Leading economist on why Bitcoin’s biggest risk isn’t regulation, with Garrick Hileman

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Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️

“Everyone has a boss. The central bank’s boss is a devil known as inflation. When inflation is tame, they can tune the economy and bail out the system. But when price pressure stays steady, the central bank gets constrained. That’s the environment crypto sits in today.”

That’s Garrick Hileman, one of the few Bitcoin advocates who’s deeply skeptical about what Bitcoin will actually become.

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About Garrick: Ranked as one of the 100-most influential economists in the UK and Ireland. For over a decade, Garrick Hileman has occupied a unique position in crypto. He was publishing research on Bitcoin in 2013 (pseudonymously, to appease his PhD supervisors). He authored University of Cambridge’s first major crypto benchmark study in 2017. He was Head of Research Blockchain.com and was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. He studied under economic historians such as Niall Ferguson.

In short: He’s seen crypto from the very beginning. And now, he’s warning us about something uncomfortable.

Bitcoin won’t be money. It might be digital gold. And if institutions keep accumulating it, it could become neither.

“I am one of the only Bitcoiners who consistently rails against ‘Hyper-Bitcoinization.’ People only think one chess move ahead. A dollar collapse wouldn’t just make Bitcoin go up; it would trigger a government response so catastrophic and restrictive that you might not like the exit you’re running toward. You want the frog to boil slowly in the kettle, not a crisis-driven rush.”

In our conversation, we dive into why Bitcoin isn’t “money” by traditional definitions, why the AI bubble might be the biggest threat to your portfolio, and why the massive concentration of Bitcoin in the hands of Wall Street institutions like BlackRock might actually break the “cypherpunk” dream.

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🎧 Jump to the best parts

* (02:25) → The central bank’s boss: Why inflation is the only thing that can stop the money printer and what that means for asset markets.

* (05:16) → Dollar dominance, stablecoins and payments in the context of financial history

* (11:45) → Is Bitcoin money? Garrick explains why his students are always split 50/50 on this question and why Bitcoin currently fails the “Unit of Account” test.

* (18:10) → The hyper-Bitcoinization fallacy: Why a dollar collapse would be bad for Bitcoin

* (21:40) → The biggest systemic risk: Why the real risk to the economy isn’t a bank run, but ChatGPT-6 “underwhelming” the markets.

* (27:04) → Why CBDC’s failed vs private stablecoins

* (38:05) → Corporate blockchains vs open blockchains

* (46:15) → The Wall Street concentration risk: What happens to Bitcoin’s soul when BlackRock and Michael Saylor own more than Satoshi?

Important Links

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hileman

* X: https://x.com/GarrickHileman

* Website: https://www.garrickhileman.com/

* ITIF: https://itif.org/person/garrick-hileman/

* Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0SuZhjwAAAAJ&hl=en

* RePEc: https://ideas.repec.org/e/phi155.html

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My biggest takeaways from this conversation & who to bet on: