And for years the crypto world has debated Bitcoin's true identity.
So is it digital gold or is it an inflation hedge?
Well, our next guest says the narrative isn't just wrong, it's becoming dangerously outdated, saying that Bitcoin has graduated into a global programmable collateral asset.
Well joining us fresh off Bitcoin 2026 in Vegas is Alex Blume, founder & CEO of Two Prime.
Alex, great to have you here and thank you.
Much for joining me here in Miami.
Great to see you outside of New York City.
I know it's great to be outside of the city, but here we are on the ground, and we are here at a time when we are looking at Bitcoin higher above 81,000, but the climate here when we're talking about macro.
So first, for our viewers out there, tell us what you mean when you're saying that Bitcoin is neither digital gold nor an inflation hedge.
So what does it mean by collateral?
Well, I'll say I've been working in Bitcoin for, I think, 12 years now, and I've heard every narrative that it's correlated to M2 liquidity, that it's digital gold, that it is inflation hedge.
All of those things have collapsed and failed, or I've heard it's also correlated to equities, and it kind of has these different features at different times, but in reality none of those things have held up over time.
And so I saw this tweet the other day from a Will Wu, I think it was, and he was saying, oh, we're going to put data centers on the moon and then we're going to mine Bitcoin there and that's going to send it to a million, and I'm just thinking if that's the plan, like we're really in trouble here.
And so I was just thinking about what, what is Bitcoin actually doing and The thing I can see the most is that it's sort of a harbinger or a canary in the coal mine for variable liquidity conditions in the globe, especially empty liquidity in the United States, but it's not directly correlated, but it tends to front run liquidity movements broadly and at the same time, Bitcoin's being used more and more.
We're one of the largest bitcoin lenders, Bitcoin-backed lenders in the world.
Being used more and more as a collateral asset.
People are borrowing dollars against it.
They're running arbitrage trades.
They're shorting it, and so it starts to behave really differently.
And I think that's a big part of it is the user base of Bitcoin has gone from religious zealots to financial people and the way the asset trades is changing as a result.
Yeah, and there are a lot of headlines that come in on a daily basis here.
And even when we're talking about.
Traditional markets, whether we're talking about commodities, the hard assets such as gold, or even oil or the equity markets, we know that things move very quickly and everybody has access to information, so we know what's happening in the Middle East at a moment's notice here.
So give us your take on what the data is actually telling you when it comes to Bitcoin.
Well, I think a few things.
One, I would say, you know, people have access to lots of information, but there's so much that I think there is opportunity because I can't digest everything going on.
And so, and I can get media to tell me everything in the world.
We're winning the Iran war.
We're losing it.
We're all about to die.
We're about to have world peace.
And so I think the information ecosystem is very fractured.
Specifically in Bitcoin, what I see is a couple of things.
One is the preferred equity from strategy is hoovering up Bitcoin in an insane rate, and it's accelerating every month.
Um, I have some questions about the long-term viability of that, but it is a fact that they are buying a lot of Bitcoin and may move the price upwards.
Second, I would say that being at the Bitcoin Vegas conference recently, On the ground, people are looking for new ways to put Bitcoin to work.
For a long time it's been derivative strategies or self-covered calls that is such a crowded trade at this point that I believe I'm hopeful there'll be a short squeeze because implied ball is at rates way below the normal historic levels for Bitcoin, like the 1 percentile of the level it's ever been.
It's in the 20s or 30s today.
It was when I started, it was trading in the 150s.
And then the last thing I'd say is, For DeFi products or things outside of just Bitcoin itself, people are really asking like what's the cash flow of this business?
How do you make money?
Are you sock 1 and 2 certified, things like that.
And I remember I went to a conference in maybe 15 or 16 and I presented a business I was consulting for and showed a deck with a Budget and they go, we've never seen one with a budget before.
It's unbelievable.
And I was like, what kind of industry is this?
But it's really coming to mainstream finance and they expect real answers on these things.
Yeah, and speaking of which, you're joining me as we kick off Consensus 2026 in Miami, Quite a different conference from Bitcoin.
In Vegas.
So I do want to get your take on what we're seeing at this intersection of Trad 5 versus C 5.
We know a lot of announcements are coming down the pike.
Policymakers are here at a time when we're keeping our eyes on hopefully some progress on 30.
So what are you paying attention to and what do you expect?
I see right now sort of this.
Exciting golden moment where Tradfi and DeFi are really starting to converge, and there's this mad scramble to figure out how does regulation work, what is the business model, how do we integrate with normal financial technology rails, and there's probably winners on the Tradfi side and Winners on the DI side and a lot of confused people in the middle, but what I see is this mismatch of tech and regulation and financial expectations that are starting to meet with a lot of opportunity on the DeFI side and a lot of risk and a lot of conservatism and Business is under threat on the, on the Tradfi side.
Yeah, and finally, before I let you go, we are in an interesting environment, as we mentioned, from both the macro side as well as technical side when it comes to Bitcoin.
So what do you focus on as we head into the second half of 2026?
Um, you know, I'm just looking at, can the world settle down to a place where people could put risk on.
I feel like there's such a divergence of where people think the market's going that the net result is just risk off behavior, that people are thinking we're going to resolve this war and we're going to go to the moon.
Other people are saying we're at multiples, we've never seen the entire economy is based on AI, and as soon as that collapses, we're in big trouble.
Amidst instability long term, at least, I feel like Bitcoin is, is the answer, though it may be turbulent in the in the short to medium term.
Well, Alex, always great talking to you.
Thank you so much for joining us here as we kick off consensus in Miami.
Thank you.
Thank you.
