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[music] Hey there, I'm Scott Mlan. This is Counting the Cost on Aljazeera, your look at the world of business [music] and economics. Called the digital gold and seen as a hedge against uncertainty. [music] Yet, Bitcoin has lost around half its value since its peak. Will the slide continue or is cryptocurrency [music] really just a store of value? Institutional money is moving in. Politicians [music] are embracing the tokens, but they are also being used by sanctioned states and in political financing. Is crypto becoming a parallel financial system? [music] And can regulators keep up? And is cryptocurrency actually worth the investment? We will put that question [music] to the test.
Bigger than expected, harder to dismiss, the cryptocurrency market is now worth more than $2 trillion. Yet, Bitcoin has lost more than half its value since prices hit their peak in October 2025. Despite repeated boom and bust cycles, institutional investors are pouring billions into the digital assets. Traditional banks are embracing them. Politicians are becoming some of their biggest champions and beneficiaries, and governments are racing to write the rules. But cryptocurrency is also becoming a tool for political interference and for sanctioned states seeking to move money beyond the traditional financial system. As the tokens move further into the mainstream, is regulation keeping pace? Fitton Monahan reports. >> [applause] >>
When Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, he pledged to make the United States the world leader in digital finance. >> I promised to make America the Bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet, and we're taking historic action to deliver on that promise. >> Thank you very much, everybody. >> True to his word, Trump has loosened regulations and signed legislation aimed at boosting consumer confidence in digital assets. He set up a US strategic Bitcoin reserve and hosted events at the White House promoting the crypto industry. At the same time, his own companies have made huge profits. World Liberty Financials crypto trading made him more than $500 million in 2025. Trump insists there's no conflict of interest and that his business affairs are in a blind trust administered by his sons. Well, I've made a lot of money before I became president and they invest my money and I don't talk to them. I never I don't even speak to them. So, I have many people I don't know what they call closed accounts or something. You put your money in and that's it. I don't talk to him. >>
Trump isn't the only politician to come under scrutiny. Argentina's president Javier Mille and UK Reform Party leader Nigel Farage are both big boosters of digital currencies and both were accused of corruption linked to the industry. There's also concerns over how digital assets are being used. Analysts say Russia, Iran, and North Korea have been able to evade sanctions by using digital currencies to buy weapons and make transactions outside of established banking systems. Despite the challenges, adoption of digital currencies is growing. Central banks in more than 70 countries are seriously exploring the possibility of issuing their own digital currencies. Most countries allow citizens to trade in cryptocurrency with only a small number that ban it, including China and Katar. In 2021, El Salvador even made Bitcoin legal tender. But they ended up rolling it back in 2024 under pressure from the International Monetary Fund. But although crypto trading is becoming widespread, it's still not widely used as a means of payment. It's used in less than 1% of international trade settlements. Digital assets are on the rise and are gaining increasingly influential backers. But the spotlight is also bringing more scrutiny over how they're used and how they're regulated to serve the public interest. Vincent Mahan Aljazeera for Counting the Cost.
When we talk about cryptocurrencies and digital currencies, they're not all the same. There are reasons some are considered more stable and more viable than others. Take Bitcoin for example. One reason it's considered valuable is that there is a limited supply. Only a certain number are created and enter the market in any given year. But some digital tokens are not limited in this way. Whoever issues them can add more whenever they want. Many of these become novelty items like meme coins. Their price can rise and fall very sharply. Then there's the so-called stable coins. These are tied to a traditional currency like the US dollar. Because they're pegged this way, their value is supposed to hold steady. Let's take a look at how cryptocurrencies work and what makes them different to conventional money. >>
Every day we buy and sell [music] things using currencies like the US dollar, the UK pound sterling or the Chinese yuan. These are called fiat currencies. They're issued by central banks and backed by governments. Their value is linked to [music] confidence in the strength of the national economy. Cryptocurrencies are different. They're digital assets that [music] exist outside of traditional banking networks. Transactions are recorded using a technology called blockchain across a decentralized [music] computer network. Promoters say it offers many advantages. Many cryptocurrencies can be traded quickly and cheaply across international borders. They operate independently of governments and central banks and transactions can be made anonymously. and they're seen as an alternative way to store value alongside conventional assets like gold or traditional currencies. But there are drawbacks. Most cryptocurrencies are worth whatever people are willing to pay for them, and that can lead to big swings in prices. This is a big reason why they still aren't widely used as a means of payment. In 2021, the Tesla car company said it would begin accepting Bitcoin payments, but it stopped just a few months later. But digital currency is expanding into conventional finance. Many central banks are developing digital versions of their own fiat currencies, bringing digital payments into the traditional financial system.
