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LONDON—Is it possible to be exclusively bullish on bitcoin but not a maximalist? That’s the position that Ryan Radloff, CEO of the crypto investment platform CoinShares, found himself in, on Tuesday night.
Joined by Neil Staunton, CEO of liquidity provider Crypton, Radloff laid out his view on the economic strengths of bitcoin during a panel discussion called “Bitcoin Bull Run or Just Mass Adoption?” It was held at crypto exchange Huobi Global’s event in One Canada Square, Canary Wharf.
But Radloff wasn’t just spouting vague bullish proclamations; he actually had something to say.
Radloff explained that he looks at bitcoin’s strength in terms of the spread of the cryptocurrency across the number of people who own it. He argued that it is one of the most widely distributed commodities in the world—not that he particularly sees bitcoin as a commodity—coming not far behind silver.
“If bitcoin can maintain what it did in the first 10 years and sustain the market cap per holder ratio, it will be the most distributed asset in the whole of the human race.”
This argument speaks to the idea that HODLing bitcoin is using it—the store-of-value belief that bitcoin is more akin to gold than something meant to be spent in everyday purchases. The theory goes that second-layer solutions will be used for daily payments—with occasional settlement on the actual bitcoin chain.
At this point, Radloff started waxing lyrical. “Bitcoin is the Holy Grail. A base monetary unit that is disenfranchised from the monetary system is the Holy Grail.”
Staunton seized the moment and dived in, accusing Radloff of being a bitcoin maximalist, which the CoinShares CEO did not take lightly.
In response, he dodged labelling himself with the loaded term, protesting that he was just talking numbers and facts. “Look at Tron and other coins,” he said. “The problem is [that] nobody is building on those apps because nobody cares about the base unit.”
“The other tokens are a race to the bottom, because you want to exchange to bitcoin as soon as possible.”
Nah, not a bitcoin maximalist at all.