저자: Money Talks · 외국인
요약 보기
이 영상은 거시경제 분석가 린 올든의 인터뷰를 바탕으로, 비트코인의 장기 전망과 달러 통화량 증가가 자산에 미치는 영향을 다룹니다. 먼저 Bitwise의 2036년 시나리오 중 비관 사례인 약 13만 달러가 왜 실질적으로 마이너스 수익을 의미할 수 있는지 설명합니다. 통화량이 연 6~7% 늘어나는 환경에서는 명목 수익이 있어도 실질 가치는 줄어든다는 논리입니다. 다음으로 AI 발전으로 해킹 비용이 낮아지면서 공격 위험이 커졌다는 점을 짚고, 비트코인처럼 시스템을 단순하게 유지하는 구조가 상대적으로 유리하다고 분석합니다. 또한 GDP의 약 7%에 해당하는 구조적 재정적자가 배경 압력으로 작용해 자산 가격을 떠받친다고 설명합니다. 이어서 '희석의 법칙'을 소개합니다. 국채 수익률 5%라도 통화량 증가율 6%와 비교하면 실질 수익은 마이너스이며, 과거 2010년대와 코로나 시기 사례도 함께 제시됩니다. 이 과정에서 기업은 저금리 장기 부채로 자사주 매입과 인수를 하는 반면, 청년층과 첫 주택 구매자는 높은 모기지 금리에 직면해 자산 격차가 커지고 있다는 점이 강조됩니다. 마지막으로 스트래티지(MSTR)처럼 비트코인을 대량 보유한 기업의 주가 고점 회복 가능성을 논의하며, 현재 비트코인 가격이 과거 최고가보다 낮은 상황을 짚습니다. 핵심 메시지는 특정 자산보다도 통화량 증가율을 기준으로 자신의 자산이 실질적으로 늘고 있는지 점검해야 한다는 것입니다. 이는 특정 투자 권유가 아닌 분석적 관점의 소개입니다.
다듬은 글
What if Bitcoin's price is $130,000 in 10 years—isn't that a victory, but a disaster? That sounds crazy. Today, Bitcoin is trading near the $77,000 mark. A move to $130,000 would almost double your capital. But one of the sharpest macroeconomic minds in the world says that figure would be a failure.
And the reason has nothing to do with cryptocurrency . It is related to the dollars in your pocket. In this video: first, why $130,000 could mean a Bitcoin crash. Second, can AI destroy Bitcoin? Third, there is a boring force that keeps markets from collapsing. Fourth, the erosion rule, which eats away at your savings and limits your access to buying a home.
And fifth, will the strategy ever be able to return to its former highs? Our guest is Lynn Alden. She is the founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, a macro research firm followed by investors, fund managers and analysts around the world. She wrote "Broken Money," a book about how money really works and why it constantly fails those who hold it.
She is not one of those who creates hype. She is known for her cautious, measured views and changing her mind when the facts change. That's what makes this conversation so interesting . Chapter One: The $130,000 Problem . This week, investment manager Bitwise published its long-term forecast for Bitcoin through 2036.
The headline was bold. Bitwise raised its price target to $1.6 million by 2036. But every such forecast also has a pessimistic scenario. A number in case everything goes wrong. The host of this program laughed at this pessimistic scenario. He said that if Bitcoin reaches only this, then it is dead. Lin could object.
Instead, she did something very few guests do. She agreed, and then explained why. Listen to this . You were coming here, I saw that Bitwise released a report with their pessimistic, base, and optimistic scenarios for Bitcoin for the next 10 years. Did you see this? I didn't know. Their worst-case scenario is about 130,000.
Their base case scenario is over a million. And then—a few million for an optimistic scenario. And I don't know. I laughed a little because I thought: if in 10 years we will only be at the level of 130, then I'm sorry. I don't know. He is dead . I believe that Bitcoin could just as easily go to zero if it were at 130 in 10 years.
Am I looking at this wrong somehow ? I just feel like people can't accept that the number stops growing at some point. Well, I think that would be a very pessimistic scenario, because we just talked about the rate of money supply growth . So, if the money supply grows by 7% per year, yes, that's like a negative return.