All right, let's unpack this more with our guest. We're joined by James Butterfell. He's the head of research at Coin Shares. He's in London. In Durham, North Carolina, we're joined by Lee Riners. He's a lecturing fellow at Duke University and he's also a former Federal Reserve economist. And in Denver, Colorado, we're joined by Timothy Msad. He is the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or the CFTC. He is also a research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. We have a very smart panel today, gentlemen. Uh James, we'll start with you. I want to ask you about, you might call it the gold standard of the cryptocurrency world. Of course, we are talking about Bitcoin. Bitcoin hit its peak in October of last year. It it reached $126,000 for one single Bitcoin. Yet since then, it's come down to around by about 50%. Help me understand why have we seen such a huge drop in the value of Bitcoin? >>
Yeah, it's interesting. You compare it to gold in some respects. It is this asset that is of very fixed supply, potentially the the hardest asset that we know of in that respect. Um, it's sensitive to many things. Um, and because it is that sort of hard asset, that store of value, um, it's uh sensitive to monetary policy action. And we've [snorts] seen the Fed become much more hawkish in um excuse me, in recent uh in over the last year, and that's really weighed on the price. There's also something else going on. Whales, they're very large holders of Bitcoin, uh, have been selling Bitcoin in this belief in the four-year cycle, and we've seen around $39 billion of selling since October. They've now stopped selling, but that certainly had a massive impact on price. What differentiates it though from gold? I think it's like a store of value, but with a growth element to it in the respect that it's it's likely to grow as the internet grows. That's something that's different to gold in that respect. So it is vulnerable to these big corrections occasionally. >>
Okay, that's an interesting point. Lee, in your view, what is the value of Bitcoin based on? Because if you look at a company, of course, you can look at profit and loss, you can look at assets, the balance sheet. You kind of have an idea more or less of what a company is going to make, what it might be worth. What is it worth for Bitcoin? Well, I mean, at the end of the day, it's worth whatever people are willing to to pay for it, which as you noted at the top is a lot less than it was back in October. I mean, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fundamental challenge has always been one of valuation. You know, any investor when they make a decision to either buy or sell an asset, they have to come to a a determination whether or not the asset is currently undervalued or overvalued given its its market price. And they typically do that by projecting a stream of future earnings, right? Future cash flows and then discounting those to present time. Well, of course, as you noted, that doesn't work with Bitcoin because there's no earnings, right? It doesn't generate cash flow. There's no legal entity. It's just code. And that means the asset is really subject to, you know, psychological whims and is, you know, relying on narrative uh to sort of drive new people to to enter the market to buy it to to push the price up. You know, as James said, for a long time, the narrative was that, well, Bitcoin is digital gold because there always going to be, you know, only 21 million coins will ever be circulated, just like there's a fixed supply of gold. Well, that narrative was blown out of the water, you know, a few years ago when inflation reared its ugly head and and um, you know, gold went up and Bitcoin went down. You know, then it's pivoted to, oh, web 3 and in the metaverse, we're all going to be using crypto. Of course, no one talks about that anymore. Uh, you know, then Donald Trump came back into office and certainly that is responsible, I think, for a large uh portion of the runup, you know, to 125,000. Uh, and certainly he's implemented a number of policies that are favorable to the crypto industry. Um, but that sort of supply of things he can do has been exhausted. And so they sort of run out of narratives to drive the price up. And the final thing I'll note is that, >> you know, Bitcoin is not the shiny new thing on the block anymore, right? For investors that have an appetite to speculate, there are a lot of newer uh asset classes that seem to be more appealing at the moment. AI obviously is the most notable, but we also have prediction markets and things like that. So keep in mind the first Bitcoin transaction was 2009, right? So this is not a new asset and I think by and large sort of the retail investor community has sort of moved on uh to other things. >>
