Time for some common knowledge.

To illustrate the relevance of Silver, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Gold, all considered stores of value, let's dive into the money pit and check things out, shall we...

1. Let's start with the precious metals and crypto currencies, both referred to as stores of value.

Both gold and silver have been used as day to day money and evolved into reserve assets, backing fiat currency systems. Although the last gold-standard ended in 1971, the unlimited printing abilities of central banks and the inevitable erosion of the fiat currencies' purchasing power have pushed cryptographic entrepreneurs to rethink the monetary system by introducing a digital backbone, much-needed for the successful implementation of a new monetary system based upon the internet of value. In other words, the race for gold and Bitcoin is on...

The value of all above-ground silver stocks is $63 Billion, using a $ 25/oz sort price.

The value of all the mined Ethereum Supply is $161 Billion.

The value of the mined Bitcoin Supply is $680 Billion.

The value of all above-ground gold stocks is $11,750 Billion, using a $1850/oz spot price.

Assuming that the total gold market capitalization will soon break upwards with gold reaching a low end estimate $2500/oz spot price target, and considering that Bitcoin will reach 10% of this market, Bitcoin will reach 10% of gold's $15,878 Billion market capitalization or $1,5 Trillion. Obviously, Bitcoin still has room to make some significant gains.

2. Military spending habits are hard to break.

In 2018, the United States spend an astonishing 36% of global military expenditures or $641,52 Billion, followed by its trade-war enemy China, who spend $249,48 Billion. Combined, the two adversaries spend as much as the rest of world, on tanks and other boy-toys.

During President Dwight D. Eisenhower's final speech from the White House, he warned us that an arms race with the Soviet Union would take resources from other areas, such as building schools and hospitals. Whether there's any truth to that, I leave up to you, the smart reader.

Eisenhower's quote: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

3. Covid-19-20-21 and the U.S. Budget Deficit.

According to the U.S.National Debt Clock the rescue spending for Covid-19-20-21 will quadruple the U.S. budget deficit to $3.2 trillion. The new variant of the virus is 70x more contagious and new lock downs will happen to stop the speed at which the virus is infecting people.

4. All the coins and banknotes - what you commonly refer to as money - ,M1 and M2 Money.

All countries' tangible currency is worth $6,662 trillion. This about 7% of the M1 Money Supply, which is $35,183 trillion. Only 7% of our money is non-digital.

• Tangible Money: coins and banknotes: $6,662 trillion;
• M1 - Narrow Money Supply: coins, banknotes and checking deposits: $35,183 trillion;
• M2 - Broad Money Supply: coins, banknotes, saving-, checking-, and time deposits, money market accounts: $95,698 trillion.

The launching of CBDC's or Central Bank Digital Currencies would change the narrative and make all money transactions visible on a distributed ledger.

5. The world's Billionaires and Millionaires:

Billionaires.

The rich 'elite' club, often referred to as the 0.1%-ers, have accumulated $8 trillion in wealth.

This is the top 3:

• Jeff Bezos: $190,6 billion net worth - Amazon (United States);
• Elon Musk: $184,6 billion net worth - Tesla, SpaceX (United States)
• Bernard Arnault & Family: $148,7 billion - LVMH (France).

Unfortunately, I am not a member of this club. If you are, please tip me, lol.

Millionaires.

The rich club, often referred to as the 1%-ers (*), have accumulated US$158,261 billion. There are approximately 46,792,000 millionaires in the world. In other words, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk both are worth more than the world's millionaires. No kidding!

The share of millionaires in % of adult people is 0.9% - 1% (*), hence the name 1%-ers. Almost 20 million Americans can call themselves a 'millionaire', or approximately 7,5% of the entire Nation. By those therms, the USA is the richest country, followed by the European Union, with 13,290,000 millionaires, or approximately 2,3% of all Europeans. The list is completed with Asia Pacific (7,505,000), China (4,447,000), India (759,000), Latin America (673,000) and Africa (171,000).

Unfortunately, last time I checked, I am not a member of this club either.

6. Real Estate.

The world's real estate is valued approximately $280,6 trillion. Nearly half of it is located in the USA and Europe:

• 22% of that value is represented by North America which only houses 6% of the global population;
• 22% is also presented by Europe, despite only housing 10% of global population.

