Oct 4, 2019
Location:
Skype
Date: Tuesday, 1st October
Project: Independent Trader
Role: Bitcoin Quant Analyst
Stock to flow is a metric used to measure the scarcity of an asset. The only asset with a higher stock to flow than Bitcoin is gold. Gold has a stock to flow value of 62, meaning that to produce the same amount of gold currently held in reserve, it would take 62 years of production.
Every 210,000 blocks (~4 years), the amount of Bitcoin rewarded to miners is cut in half. The next halving is set to take place sometime around May 2020 and will see the reward decreased from 12.5 to 6.25 Bitcoin per block (~every 10 minutes).
The reduction in the reward means that miners have less Bitcoin to sell to cover their operational costs and thus less Bitcoin released to the market. Historically, this has led to an increase in the price of Bitcoin and with the next halving and the subsequent drop in emission, Bitcoins stock to flow value will rise from 25 to 50, getting ever closer to gold.
Will this lead to another surge in price and push Bitcoin to the 1 trillion dollar market cap as PlanB's stock to flow model predicts?
In this interview, I talk to PlanB, known for his Bitcoin stock to flow ratio analysis and the author of Modeling Bitcoin's Value with Scarcity. We discuss gold's stock to flow compared to Bitcoin, scarcity, halvings and safe-haven assets.