Yes, then, in essence, you own something that is stagnant. And this should not be thought of as a dilution of Bitcoin, but as a reduction in its share of global assets in such a scenario. So yes, I agree with you that 130,000 in 10 years—that would be pretty catastrophic. This would mean that something really bad happened from a technical perspective, or the world simply didn't want to have portable, sovereign money.
Perhaps the demand for them was overestimated. And people simply don't need them. Or is it some kind of coordinated attack by multiple governments that creates additional pressure on him over a period of time. So, people say that price doesn't matter, but price is a kind of signal. Absolutely. Yeah, I think the 12 month price doesn't really matter.
I mean , Bitcoin is doing its thing. But the long-term price matters. I think the network is still very small on a global scale. And this smallness contributes to volatility. And this volatility, of course, is an advantage for those who came early. But it is also a significant deterrent for people who use it as short-term savings or, for example, as their only form of money.
And until Bitcoin becomes significantly larger and more widely distributed, we are unlikely to expect this volatility to significantly decrease. So yes, I think if it costs 130,000 in 10 years, it will be a big disappointment. It could just as easily be zero. Think about what Lynn just said . The money supply grows by about 7% per year.
This means that every dollar you hold becomes a slightly smaller fraction of all dollars each year. So an asset that is simply standing still is not really worth anything. He is losing ground. Here is the math. Bitcoin reached a record high of $126,080 in October 2025. Today it is near the $77,000 mark , which is 38% below that high .
If it creeps up to $130,000 over 10 years, that's barely 5% per year from here. Less than the rate of creation of new dollars. In real terms, the owner has been losing ground for a decade. And note the three reasons she gave for this failure. Something is broken in the protocol. The world doesn't want independent money, or governments will attack it together.
Remember the first reason, because now more and more loud voices are claiming that it is already coming true. Chapter two. Could artificial intelligence have broken Bitcoin in the past few weeks? Some prominent figures in the technology field have made a loud statement. Bitcoin is dead. They are going to break it.
It is heading towards zero. Some of these people were Bitcoin investors themselves . One of them once predicted a Bitcoin price of a million dollars. So the host asked Lynn directly , and her answer was unexpected for both parties. See what she says next. regarding Bitcoin. Bitcoin is doing well. It's actually moving sideways, a little below 80, a little above 80.
Um, what's your take on the outlook? Because we saw some influencers last week, Chamath, now Jason is tweeting that he's dead, going to zero—another obituary. Hmm, that's strange considering some of them were investors in the past , or, I mean, it seems Chamat once predicted Bitcoin at a million. Now he says he's going to be broken.
How do you respond to that? Well, I think, as I said before, it's worth clearly formulating the position of your intelligent opponents. I think it's worth giving them credit, because now new information has emerged. That is, in essence, the number of hacks has increased significantly because the cost of hacking is now lower than hiring the best hacker in the world or a top-level specialist.
We, well, like everything else that AI does, it drastically reduces costs, unfortunately, this also applies to hacking. Um, so a lot of things that could have gone unnoticed are now becoming targets of attacks. And you know, when you have irreversible transactions and a public network, I think it's rational that people are a little scared of the possibility of hacking.
Um, you know, I was asked earlier on our recent podcast what I thought about the broader crypto space, and I said, "Well, the more complex the project, the more I would be worried about it." I mean, if anything is going to survive, it's something like Bitcoin, because you're purposefully reducing the attack surface by keeping the system down.
The further you move up the difficulty spectrum, the larger the area for attack, and the more I would worry about this. But I, I can, I can understand the point of view that people are concerned. And I think in the near term, it's, you know, a bigger risk than quantum computers, because quantum computers at least require a large hardware component to make them economically viable.
And these questions still remain: when will humanity reach this point? And there are still very open topics regarding problems that are quite difficult to solve. While AI is already capable of solving previously unsolved mathematical problems, M-hm. theoretically this could happen instantly. It could be something that was thought to be impossible to solve but no one has been able to prove otherwise, such as certain types of cryptography.
I think you could wake up and see a scary headline saying something was partially resolved or something like that . So I think there is some rational risk in the market. But if I were to be more critical, I would say, "Well, first of all , the fact that we're talking about this now is an incentive for them to say these things, isn't it?" So if you make a big statement, people will naturally talk about it, and it works on the principle of "any publicity is good publicity," although I'm not sure that's true, but some people act that way.