Tim, whether you agree with it or not, some people do see Bitcoin as a kind of store of value. And if you look at Bitcoin over the last 5 years, if you bought Bitcoin 5 years ago, well, you would have been up 87%. Inflation in that time is up 24%. So if you look at it in this way, both are up up by more uh Bitcoin. So in that way, you're doing pretty well. But I just wonder if you'll humor me for a second here. If you price Bitcoin in gold, if you look at 5 years ago, it would have taken you 18 ounces of gold to buy one single Bitcoin. Fast forward to today, it is actually getting cheaper to buy Bitcoin if you price it in gold. It only takes 15 ounces of gold. So Tim, I wonder does this kind of show that gold is still really, hate to use the pun, but the gold standard in holding value? >> Well, I'm no expert on gold. I guess what I would say is, you know, when people talk about something being a store of value. Traditionally, that meant that you could put your money there and it would in fact not decline in value over time. people started using that phrase for Bitcoin when it wasn't declining. I think a lot of investors who bought Bitcoin at the peak and have now suffered these 50% losses wouldn't say it's a store of value anymore. And I agree with a lot of what Lee said. You know, a lot of the speculative interest in Bitcoin has moved to the prediction markets. I think a lot of people have realized it's not going to ever be a good means of payment. uh stable coins might be, but Bitcoin won't be. And we have had, you know, the most pro-crypto president behind it. So, it had it's had these tailwinds uh and they've done a lot of things like stop bringing enforcement actions, uh change the policy, and yet we're seeing this decline. Um, so, you know, to me, sure, people will continue to hold it. it might go back up, but I think a lot of interest uh that was there before has has declined. >>
And a lot of the value of this ultimately comes down to regulation and what our political leaders think about it. And we brought up a tweet from 2019, the president of the free world at the time, Donald Trump, said he is not a fan of Bitcoin. And he says the value is based on thin air. Also, it says it facilitates unlawful behavior, including the drug trade. So, James, you're the true believer on this panel. And I just wonder why was President Trump, who has come around since, but why was he wrong in 2019? >> Calling me a true believer says that this is a faith, and it definitely isn't. Um, I wouldn't say I was what they call a a Bitcoin maxi either. I think some of the opinions expressed just now um are quasi valid. Um, I'd say that you know valuation of something is hugely subjective. I would also class Bitcoin as an emerging store of value and in that I mean you have to understand that this is the birth of a brand new asset class and with that comes very varied levels of understanding. Don't forget gold in 1980 had an annualized volatility of 90%. So, we call it a store of value now, but it certainly didn't feel like it back then. Um, and we run this survey. Um, and it tracks $1.3 trillion worth of assets. Um, and we see we've been running it every quarter since 2021. And back in 2021 when the survey started, when asked the question, what were your reasons for adding digital assets to your portfolio? the the response was 60% were saying speculation. Now that number is only 15%. What's really started to grow and take over is this idea of diversification in a portfolio. 40% of respondents, these are institutional investors by the way are saying that uh they believe it is a diversification tool. Another 30% say they want access to distributed ledger technology. It's also important, I think, to differentiate between Bitcoin and a lot of other cryptocurrencies. You can't lump them together. They're they're quite different. It's about it's a bit like lumping all equities >> Sure. >> together in that respect. >> And I definitely want >> what's interesting about Donald Trump and I put him together with um several other very well-known investors is you look at their their trans their transition um in opinion over time on Twitter. Um, so he started off ridiculing it. And I think as he's understood it better, he's become more accustomed to the idea of it. And I think that's symptomatic of something an asset that is uh an emerging store of value or something people are getting used to. >> Okay. >> Um, and there are many other quite well-known investors. So for instance, three of the um eight superannuation funds, university pension funds in the US now have it in their in their um portfolios. So this is an idea that as people understand it better. Uh so they're becoming more used to it as potential investment. President Trump has obviously given plenty of signals to the market that he is into this. Around his inauguration date, January 2025, the value of Bitcoin hit $14,000 for one single Bitcoin. But there might be another reason he's into it. So two days before his inauguration, Trump linked companies launched a memecoin called Official Trump. It started trading around $1.20 per coin. It got up to $75 on inauguration day, but this was mega volatility. Within the space of just one hour, it dropped some 45%. Fast forward to today, it's now trading around $162. There were a million people who bought this coin and collectively they lost $3.8 billion. So my question for you, Lee, is the only thing that you can really buy with this coin is Trump themed merchandise. Is there any utility to this coin other than just enriching the people who founded it? >>
