Today, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article attempting to discredit Bitcoin amidst the recent US, Canada, and Mexico tariff trade war, because bitcoin’s price has gone down in the wake of the news.
“Bitcoin — touted as a borderless, digital store of value — is down more than 4% over the last 24 hours, after the White House instigated cross-border tariffs,” the article stated. “Cryptocurrencies were once promoted as investments that act independently of stocks, but in fact their moves often resemble outsized versions of broader market swings.”
In the second sentence cited above, the WSJ attempts to diminish bitcoin’s value proposition by pointing out that bitcoin’s price is just correlated with other traditional assets.
What the author of the article doesn’t share, though, is that bitcoin’s price is going to go down, and up, much more so than traditional assets, because it’s incredibly liquid, and it’s easy to buy and sell. But Bitcoin is a distributed network made up of miners, nodes, developers, and users — on a technical level, it is quite different from other assets like stocks, as it has no central party controlling it.
Because of this, bitcoin has been a safe haven for those trying to navigate geopolitical fears. No one can just print more bitcoin out of thin air and inflate the supply, enforce any unwanted network changes overnight, or overthrow and stop the network from running.
But don’t just take my word for it, take Larry Fink’s, the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock. Just a couple of weeks ago, Fink said that he is a true believer in Bitcoin’s value proposition and that if you’re frightened of the geopolitical fears in your country, you can now have an international-based asset that operates completely independently from those tensions.
JUST IN: $11.5 trillion BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says Bitcoin could go up to $700,000 if there is more fear of currency debasement and economic instability.pic.twitter.com/WOXclAsjDP
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) January 22, 2025
Sure, Bitcoin’s price will respond to news and events happening in the short term, causing large price actions to the upside or downside, but cherrypicking data in an attempt to make bitcoin look like it’s a bad investment is just bad reporting and misleading. Bitcoin has been the best performing asset of the last 15 years, and will likely continue to perform well due to its value proposition.
The important point to understand here is that while Bitcoin is a volatile asset reacting to daily events, over the long term, bitcoin’s value proposition is what takes its price higher and higher. For the first time in history, we have money that can not be hyperinflated. Bitcoin also allows people to transact across borders freely, without permission, giving users an escape hatch for anyone whose country is attempting to control them financially.
Forget short term price when it comes to bitcoin as a tool to help navigate geopolitical tensions. Over the long term, Bitcoin’s supply and demand will take the price higher than it is today. Mainstream media articles on Bitcoin have always missed the bigger picture and end up misleading the people who read them. As geopolitical tensions increase, bitcoin is the safest asset you can own.
This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
