Gold has been a reliable store of value because of its scarcity and historically low annual supply growth of only 1-2%/year. There has never been a “gold hyperinflation.” Indeed, gold has held its value over the centuries, while hundreds of other monies have come and gone.

However, gold’s supply is not impervious to its demand. If, hypothetically, gold went to $100,000/oz tomorrow (up more than 50x overnight), we can be sure enormous resources would immediately shift to gold mining, and the miners would find some way, somehow, to accelerate its supply growth, driving its value down.

In contrast, there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s annual supply growth, which asymptotically approaches zero over time, is now down to about 1%, on par with the historical annual growth in the supply of gold. While far from perfect, gold is Bitcoin’s closest real-world analogy.

However, the ultimate supply of Bitcoin is fundamentally limited by the design of the protocol itself and cannot be increased regardless of its value or the level of demand. Bitcoin is the first store of value in history for which its supply is entirely unaffected by increased demand. From this perspective, Bitcoin is better at being gold than gold – it’s even more salable across time.