No. I mean, it's pretty as simple as that. I mean, you know, any meme coin has no fundamental value. It's simply a transfer of wealth between those who uh you know buy it and and those who who've issued it. Um, and with the Trump memecoin, you know, obviously that's going to appeal mainly to his supporters. So, as you noted, um the president of the United States uh has made $3.8 billion off the backs of many of his most loyal um supporters. And so Donald Trump's net worth, the majority of which is tied now to cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency ventures, which he started either shortly before he was inaugurated the second time or since he was inaugurated. And you know, last week he released his financial disclosures which revealed that last year he made $1.4 billion in revenue, right? I mean, this is dollar bills in a bank account that he made uh from his uh his crypto ventures. So this is uh absolutely staggering. I don't think a lot of folks uh ever envisioned that this would be a situation that we would be here uh in in America and it's certainly thrown a wrench into ongoing negotiations in the US Congress over uh how to regulate uh crypto because now you have many Democrats who, you know, may previously have been amendable to voting for some type of uh crypto bill um or at least, you know, were going to hold their nose and go along with it because they're afraid of all the spending that the crypto industry was doing who are now saying, "Wait a second. If I vote for this bill, I'm going to vote to line Donald Trump's pockets, and that is not what I signed up for." >>
And what I found really interesting about Donald Trump's memecoin is what is perhaps less important here is not the actual value of the coin, but what's important is the volume of the trade. So even today, when it's down here at 162, in the last 24 hours, you've seen 170 million in volume moving around. The people who founded this coin make a tiny bit of money on every single transaction that is made. And to your point, Lee, President Trump, just on royalties from this alone, bank $635 million last year alone. Um, so Tim, what about this is concerning to you? I mean, do you find this concerning? >> Yeah. >> Oh, it's outrageous. It's reprehensible. It's anti-American in my book. I mean, look, the thing about the memecoin is a lot of people may have bought it because they like the president, but a lot of people bought it to buy influence with the president. And it's the perfect bribery vehicle. And I'm I'm not the only one who said that. Vitalic Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, has said that. And that's because someone who wants to buy influence can buy the coin and effectively then get cash to the president. You don't have to slip it under the table. And yet that person can claim they were simply buying to speculate on the price of a crypto asset. They weren't buying trying to buy influence. The other thing about the president's activities, you know, the disclosure form revealed that he's made 1.4 billion to date. The estimates are, or for 2025, I should say, the estimates are he's made a lot more because his activities have continued into 2026. and there's money sitting in entities that hasn't been distributed to him. But here's the thing. The president has promoted crypto. He's changed government policy to support crypto. He said people should be able to buy it for their retirement accounts. He said the US should have a strategic reserve. But what does he do with his own money? He's he makes a quick buck from his memecoin and from some other tokens. and then he invests it in traditional assets. Yeah, he holds a little bit of crypto relative to his overall wealth >> that may have just come from payments uh made to entities, but he's not a big investor in crypto. >> Yeah, that's an interesting point. >> That says a lot. >> Yeah. And look, you mentioned political influence, but there is also something that President Trump pointed out in his 2019 tweet, and that is illicit activity. So, this is from the blockchain analysis group Chain Analysis. So they looked in 2021 about half of all the illicit uses in 2021 of cryptocurrency was on scams. Fast forward to today 23 is not scams. It is actually sanctioned entities. So I guess I'm just confused, James. Why would President Trump why would the United States government be pushing the use of cryptocurrency if one of the main uses of it is to evade US sanctions? >>