So I think sometimes there are incentives to make statements like that. Engagement farming. Engagement farming, yes. And so, I mean, they're just making a splash. So I would separate those who have a certain stance from those who exaggerate their confidence. Well, it's one thing to say, "Hey, I used to think there was a 1% chance of a critical error causing the price to drop, and now it's maybe 3% or something." Someone might change their mind based on new information compared to what was there before, as opposed to someone making a confident prediction: "Oh, it's going to get hacked, or a quantum computer is going to destroy it." "It will drop to zero." Such overly confident statements are usually not...
This is a rare response in the cryptocurrency space. Lin did not shy away from risks. She acknowledged that AI is making hacking attacks cheaper, faster, and more frequent. And she said that in the short term, AI is a bigger threat than quantum computers. Quantum computers require vast new hardware.
And a breakthrough in mathematics can happen overnight. But look at the line she drew. Increasing the probability of a critical error from one to three percent is rational. To declare that Bitcoin will be hacked and its value will decrease—no. And she named the reason for the spread of such opinions.
Attention brings profit. Hunting for audience engagement. Her other argument is even more important. Bitcoin is intentionally made simple. Fewer features mean fewer doors for an attacker. The more complex a crypto project becomes, the more she would worry about it. But here's the thing. Even if Bitcoin survives all the hacker attacks, it still has a lot more to overcome.
A power that most investors never think about. And, according to Lin, it's the most underrated story in the markets today. Chapter three. Boring power. When people are asked what moves the markets, they talk about AI stocks, the Fed, elections , wars—exciting things. So the host asked Lin another question.
What is that boring thing that no one talks about , but which quietly affects everything? Her answer explains why so many predictions of collapse continue to fail. Listen carefully. This is a bit of a strange question, but is there something really boring that's actually moving the markets right now that people are perhaps not paying enough attention to?
That's a good question. I think fiscal dominance and deficits are still not fully understood. I think it's still just a quiet background process. And this constantly confuses the " bears", because the point is not that markets cannot fall. As we talked about, for example , the overestimation of value in the field of AI.
We talked about it. We talked about how gold, you know, obviously, for a while was a bit overvalued. Assets can certainly fall in price, but when you have a structural deficit of 7% of GDP, you have to compare—when you say something will fall, you mean compared to what? I mean that we are in an environment where the economy is constantly working "on warm-up." And the difficulty with why this sounds boring is that nothing changes .
I'm going back to the same phrase I always use: quarter after quarter, year after year—the deficit isn't going away, it's about the same size, it's not going to explode tomorrow, but it's not going to disappear anytime soon. This is a background macroeconomic force that is never the most important event of the week, but, let's say, it is always the fifth strongest pressure factor.
It's always a background process, and I think its power is still underestimated. Fiscal dominance. Sounds like professional jargon. So, here's the simple version. The United States government spends significantly more than it takes in every year, in good times and bad. Lynn estimates this gap at about 7% of GDP.
Structurally, this is the kind of deficit that is usually seen during a recession, but there is no recession and the numbers are piling up. The national debt now exceeds $40 trillion. The interest alone on this debt costs the government over a trillion dollars a year. This money doesn't disappear. They get into the economy, into bank accounts, into companies, and into asset prices.
This is why " bears" (downside players) constantly find themselves trapped. Stocks may fall , gold may fall, but when the government continues to pour money into it at this rate, the real question is the one Lynn raised. Fall compared to what? This brings us to the most practical idea in this entire interview.
A simple rule that will tell you whether your savings are really growing or gradually melting away. Chapter four, the dilution rule. Most people evaluate a savings account or bonds by one metric—the interest rate. 5% sounds good, but Lynn says that number by itself doesn't mean anything. You have to compare it to something else.
And once you see it, you won't be able to unsee it. Here's how she explains it. One topic I raised in my recent report is a kind of dilution factor for Treasury yields. This, this is like a theme that is one way to think about what kind of return on money is appropriate. Yes. And you can apply this to several different assets.