Divided in three categories we can take a deeper look at real estate:

• 78,5% or $220 trillion is residential real estate;
• 11,9% or $33 trillion is commercial real estate;
• 9,7% or $27 trillion is agricultural real estate.

7. Global wealth.

All global wealth is worth an astonishing $360,6 trillion. More than half the world's wealth is represented by North America and Europe:

• North America is worth 31,8% of the world's wealth or $114,67 trillion;
• Europe is valued at 25,2% of the world's wealth or $90,87 trillion.

By countries the USA leads with 29,4%, followed by China with 17,1% and Japan with 6,9%. Germany is Europe's wealthiest country with 4,1% of global wealth.

On an important note we have to announce Asia Pacific's sharp rise to 39,2% of the world's wealth or $141,36 trillion, means they are playing catch up.

8. The Derivative Markets.

According to no other than Warren Buffet derivatives are weapons of mass destruction.

What is a derivative?

Text book explanation: A derivative is a contract between two or more parties that derives its value from the performance of an underlying asset, index, or entity.

Warren Buffet: A derivative is a weapon of mass destruction. The collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps are to blame for the 2008 financial crisis.

My explanation:  A derivative is used to artificially suppress or boost an asset to push a certain agenda. The gold price is artificially suppressed by selling non existing gold ounces at low prices to push the market down.

Examples:

• Futures contracts;
• Forward contracts;
• Options;
• Warrants;
• Swaps.

With a Gross Market Value of only $11,6 trillion, a low end estimate Notional Value of $558,5 trillion and a high end estimate Notional Value of $1,0 Quadrillion, this is obviously the place where millionaires and billionaires are built. However, it is a house of cards, at best.

9. Bitcoin has huge potential.

In my estimates I assume that the future millionaires and billionaires will want to have exposure to Bitcoin. And when reading about the inflow of investment capital by institutional investors and hedge funds, buying up digital assets faster than they can be created by a process called mining (Proof of Work), I feel confident to write down some price projections.

This world has 46,792,000 millionaires and only 21,000,000 Bitcoins. Despite some BTC being lost, there will only be 0,44879 BTC per millionaire. But knowing that only a few big parties have bought up much of all the existing and newly mined BTC, there's a lot less BTC per millionaire.

Let's jump into the BTC rich-pool and take a closer look:

• Grayscale owns 2,5% of all the Bitcoin or 572,644 BTC;
• Microstrategy holds 70,470 BTC in reserve;
• Coinshares Group manages 69,730 BTC;
• Ruffer Investment Company has 45,000 BTC;
• 3iQ The Bitcoin Fund controls 16,454 BTC;
• Galaxy Digital Holdings holds 16,402 BTC;

This list grows daily and most of these big players invest large sums into the crypto currency industry. They start with Bitcoin, which serves as the hardest reserve asset humans have ever created, before looking into Ethereum and other crypto currencies. The stock to flow ratio indicates Bitcoin will surpass the $100,000 level during this cycle, but the massive buying frenzy will push Bitcoin well over that price level.

The exchanges have less and less Bitcoin, and Bitcoin will gain due to supply-and-demand bottleneck problems. Before 2020, BTC was a retail investment, in 2021 and beyond, the buyers will be institutions, banks, companies, even central banks. Bitcoin is becoming the anchor to the renewed financial system that operates on the internet, creating the internet of money.

As the crypto protocols are becoming more attractive to banking and offer solutions to several problems, the implementation of these technologies by big banks and big tech is imminent.

10. Ethereum will become the world's biggest cryptographically protected smart contract network.

For the Bitcoin maximalists among you, stop reading, this is gonna hurt.

The smart money is now investing in what they see as the perfect hedge against quantitative easing: Bitcoin, the hardest store of value on this planet. The ball is rolling, the genie is out of the bottle. Bitcoin is a reserve asset, so much is clear. But what about all the other use-cases of money?

I predict that Ethereum will be the biggest global network on which everyone will build applications. It is now, and I see no reason why anyone should leave Ethereum. A lot of smart contract start-ups are pretending to be able to beat Ethereum, don't be fooled: Ethereum is here to stay. Because Bitcoin's usecase is limited to it being a store of value, similar to gold, I think Ethereum's market capitalization might surprise us going forward.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine is the place to go for crypto start-ups, and it will continue to be the market leader.

Disclaimer.

This is not financial advice.