Consider this: the CEO of a politically charged asset manager declares that Bitcoin is about to enter its “strongest bull market ever,” and the market barely flinches. That’s exactly what happened when Strive’s Matt Cole sat down with David Lin in late August 2024. The interview was full of the usual macro-optimism—dollar weakness, AI-driven scarcity, a resurgent BTC/gold ratio. But as someone who has spent the last decade chasing the ghost of value in a decentralized void, I’ve learned to distrust clean narratives. A bull market built on three pillars can stand—but only if the ground beneath them is solid. Let’s dig into the foundations.
Context: The Man, the Firm, the Macro Moment
Matt Cole isn’t just any crypto bull. He’s the CEO of Strive, an asset management company co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, the former U.S. presidential candidate known for his anti-ESG stance. Strive positions itself as a “pro-excellence, pro-capitalism” alternative, and its portfolio includes Bitcoin exposure. Cole’s bullishness is therefore not just an opinion—it’s a business alignment. When he says Bitcoin is the best hedge against a weakening dollar, it’s worth asking: is he signaling product positioning, or genuine conviction? I’ve seen this before. In 2017, I audited a privacy coin’s whitepaper and found a logical flaw in their ZK-Snark implementation. The team still launched, and the narrative ran ahead of the code. Context matters.
But the macro backdrop does favor Bitcoin. The U.S. dollar index (DXY) has been under pressure since late 2022, and the Federal Reserve’s pivot to rate cuts looks increasingly likely. The BTC/gold ratio, which measures how many ounces of gold one Bitcoin can buy, has been trending upward—from under 10 ounces in 2020 to over 25 today. Cole’s argument that “the dollar is losing its purchasing power” is not novel, but it is correct. The question is whether Bitcoin captures that devaluation better than gold, real estate, or even equities.
Core: The Three Pillars—Dollar, AI, and the Golden Ratio
Cole’s thesis rests on three distinct narratives. Let’s break each one down with the technical scrutiny they deserve.
First, the dollar weakness narrative. Cole argues that the U.S. national debt and fiscal irresponsibility will continue to erode the dollar’s value, driving investors toward hard assets. This is a well-worn path. Bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million coins makes it the ultimate hard asset in a digital era. But the dollar hasn’t collapsed yet. The DXY is still above 100, and even if the Fed cuts rates, the dollar could strengthen if the rest of the world weakens faster. In my 2020 DeFi yield farming primer, I wrote about how “yield is just interest in disguise.” The same applies here: dollar weakness is a relative concept, not an absolute one. Bitcoin’s price in dollar terms doesn’t automatically rise just because the dollar drops—it depends on where the demand comes from.
Second, the AI scarcity narrative. Cole claims that the rise of AI will create a “massive demand for scarce assets,” and Bitcoin is the most liquid, portable scarce asset. This is a stretch. AI’s primary demand is for compute power, energy, and data—not for digital gold. While AI could increase the need for verifiable, decentralized computation, Bitcoin’s blockchain is not designed for that. The Verifiable Compute Narrative I proposed in 2025 is more suited to newer networks like Ethereum or specialized AI chains. Bitcoin’s role as a settlement layer doesn’t directly benefit from AI demand. The connection is tenuous at best.
Third, the BTC/gold ratio. Cole sees the ratio’s upward trend as a sign that Bitcoin is eating gold’s market share. The ratio has indeed risen from ~10 to ~25 over the last four years, but it’s still below its 2021 peak of ~37. A breakout above that level would be a strong signal. However, gold itself is not standing still. Central banks are buying gold at record levels, and gold’s price hit an all-time high in 2024. If the BTC/gold ratio is rising solely because gold is falling, that’s a different story. So far, gold has risen, and Bitcoin has risen faster. That’s a bullish divergence, but it’s not a guarantee of the “strongest bull market ever.”
Contrarian: The Blind Spots in Cole’s Argument
Every bullish thesis has blind spots, and Cole’s is no exception. Here are three that jump out from my experience writing about crypto markets.
First, the interest rate risk. Cole’s thesis assumes that the dollar will weaken due to fiscal irresponsibility. But what if the Fed is forced to raise rates again due to persistent inflation? A strong dollar would crush Bitcoin’s price, as it did in 2022. The 2022 Terra/LUNA collapse taught me that narrative-driven markets can reverse violently when macro conditions shift. The “AI scarcity” narrative wouldn’t protect Bitcoin from a liquidity crisis.
Second, the competition from gold. Bitcoin may be “digital gold,” but gold is actual gold. It has a 5,000-year track record, no electricity bill, and no regulatory uncertainty. The BTC/gold ratio could reverse if gold experiences a new bull market driven by central bank buying. In 2021, I published a report on NFT cultural anthropology, arguing that NFTs were digital status symbols. The same logic applies to Bitcoin vs. gold: Bitcoin is a status symbol for tech-savvy investors, but gold is a default for every sovereign wealth fund. The winner is not predetermined.
Third, the “AI scarcity” narrative is a distraction. AI doesn’t need Bitcoin. It needs energy, chips, and data. If anything, AI could create a new class of digital assets—like tokenized compute—that compete with Bitcoin for attention. The narrative that AI will drive demand for Bitcoin is a form of “narrative inflation,” where every trendy story is attached to the largest crypto. I fell into this trap myself in 2025 when I proposed the Verifiable Compute Narrative; it took a year of research to realize that the market wasn’t ready. Cole is making the same mistake, but with less rigorous evidence.
Takeaway: The Market’s Next Move
So, is this the strongest bull market ever? Maybe. But the path is narrower than Cole suggests. The dollar weakness argument is the most solid, but it’s already priced in to some extent. The AI scarcity argument is speculative. The BTC/gold ratio is a lagging indicator, not a leading one. What would truly confirm the thesis is a sustained increase in institutional Bitcoin ETF inflows, a drop in the DXY below 100, and a breakout of the BTC/gold ratio above 37. Until then, treat this as a plausible narrative, not a certainty.
Chasing the ghost of value in a decentralized void, I’ve learned that the best trades are the ones where the story is incomplete. A bull market built on three pillars can stand—but only if the ground beneath them is solid. Right now, the ground is shifting. Watch the dollar, not the hype.