Yeah, I mean just on the point I completely agree with the others about Trumpcoin. I think this is a grotesque use of cryptocurrencies but you know I think we can't just label all crypto the same. It's a bit like saying uh because of Enron I don't like equities I'm not going to invest. Uh I think there's hugely divergent use cases for this and unfortunately it can reflect the ugliness of human nature too which isn't great and I I think it's abhorrent what's happened there and I feel very sorry for some of those those investors but um with regards uh to your point sorry you the point you were making just >> about illicit funds or illicit uses and sanctions evasions >> we you have to put that in into perspective. So the latest data for 2025 for Chain Analysis if you look at all the cryptocurrency or the the the bitcoin volumes and cryptocurrency volumes um uh the I think it was around $30 billion um of illicit activity that represents about 0.16% of all crypto volumes. The other thing to consider here I'm not saying that this is uh not meaningful at all but we just have to put things in perspective. If you look at the global money uh money laundering uh sums in uh across the world according to the IMF um those that $30 billion represents less than 1% of global money laundering. So I'd argue actually that um uh a lot of fiat currencies have a lot more to answer for than crypto and bitcoin does. Can I just ask you about one other thing if I can and that's just about the use of cryptocurrency as actual money. Why exactly has this not taken off as an actual payment method? >>
I think we sit both in the UK and US with relatively stable currencies. Um, why would you move? There's no point. You pay your taxes in that currency. A lot of the I'd say Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have not proven proven themselves as pay as kind of payment or sort of currency systems yet and I emphasize yet because I still think there's the potential for that. But if you look at where all the organic growth is happening, it's in emerging market countries places where um governments are various things or there's huge currency depreciation. So, Venezuela, Iran, two, if you look at Bitcoin volumes in Iran, they represent 2.2% of GDP. People have seen a massive depreciation of of their native currencies there. They want an anchor for their assets. Bitcoin is an easy one. And perhaps a more palatable one is Ukraine. We saw a 250% rise in Ukraine uh volumes of Bitcoin uh when Russia hit because actually it's much easier to walk across the border with a USB stick with Bitcoin on it than it is with a suitcase full of cash and it being confiscated. So there are genuine use cases for it as a currency. >>
Gentlemen, before we run, I just want to ask you one last question as as part of our new segment called is it worth it? So, Bitcoin, which is a proxy for the crypto market, is falling again. But we have been here before. In December 2013, it crossed $1,000 for the first time ever before losing more than 85%. In 2017, Bitcoin reached close to $20,000 and slumped more than 84% over the following year. In 2021, it peaked near 69,000, then dropped around 77% in and in October 2025, it surpassed $126,000. So far, it's down around 50%. So, is cryptocurrency worth buying? Analysts say crypto tends to follow four-year price cycles. Three years of gains followed by one year of decline. They call them the four seasons of crypto. We're likely in another winter right now, which historically lasts 12 to 14 months and sees prices fall by as much as 85%. Though not everyone agrees that the pattern actually holds. We're going to put this to our guest shortly. But first, many of our viewers though they are skeptical. We asked them. 85% voted no in a poll on our YouTube community page on whether crypto is actually worth the investment. So gentlemen, we have 10 seconds each of you. James, is it worth it as an investment? >> Longer term view. I think the dollar is losing its reserve currency status. What will replace that? I think Bitcoin and and gold and others will have a part to play. So yes, it's worth it. >>
Lee, is it worth it? I try not to give investment advice, but what I tell my students is treat it like you're going to the casino. Don't spend more than you're willing to lose. >> Tim Tim, >> yeah, I would agree with Lee, it's purely speculative. I would add though, the technology underlying it is potentially useful. It's just that most of the cryptocurrencies out there today aren't. Uh, you really do have to be prepared to just lose your money. >>
Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. I wish we had more time. James Butterfell from Coin Shares, Lee Riners from Duke University, and Tim Masad from Harvard. And that is it for our show. You can get in touch with us on X. My handle [music] is Scott Mlan. And make sure to use the hashtag AJCTC when you do or drop us an email counting [music] the Aljazeera.net is our address, but there's more for you online at Aljazeera.com/ctc. [music] That'll take you straight to our page which has individual reports, links, and [music] entire episodes for you to catch up on. That is it for this edition of Counting the Cost. I'm Scott Mlan. From the whole team here in Doha, thank you so much for watching. [music] The news is next here on Aljazeera. See you.