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I Was Wrong About Gold (and Bitcoin)

I Was Wrong About Gold (and Bitcoin)

James Altucher

Posted May 09, 2025

James Altucher

“Gold is a rock. A shiny rock. That’s it.”

“It’s not scarce. It’s just heavy and useless.”

“I can’t buy coffee with gold. I can’t email gold. I can’t even see the gold I supposedly own in ETFs.”

These are all things I’ve said about gold in the past. I don’t usually get a lot of love from gold bugs.

As you probably know…

I’ve been a long-time advocate for Bitcoin over gold, arguing that Bitcoin has:

→ Greater portability

→ Absolute scarcity (21 million cap)

→ Built-in programmability

→ No need for vaults, guards, or middlemen

BUT…

Now that someone’s putting real, physical gold onto Bitcoin’s blockchain… I’m intrigued.

Why? Because it fixes gold’s flaws by using Bitcoin’s strengths.

You get the cultural and historical trust of gold…

With the digital, decentralized, programmable nature of Bitcoin…

And none of the 9–5 trading windows, ETF fees, or broker middlemen.

Meet the Bitcoin Matador

This is exactly what my friend, Sunny Ray, founder of Matador, is doing.

And it’s not a gimmick.

They’ve partnered with the Royal Canadian Mint. They’ve already bought 64 BTC. And they want to be the MicroStrategy of Canada.

Why gold, though?

Here's a stat that blew my mind: Indian women own more gold than the U.S. government.

People around the world still love gold. That’s not going away. It’s a real-world cultural trend.

Matador’s mission became obvious: digitize the oldest money in the world (gold) using the newest (Bitcoin).

Here's what they’re doing:

  1. They take 1kg of gold and break it into 1g pieces called “Grammys” (yes, like the awards).
  1. They laser-etch each piece with unique serial numbers and crypto-native art by “Doomsday,” a legendary digital artist.
  1. They take that same image+serial and inscribe it onto a SAT, or the smallest unit of Bitcoin.
  1. That SAT becomes a digital mirror of the physical gold.

You can buy it. Sell it. Trade it 24/7. And even redeem the gold to your house.

They call it “printable gold art.”

And because you’re buying art linked to real gold, not a “security,” they’ve found a clever regulatory edge.

But this isn’t just about gold.

It’s a sneak peek at a much bigger wave…

The $1.4 Quadrillion Opportunity

There’s $1.4 quadrillion in financial assets in the world.

That’s everything: stocks, bonds, real estate, debt, gold, you name it.

And almost none of it trades 24/7.

Almost none of it is divisible, global, or frictionless.

Almost all of it is locked in walled gardens—brokerages, jurisdictions, regulations, and outdated systems.

Tokenization changes that. It's the biggest use case for crypto that nobody is paying attention to yet.

And while most people still think crypto means “dog coins” and scams, BlackRock is already tokenizing Treasury bills, real estate, and soon... everything else.

  • Treasury Secretary Larry Fink called it a $10 trillion opportunity.
  • Kraken is rolling out stock trading.
  • Tether is quietly buying up billions in Treasuries.
  • Small-cap companies are pivoting to Solana strategies like it’s 2021 again.
  • Matador is going straight for gold and silver.

Even Trump (love him or hate him) is reportedly eyeing 1 million BTC for strategic reserves.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: crypto’s final form isn’t some new Ponzi. It’s Wall Street, rebuilt.

And tokenization is the door.

So… What’s Next?

I asked Sunny what else might be coming. What gets tokenized after gold?

His answer is what I also suspected: everything.

But Matador’s focus right now is on precious metals—silver, copper, maybe even digitized mines.

I told Sunny he should build a platform to let anyone tokenize anything—your house, your Rolex, your baseball card collection.

His response?

“We’re already building it.”

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