legitimize their U.S. exchange before they went out of business. Gensler had to pivot very hard, from at minimum being very pro-FTX, and there are all kinds of stories about his interrelatedness with Sam and his family, to being very anti-Bitcoin, or anti-crypto in general. That has clearly happened. But look, I think this is a lot of tin-hatting, which I don't think is very productive. If you look at the total number of non-zero Bitcoin wallet addresses in the world—and let's be extremely generous and say it's a hundred million—there are still seven billion people in the world.
So everybody who speaks about the fragility of the U.S. and worldwide banking system is right, and I think that part is quite lucid and unemotional. But every time they try to connect it to Bitcoin they sound like a crazy person, because they're just talking their book. That is exactly the case, by the way, with this kid Nick Carter.
The best example to demonstrate this: in all this chaos, if Bitcoin or crypto assets in general were truly a legitimate off-ramp and salvation from U.S. dollar hegemony, why isn't Bitcoin at least at 35,000 a coin right now? It's barely above 28,000. It really hasn't moved that much. I think the real answer is that most people in Bitcoin are not trying to hedge their existing fiat currency exposure. They're just picking off retail people and day-trading the thing. How else do you explain an asset that is not absolutely ripping in the face of all this terrible news about the financial system?
I think the answer is that it's still a cul-de-sac of users. It's not broadly available, not broadly adoptable, not broadly used. I still believe it's valuable—I was the earliest proponent of Bitcoin, 2011.
Yeah, 2012. So I believe there's a place for it in one's portfolio. But I just think connecting these dots misses the point. The point is much, much bigger than a crypto offering. We have a lot of systemic shocks building up in the system. We have broken a ton of the systems that caused the financial infrastructure in the world to work properly, and we are just starting to uncover how they're broken. So I think we need to focus our energy there and dial down some of the Bitcoin Maxi stuff, because it distracts from a really important set of topics that are more inclusive and actually touch seven billion people.
My point is: put this in the "who cares" bucket and get back to the facts. Friedberg mentioned it: we have a debt-ceiling problem in the offing. Sacks mentioned it: we have a commercial real estate crisis. We just talked about the fact that he didn't raise rates enough, nor did he cut enough, so we're in this weird middle path that Jay Powell is on. Those are the facts on the ground I think we should focus on, because they will have implications for how people can borrow, start businesses, and capitalize risk assets. That's a big problem.
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