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Sound Assets
Editorial thesis section
  1. 1. Our thesis, stated up front: we believe Bitcoin is the most sound asset humans have ever had access to. This section argues that thesis.
  2. 2. Our holdings: We hold bitcoin as an asset.
  3. 3. We make no price predictions, ever: not for BTC, not for hotels.
  4. 4. BTC has 17.8 years of history (genesis block January 3, 2009 ↗); statistical claims carry that caveat.
  5. 5. No sponsorships from bitcoin-industry companies; if that ever changes, the disclosure goes at the top of the page, not in fine print. Sponsorship policy

Methodology

How the scorecard is scored, where every number comes from, and what we leave out.

Scoring

Each of the 5 assets is scored on each of the 8 criteria on a 1–5 scale (5 very strong, 4 strong, 3 mixed, 2 weak, 1 very weak). Higher = stronger on that criterion. A score is relative across the five assets on that one criterion; it is not a price view. Every cell names its rationale, links at least one public source, and carries the date it was scored. Re-scoring appends a new dated score and logs the change on the errata page.

The criteria measure soundness as a store of value. They do not measure yield or investment return, so a hotel’s cash yield is not scored here. We publish no composite total, because weighting the criteria is an editorial choice that has not been made.

Bitcoin supply: computed, not fetched

The supply schedule is computed from Bitcoin Core’s consensus rules: a 50 BTC initial block subsidy that halves every 210,000 blocks, in integer satoshis (100,000,000 per BTC). Summed over all eras, issuance converges on 20,999,999.9769 BTC, just under the 21,000,000 BTC limit because of rounding. Rules: amount.h ↗, validation.cpp ↗, chainparams.cpp ↗.

HalvingBlock heightBlock time (UTC)Subsidy after
1210,0002012-11-28 15:24 ↗25 BTC
2420,0002016-07-09 16:46 ↗12.5 BTC
3630,0002020-05-11 19:23 ↗6.25 BTC
4840,0002024-04-20 00:09 ↗3.125 BTC

At block 973,150 (chain tip when computed, Oct 25, 2026), the schedule has issued at most 20,103,596.875 BTC. The current subsidy is 3.125 BTC per block, about 164,250 BTC a year (0.82% of issued supply) at the 10-minute target spacing, which actual block times only approximate. The next halving is at block 1,050,000. Block times are from the public mempool.space ↗ API.

Macro series (primary federal sources)

7 series are stored as static files with source, vintage and license note, each downloaded directly from the agency that publishes it: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Reserve Board (H.6 and H.15 via its Data Download Program) and the U.S. Treasury. The 10-year row shows the latest FRED DGS10 print, the same figure the chat and the Fed card use. No agency endorses this site, its thesis or its conclusions.

SeriesSourceVintageLatestLicense
CUSR0000SA0 ↗
Index 1982-84=100, monthly
U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsRetrieved 2026-10-26; latest observation 2026-09-01336.298 (2026-09-01)Public domain, citation requested ↗
CUUR0000SA0 ↗
Index 1982-84=100, monthly
U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsRetrieved 2026-10-26; latest observation 2026-09-01336.94 (2026-09-01)Public domain, citation requested ↗
H6/M2.M ↗
Billions of dollars, monthly (dated to month start)
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, H.6 releaseRetrieved 2026-10-26; latest observation 2026-08-0123342.8 (2026-08-01)Public domain, citation requested ↗
H15/RIFSPFF_N.M ↗
Percent per year, monthly (dated to month start)
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, H.15 release (EFFR administered by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York)Retrieved 2026-10-26; latest observation 2026-09-013.75 (2026-09-01)Public, NY Fed reference-rate terms ↗
H15/RIFSGFSM03_N.M ↗
Percent per year, monthly (dated to month start)
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, H.15 releaseRetrieved 2026-10-26; latest observation 2026-09-013.94 (2026-09-01)Public domain, citation requested ↗
H15/RIFSGFSM03_N.B ↗
Percent per year, business day
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, H.15 releaseRetrieved 2026-10-26; latest observation 2026-10-224.04 (2026-10-22)Public domain, citation requested ↗
FRED DGS10 ↗
Percent, business day
FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (DGS10, from the Fed's H.15 release)Checked 2026-11-02; latest observation 2026-10-294.98 (2026-10-29)Public domain, citation requested ↗

Derived figures used on the scorecard: CPI 40.7 (Aug 1971) to 336.298 (2026-09) = 87.9% loss of purchasing power; M2 $286.6B (Jan 1959) to $23,342.8B (2026-08) = 81.4x; fed funds below CPI year-over-year inflation in 192 of 320 months since January 2000 (fed funds used as a proxy for T-bill yields). CPI is a consumer basket, not the price of any single asset. BLS published no CPI for October 2025, so year-over-year changes are taken against the same calendar month a year earlier, and that month is skipped.

The EFFR is subject to the Terms of Use posted at newyorkfed.org. The New York Fed is not responsible for publication of the EFFR by bungah.io, does not sanction or endorse any particular republication, and has no liability for your use.

Bitcoin and S&P 500 price statistics (drawdowns, volatility) are computed from the Coinbase and S&P Dow Jones Indices series as published on FRED. They are quoted with a link to the series and are not stored here.

What we use, and what we leave out

  • Data: BLS, the Federal Reserve Board, the U.S. Treasury, REIT filings on SEC EDGAR, and the public CBRE and PwC hotel outlooks. Nothing behind a login or sign-up.
  • No price predictions, for Bitcoin or for hotels. Outlook figures from CBRE and PwC are quoted as theirs, with links.
  • Bitcoin has under two decades of history; any statistic about it carries that caveat.
  • Essays and judgments are the author’s. Each is labeled as fact, judgment or speculation.
  • At least one steel-man essay per quarter argues the strongest case against the thesis, published with equal billing alongside the latest essay.

Sources cited in this section

Methodology · Sound Assets · Bungah Capital Intel