Gold’s annualized 18.3% gain since 2020 compares with 6.5% for M2, while Bitcoin’s 43.1% in that window is more than double gold’s pace.
Strive CEO Matt Cole argues that gold and Bitcoin can continue to outperform the dollar as expanding money supply and rising debt erode its purchasing power.
His October 2026 thesis puts less weight on borrowing costs and more on Strive’s ability to amplify its Bitcoin exposure without taking on risks that could undermine the strategy.
Cole Says Scarce Assets Have Outpaced Money Supply Growth
In a post on X, Cole compared gold’s annualized growth with that of the US M2 money supply, a measure that includes cash, checking deposits and other liquid money.
Gold returned 9.0% annually since 1970, against 6.7% for M2, according to his figures. The gap widened in more recent periods: since the 2008 global financial crisis, gold returned 9.5% against 6.3% for M2, while since the COVID-19 period began in 2020, gold gained 18.3% annually against 6.5% for M2.
Bitcoin’s annualized return since 2020 was 43.13% in the same comparison. Cole described the cryptocurrency as “digital gold” and a superior store of value, adding that he expects it to outperform gold as it matures.
Looking at the market, the OG cryptocurrency was trading close to $83,000 at the time of writing, up by over 1% in the last 24 hours after oscillating within a range of roughly $80,700 to $82,800.
However, a seven-day loss of almost 2% sits against a 30-day gain of a similar size, and the price is down nearly 23% from a year ago and about 34% below its all-time high of over $126,000, CoinGecko data shows. Bitcoin also faces the Fed’s October 27 and 28 meeting, with preliminary one-year inflation expectations in the University of Michigan survey at 4.7%, up from 4.6%.
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Strive’s Bitcoin Stack and a Test for Treasury Firms
Strive disclosed on October 13 that it had bought 3,311 BTC in a week, bringing its holding to 32,773 BTC. Then on October 14, the firm added another 2,822 BTC to take its stash to 35,595 BTC, worth about $2.9 billion at the current price.
But sentiment toward treasury companies is being tested elsewhere. MSCI finalized rules last week that could remove Strategy from its major indexes, and the stock fell from a Thursday peak above $151 to below $137 at Friday’s close.
Cole’s broader premise is that monetary debasement will continue as the debt crisis worsens. He wrote that the outperformance of scarce assets could accelerate against the dollar rather than slow, although that remains his investment thesis, not a guaranteed outcome.
For Strive, he argued, the practical challenge is maintaining a high “Amplification Ratio,” or the degree to which the company’s structure can magnify Bitcoin performance, without exposing the business to a damaging financial setback.
He believes investors place too much emphasis on the cost of capital and traditional fiat cash flows, while overlooking the company’s ability to sustain that amplification with liquidity.
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