Stock Market

Story: Bitcoin vs S&P 500: M2 Money Supply Exposes the Real Gap in Returns

By Dan Saada

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Bitcoin's Real Return Looks Murkier Than the Charts Suggest. Bitcoin bulls love the nominal number. And fair enough — the coin's price appreciation over the…

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S&P 500's Nominal Gains Don't Tell the Whole Story Either. The S&P 500 has posted strong nominal gains over the same stretch.

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What the Divergence Actually Means for Investors. Here's where it gets interesting. Bitcoin and the S&P 500 diverge when you apply the M2…

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Nominal prices lie. That's pretty much the core takeaway when you strip away the raw numbers and run Bitcoin and the S&P 500 through an inflation-adjusted lens tied to M2…

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M2 — the broadest common measure of money in circulation, covering cash, checking deposits, savings accounts, and similar liquid assets — has surged sharply over recent years.

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Bitcoin bulls love the nominal number. And fair enough — the coin's price appreciation over the past several years has been dramatic by any standard measure.

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Bitcoin is often pitched as a hedge against exactly this kind of monetary debasement. The idea is simple: fixed supply against an expanding money supply should, in theory,…

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That doesn't make Bitcoin a bad asset. It probably means the framing needs to be more careful.

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The S&P 500 has posted strong nominal gains over the same stretch. But run those returns through the M2 adjustment and the picture softens considerably.

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Read also: Strategys Bitcoin-Backed Preferred Stock Slides as Strive SATA Gains Ground

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It's a challenge that hits both retail and institutional investors. If the benchmark itself is being measured in a currency that's losing real value, the benchmark's gains are…

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Traditional equities, in that sense, aren't obviously better at preserving real value than the nominal charts suggest. The S&P 500 looks robust on a price chart.

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Here's where it gets interesting. Bitcoin and the S&P 500 diverge when you apply the M2 adjustment — but not necessarily in the direction you'd expect from the usual…

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Monetary policy shapes asset valuations. That's not a controversial claim. But the degree to which it does — and the way it affects different asset classes differently — is…

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The M2 expansion that's happened over recent years is basically unprecedented in modern peacetime history.

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