Evidence register

▼ Against ·EU access through intermediaries now depends on MiCA authorisation (fully applicable since Dec 30, 2024; grandfathering to Jul 1, 2026), and ESMA lists non-compliant entities. Cuts both ways: it also gives legal clarity.

▼ Against ·Exchange risk: Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, pleaded guilty to BSA, unlicensed money-transmitting and sanctions violations, with penalties of $4,316,126,163; its CEO pleaded guilty and resigned (Nov 2023).

▼ Against ·China also banned new crypto mining, ordered existing projects phased out, and listed mining as an 'eliminated' industry (NDRC, Sep 2021).

▼ Against ·After spot-ETF access, bitcoin still fell 53.0% from $124,720.09 (2025-10-05) to $58,585.96 (2026-06-30) on Coinbase.

▼ Against ·Bitcoin fell 83.8% from $19,650.01 (2017-12-16) to $3,183.00 (2018-12-15) on Coinbase.

▼ Against ·Bitcoin's realized volatility was 67.8% annualized over Oct 2016 to Oct 2026, against 18.1% for the S&P 500 (5 years: 50.7% vs 17.0%; 1 year: 42.1% vs 12.7%). Computed from FRED daily closes; log-return stdev × √365 for BTC and × √252 for the S&P 500.

▲ For ·The SEC approved listing and trading of spot bitcoin ETP shares on Jan 10, 2024; the Chair stated the SEC did not approve or endorse bitcoin.

▲ For ·Bitcoin's design states that once a predetermined number of coins is in circulation, the incentive can move entirely to fees and be completely inflation free (design intent).

▼ Against ·Nightly repricing: Host Hotels' comparable RevPAR rose 3.8% in 2025, from $220.84 to $229.24 (nominal, one REIT).

▲ For ·Park Hotels' FY2025 capital expenditures were $296M, 11.6% of $2,541M total revenue and 48.6% of $609M Adjusted EBITDA (arithmetic on 10-K figures).

▲ For ·Host Hotels' FY2025 capex was $644M ($362M renewals and replacements plus $282M return-on-investment), 10.5% of $6,114M total revenue and 36.7% of $1,757M Adjusted EBITDAre (arithmetic on 10-K figures).

▼ Against ·Counterpoint: M2 contracted 4.8% in nominal terms, from $21,788.1B (Mar 2022) to $20,737.4B (Oct 2023). Money-stock growth is policy-dependent, not one-directional.

▼ Against ·Counterpoint: the latest T-bill yield is above inflation. The H.15 3-month bill rate was 3.94% (Sep 2026 average) and 4.04% (Oct 22, 2026), against CPI +3.72% year over year (BLS, single-point snapshot).

▼ Against ·Counterpoint: real 3-month T-bill return was positive from Jan 2023 to Sep 2026, +5.4% (+1.43% a year): +17.9% nominal against CPI +11.9%.

▲ For ·Real 3-month T-bill return over the near-zero-rate era, Jan 2009 to Jan 2022, was −20.2% (−1.72% a year): +6.4% nominal against CPI +33.3%.

▲ For ·Real 3-month T-bill return from Jan 2000 to Sep 2026 was −15.8% (−0.64% a year): the H.15 3-month bill rate compounded monthly (+67.3% nominal) against CPI +98.6%. The H.15 rate is a discount-basis monthly average, so this is an approximation.

▲ For ·U.S. M2 rose 17.3% in four months, from $15,492.8B (Feb 2020) to $18,180.0B (Jun 2020).

▲ For ·Bitcoin's current issuance (3.125 BTC per block, about 0.82% a year at the 10-minute target) is below gold's above-ground stock growth of about 1.8% a year (WGC 10-year average).

▲ For ·Official gold flows are only partly verifiable: WGC estimates 57% of 2025 central-bank buying was unreported.

▲ For ·Gold supply is not fixed: WGC puts below-ground reserves at about 61,000t and resources at about 114,400t.

▲ For ·Gold's effective supply responds to price: 2025 supply was a record 5,002.3t, including 1,404.3t of recycling on top of 3,671.6t of mine output (WGC).

▼ Against ·Gold has a real production cost: the industry's all-in sustaining cost averaged US$1,605/oz in Q3 2025 (+9% y/y), per WGC.

▼ Against ·WGC: average annual growth in gold mine production over the past ten years is less than 1%, and raising output quickly will be challenging.

▼ Against ·WGC estimates the above-ground gold stock at about 222,600 tonnes (end-Q2 2026); about two-thirds was mined since 1950 and almost all of it still exists.

▼ Against ·El Salvador, the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender, amended its Bitcoin Law under a US$1.4 billion IMF program: private-sector acceptance became voluntary, taxes are payable only in U.S. dollars, and government Bitcoin transactions and purchases are confined.

▼ Against ·After U.S. spot-ETF approval, the same ECB authors wrote that 'the fair value of Bitcoin is still zero' and argued that ETF wrapping does not change its fundamentals (an opinion piece using a cash-flow valuation framework).

▼ Against ·Two senior ECB officials argued that Bitcoin transactions are cumbersome, slow and expensive, that it has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions, and that with no cash flow or productive use its valuation rests purely on speculation (an opinion piece).

▼ Against ·In the World Gold Council's 2025 central bank survey, a record 95% of respondents expected official gold reserves to rise over the next 12 months, and 76% expected gold to be a higher share of reserves in five years.

▼ Against ·Central banks bought more than 1,000 tonnes of gold in 2024, about double the prior decade's annual average; at market prices gold reached 20% of global official reserves, passing the euro (16%) as the second-largest reserve asset after the U.S. dollar.

▼ Against ·Short history: the genesis block is dated January 3, 2009, so there are under 18 years of data, against gold's millennia.

▼ Against ·Energy dependence: EIA estimates U.S. crypto mining uses 0.6%–2.3% of U.S. electricity.

▼ Against ·Regulatory tail risk: China declared all crypto transactions illegal in September 2021.

▼ Against ·Supply guarantees depend on software correctness: a 2010 bug created about 184 billion BTC before it was fixed.

▼ Against ·Custodial bitcoin carries platform risk: the SEC charged FTX's founder with defrauding investors and diverting customer funds (Dec 2022).

▼ Against ·Bitcoin's price fell 76.7% from $67,510.06 (2021-11-08) to $15,755.75 (2022-11-21) on Coinbase.

▲ For ·Gold has been subject to confiscation: the 1933 U.S. order required delivery of privately held gold to the Federal Reserve.

▲ For ·Sovereign reserve assets can be frozen: Treasury immobilized the Russian central bank's U.S.-held assets in February 2022.

▲ For ·The Federal Reserve explicitly aims for 2% inflation over the longer run.

▲ For ·U.S. M2 money stock grew about 81x between January 1959 and August 2026.

▲ For ·The U.S. dollar has lost 87.9% of its purchasing power since August 1971 (CPI 40.7 to 336.298, Sep 2026).

▲ For ·Any user running a full node independently verifies every block, including the supply limit, without trusting miners.

▲ For ·All four scheduled halvings occurred at their fixed block heights: 210,000 (2012-11-28), 420,000 (2016-07-09), 630,000 (2020-05-11) and 840,000 (2024-04-20), UTC.

▲ For ·Bitcoin's consensus code caps issuance at 21 million BTC and halves the block subsidy every 210,000 blocks.