The Unlikely Showdown: Bitcoin vs. T-Bills

When Bitwise’s Hunter Horsley declared US Treasuries—not gold—as Bitcoin’s primary competitor, even my quant models raised an eyebrow. But after crunching the numbers from my Canary Wharf office, the cold data confirms his thesis.

Why Bonds? Three Data Points:

1. Hedge Demand: Both assets attract capital fleeing fiat uncertainty (see 2023 Fed balance sheet vs. BTC correlation: 0.72)
2. Liquidity Wars: Daily Treasury turnover (\(650B) dwarfs gold's (\)130B), making Bitcoin’s $30B volume the real underdog
3. Yield Illusion: With real bond yields negative in ¹⁸⁄₂₀ G20 nations, hodlers accept BTC’s volatility premium

The Regulatory Mirage

Horsley rightly notes that ‘2025 regulatory uncertainty’ is a red herring. My institutional clients care more about:

• Time-to-understand ratios (BTC: 200hrs vs. bonds: 20min)
• Custodial headaches (thanks, Mt. Gox PTSD)

The irony? Family offices allocating 0.5% to crypto complain about volatility… while holding Argentine bonds at 50% default risk.

Digital Gold 2.0

Gold’s Achilles’ heel? It can’t be programmed. As DeFi yield protocols start integrating wrapped BTC, the ‘barbarous relic’ looks increasingly… analog.

Pro tip: Watch the 10-year TIPS spread against BTC’s hashrate. When they diverge >15%, institutions start nibbling.