"There is no example in nature or any engineering where a leak is required for the system to work efficiently. In virtually all cases, any such leak is fatal."— Michael Saylor
How long until your money loses half its value?
"Half-life" is the time it takes for your money to lose half of its purchasing power. The answer depends on the true rate of inflation — not the government's carefully curated CPI figure, but the actual erosion in purchasing power you experience when buying groceries, housing, healthcare, and education.
Every money has some form of supply expansion (though technically, in bitcoin's case it is more accurately described as issuance or perhaps emission). But the nature of that expansion — who benefits, why it happens, and whether it can ever stop — is what separates sound money from broken money.
Gold’s figure. The World Gold Council puts the gold above ground at 219,891 tonnes at the end of 2025, and 2025’s mine output at a record 3,672 tonnes (Metals Focus data). Mining therefore added about 1.7% to the stock in the year, a pace that doubles it in about 41 years. The “2%” often quoted rounds this up. Recycled gold is left out, because it is already part of the stock. The rate barely moves even when the price does: record output in a year of record prices still added only 1.7%, because each year’s mining is small beside everything mined before it. Source: World Gold Council, “Are we running out of gold?” (March 2026).
The critical distinction: Fiat inflation is not some unfortunate event beyond anyone's control, like the weather. It is an intentional, structural mechanism — the silent transfer of economic energy from the people who earned it to the government (who printed it out of thin air - no "work" involved). With gold and Bitcoin, any new supply goes to those who did the work. With fiat, it goes to those who hold the printing press; every dollar they print is a dollar stolen from all existing holders of dollars, including you.
The U.S. dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power since 1900. This isn't misfortune or accident — it's the structural consequence of a monetary system designed to expand. Every dollar printed dilutes the value of every dollar already in your pocket. This is not a bug. It is the mechanism by which governments fund themselves without raising taxes.
The story of this erosion follows a clear pattern: each institutional shift removed a constraint on money creation, and each removal accelerated the leak.
Every money has some form of supply expansion. But the nature of that expansion — who benefits, why it happens, and whether it can be controlled — makes all the difference.
The critical distinction: Fiat inflation is not an unfortunate event beyond anyone's control, like the weather. It is an intentional, structural mechanism — the silent transfer of economic energy from the people who earned it to the government. With gold and Bitcoin, any new supply goes to those who did the work. With fiat, it goes to those who hold the printing press.
The dollar's half-life is compressing. What took decades to halve now takes years. The leak isn't just persistent — it's accelerating. Every "emergency" adds more dollars, every crisis shortens the runway. The purchasing power decay of fiat currency is not cyclical. It is terminal.
Bitcoin's supply issuance, already 95% complete, asymptotically approaches zero , pre-defined. Its half-life trends toward infinity — the first money in human history with this property. Its purchasing power gains are not speculation or luck. They are structural: the predictable consequence of absolute scarcity meeting growing recognition, understanding and adoption.
A note on mining: Both gold and Bitcoin have supply expansion through mining — new units accruing to those who did real physical or computational-brute-force work. But there's a crucial difference. Gold mining is perpetual: about 1.7% per year, forever, with supply responding to price increases. Bitcoin's terminal supply is fixed: the issuance rate halves every four years and will reach zero in the year ~2140. Furthermore, Bitcoin mining is radically open — anyone can participate, even from home, with modest equipment. There is no government involvement, no privileged access, no gatekeepers. The remaining supply goes to participants in an open, global, permissionless network.
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