And I define it this way: let's say we take a 10-year Treasury bond with a yield of 5%. M-hm. Well, is that good or bad? It's like, well, okay , the base unit is dollars. M-hm. How fast is the number of dollars growing? What does the dollar supply look like? And now it's about 6% per year. So you get 5 %, but the number of dollars in circulation, using the broad money supply measure here, grows by 6%.
So you get a net blur level of -1%. That is, after a year you have a slightly smaller share of all the dollars. And I mean, you can add to that calculation. You could add treasury bills and other money-like instruments if you wanted, but they would yield roughly similar results. And you can apply this to other countries.
For example, you want to look at Egypt, do you know what their sovereign bond yields are and what's happening with their money supply? You can apply this to different currencies. And actually , the main conclusion is that -1% is not terrible, if you take historical data on Treasury bonds. For example, a very bad time to own Treasury bonds compared to almost everything else was the 2010s because you were paying about 2.5% while the money supply was growing at 7%.
So your net blur level was, you know, -4.5 %, which is pretty terrible. And of course, the worst time was right before the Covid stimulus, as the money supply grew by 40% in 2 years, and you were holding an asset that was yielding almost zero . So, getting 5% with a dilution of 6% is not the worst outcome for bonds.
But the catch, of course, is that you pay tax on the interest. True. This is the core of Lynn's thinking. The question is not how much interest I get. The question is, how quickly do they print more of the currency I'm being paid in ? The broad money supply in the United States is now about 23.4 trillion.
Lynn says it is currently growing at about 6% per year. So a bond with a 5% yield leaves you with a slightly smaller share of all the dollars each year, and that's before taxes. But that was an optimistic scenario. In the 2010s, you were getting about 2.5%, while the money supply was growing by about seven.
And during COVID, the money supply jumped by about 40% in 2 years, while cash brought in almost nothing. Savings have depreciated. So, if investors lose in this game, who wins? The answer is the world's largest companies , and they've been playing it for years. Look. Lee- And this is also the reason for the success of the stock market, because corporations are also participating in this game.
I mean, for example, let's take a random company like Coca-Cola that issued tens of billions of dollars in bonds. Yes. On average, for quite long periods. And you might ask: they've been profitable for almost 100 years in a row, right? Why do they have debts? And because they want it themselves. One of the best strategies in the 2010s and early 2020s was to say: are you willing to lend us money for 10-20 years at 3%?
OK. They say: okay, we'll issue bonds at 3% per annum. Meanwhile, the money supply is eroding at an average annual rate of 7%. They went for this deal. They then invested these funds in share buybacks, acquisitions, or other activities because they had cheap capital. So, those who couldn't make money in the housing market could potentially do so in the stock market.
But this is more of an investment than a solution to a problem for someone who needs it. Lynn's example is perfect. Coca-Cola has been profitable for about 100 years. It doesn't need to borrow, yet it has sold tens of billions of dollars in long-term bonds . Why? Because for such a company, this is the best deal in the world .
Lock funds in for 20 years at 3%, while new dollars are created at a rate of 7% per year. The debt is reduced in real terms on its own. Then use this cheap money to buy back shares or acquire other companies. This largely explains why the stock market continues to rise. Corporations don't just float with the flow of money laundering, they use it.
And Lynn mentioned another group that was trying to take advantage of this—homeowners . But for millions of people, that door is now closed. America now has two economies. One group consists of people who already own homes and assets, many of whom are taking out cheap mortgages taken out many years ago.
Another group is young people, renters, and first-time home buyers trying to enter the market right now. These two groups live in completely different worlds. The host asked Lynn if this gap would ever narrow and cheap mortgages would return. Her answer will be painful for many first-time homebuyers.
Listen to this. It's not just... Obviously, everyone pays taxes, but also people who are looking to buy their first home right now, Yeah. are in one of the worst situations. And it's just... There's this polarization where the economy can feel very different depending on whether you're, say, older and asset-rich, or you've, you know, fixed all your long-term debt, or if you don't have significant assets and you want to make that kind of investment.
You just have two, you know, polarized economies. That's why, for example, the stock market is at record highs while consumer sentiment is still at historically very low levels. This looks like a pretty severe recession from a consumer sentiment perspective. And that's because both of these views are correct to some extent , depending on your place in the market.
