In it episode thirty-one Separating Money and State, Iván Gómez talks with Alexandre Laizet, director of Bitcoin strategy at Capital B—the first Bitcoin treasury company in Europe and the third in the world. Laizet defends that the treasurers do not betray the Bitcoin monetary emancipation project, but rather accelerate it.
From his previous career advising half of the largest French companies and more than thirty financial institutions, Laizet articulates a pragmatic vision: instead of fighting the rules of the financial game, he proposes using them to accumulate the most scarce asset in the world. Their ethical argument, illustrated with the Monopoly analogy, maintains that Bitcoin gives people back the ability to save in the face of permanent dilution of state currencies, and that treasuries function as a bridge to adoption—multiplying custodian banks and exposing a hundred million people to Bitcoin via vehicles like Strategy.
The most relevant:
- Capital B’s stated core goal is to increase the number of Bitcoins per share over time.
- He claims that treasurers can multiply Bitcoin’s potential “by 10, by 20” compared to current levels.
- He cites that the dollar has lost an average of ~7% in value annually over the last 100 years, and other currencies two or three times as much.
- He maintains that when he started working with banks there were ~5 notable banks holding Bitcoin, and now there are “tens” — a 10-fold increase.
- It states that via Strategy there are ~100 million people directly or indirectly exposed to Bitcoin.
- It relates the genealogy of the central banks of England, France and Spain as private gold accumulation companies created by the ~100 richest families along with the royal houses.
- He points out that the nationalization of those banks was a 200-year process, and that the US Federal Reserve maintains private roots.
- He estimates that ~70% of Bitcoin is currently in the hands of individuals, and predicts that in 10 years ~70% will be in institutional hands.
- It compares treasury products with monetary funds (that yield 3-5% maximum), positioning them as a superior alternative backed by Bitcoin.
- He explicitly cites Friedrich Hayek’s concept of “currency denationalization” as a framework for what is happening with Strategy, Metaplanet, Strive, and Capital B. He uses the term “reserve institutes” to describe these companies.