A succinct but provocative message from crypto chief Jacob King has challenged the prevailing narrative surrounding Bitcoin at a time when the asset’s price has reversed much of its gains in 2025.
King claims that Bitcoin was never intended to function as a store of value or inflation hedgetwo major labels often used to describe Bitcoin in recent years.
The whitepaper never described Bitcoin as digital gold
Bitcoins price decline in recent weeks has revived long-standing questions about what the cryptocurrency was meant to represent. Much of the price rise earlier in the year has now been erased, and the sentiment across the market has shifted to a defensive stance. In light of this, Jacob King released a scathing critique that challenged the main arguments that investors have attached to Bitcoin over the past decade.
King bases his argument in the language of the Bitcoin Whitepaper, which describes a peer-to-peer electronic cash system designed to facilitate direct online payments without intermediaries. He emphasizes that the white paper never discussed Bitcoin as a store of value, an inflation hedge, a geopolitical haven, or any of the characteristics that dominate modern discourse.
In King’s view, high fees, limited throughput and declining real-world usage prompted supporters to adopt new perspectives that kept enthusiasm alive, even if these stories had no connection to what Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s creator, described in 2008.
Satoshi explicitly described Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer system for online payments. The idea of Bitcoin as a form of digital gold was manufactured by maximalists to attract new waves of retailers.
Bitcoin’s recent price crash supports King’s criticism
King’s comments land at a moment when Bitcoin’s price action is plays anything but stability. The leading cryptocurrency has fallen sharply from its 2025 highs, reversing most of the year’s gains and sending shockwaves through the broader market.
The decline led to liquidations, dampened sentiment across major altcoins and raised new doubts about Bitcoin’s defensive qualities during periods of stress.
King’s view of Bitcoin clashes directly with the view of some of the most influential voices in global finance. Michael Saylor has repeatedly described Bitcoin as the superior successor to gold, calling it “digital property”.
Larry Fink of BlackRock took the idea mainstream when he said Bitcoin had become a hedge to overcome and address local fears, a phrase that suggested the asset is maturing into a global store of value.
Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global, has also adopted this point of viewwhich says Bitcoin’s valuation could climb to the $200,000 to $250,000 range if it manages to capture 25% of gold’s market share.
Earlier this year, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell echoed similar sentiment, notes that Bitcoin now functions as a legitimate competitor to gold.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $84,130.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
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