And the main difference between...You asked earlier, what fuels the growth of the money supply? In the 70s, the main answer would have been bank lending. Therefore, bank lending shares increase broad money supply relative to base money supply. It was a time of a kind of peak lending. Whereas now bank lending is, let's say, sluggish or average.
It's not that it's very high. But when you have monetized budget deficits, it can increase the money supply , as we saw during COVID. This was a kind of extreme example. And now monetization is low, so this level of money supply growth, as they say, is only 6%. So it's still happening, but it's sustainable because it's fueled by a combination of bank lending and debt repayments.
What do you think are the chances that in the next decade we will see rates as low or close to the lows as mortgage rates at 2.5% in 2021? Do you think we will see this again, or was this a kind of historical low? I expect that this was probably an all-time low. Well, never say never. I can imagine scenarios where we try to test this level again .
But I can certainly assume a higher minimum. I mean, we can go down from here, but still stay at a level that won't reach the previous lows, because that was the peak of the private debt bubble. It happens once in a lifetime. Yes, yes, at least once every few decades, maybe. Well, you know, maybe twice in a lifetime.
But I think when I look into the future, I try not to look too far ahead so that I don't end up in science fiction. So looking beyond the 2030s is about the limit of where I want to go in any macroeconomic topics. I would be surprised if we saw new lows for mortgages or government bonds. Let's look at the numbers.
According to Freddie Mac, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage this week was 7.24%. Lynn is talking about the lows of 2021 , when rates on the same house were around 2.5%. This is almost three times the interest rate. And her prognosis is clear. She calls that 2021 low the peak of the private debt bubble.
Rates may come down, but she would be surprised to see new lows by the 2030s. This is why stock markets can be near record highs and consumer sentiment at recession levels at the same time. Both are true. It all depends on which side of the assets you stand on. So where does Bitcoin and the company that bet everything on it fit into all of this?
This is the last question, and it is the one Lynn answered with her own money. Chapter 5, strategy. Strategy, a company once called MicroStrategy, owns more bitcoin than any other public company. At the peak of the latest rally, investors paid much more for her shares than the Bitcoin she owned was worth.
Stocks hit an all-time high and then fell sharply in a sell-off. So the main question for every strategy advocate is simple. Will stocks ever be able to return to that high? Lin bought and sold these stocks in her own investment portfolio . That's what she said. Are you optimistic about MSTR? I mean, in terms of stocks, do you think we need another bull market to get back to that all-time high that we saw, well, about a year or a year and a half ago?
Well, I think we, I mean you, I think, definitely need a "bull" market to at least potentially get back to that level. I don't think this will happen on its own during a sideways market movement. I mean, it rose almost three times higher than the net asset value. Although some others have obviously soared even higher.
I don't think this is optimal. I think it was overrated. I believe that a price three times higher than the net asset value was too expensive on this scale. I think investors should be careful paying so much. I guess by backing up my words with deeds, I mean that there are different portfolios in my research service , and one of them is called “No Limits” .
And in it, we were reducing MSTR positions at high levels, and recently—not right now, but a few months ago—I bought a little more for the first time in a long time. It's just that after that period of sales, these stocks became interesting to me again. So I'm moderately optimistic on a multi-year perspective, but that's a little different from expecting a price three times the net asset value.
I think it will take a higher Bitcoin price to return to the previous MSTR high. Okay, yes, I agree with you. Yes. This is a very honest answer. Lin called the past peak overestimated. A threefold increase in the value of Bitcoin on the balance sheet at this size was too expensive. She cut the strategy near the top .
And then, after the sale, she bought some for the first time in a long time. Her outlook is moderately optimistic for a few years, but without a bull market and without a rise in the price of Bitcoin, there will be no new highs. Bitcoin is still around $77,000, almost 40% below its record. So the way back lies through Bitcoin itself.
So what do we take away from all this? Lynn Alden's most important idea is not about any particular coin or stock. This is the blur rule. New dollars are created every year. So each of your assets must exceed these rates, otherwise you imperceptibly become poorer. Cash loses . Most bonds lose. Companies and asset owners benefit.
That's why Lynn says that Bitcoin at $130,000 in 10 years will be a failure . Not because the number is small, but because the dollar is constantly depreciating. Bitcoin should grow faster than the money supply. Anything less is effectively zero. If this helped you look at money differently , subscribe and turn on notifications.
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