Last Updated: March 2026
Let me ask you a question that will change how you think about money forever.
In 2020, the median home in America cost about $340,000. If you wanted to buy that house with Bitcoin, you would have needed roughly 45 BTC.
Today in 2026, that same house costs about $420,000 in dollars — a 24% increase. But in Bitcoin? It now costs approximately 5-6 BTC. That’s an 87% decrease.
Read that again. The house got more expensive in dollars. The house got dramatically cheaper in Bitcoin.
Same house. Same neighborhood. Same square footage. The only thing that changed was the unit you measured it in. And that single observation should tell you everything you need to know about which currency is actually holding its value — and which one is slowly robbing you blind.
As Jack Mallers, founder of the Bitcoin payment platform Strike and CEO of 21 Capital, put it plainly: the role of currency is to store and exchange people’s time and labor. Even without a crisis, people will naturally choose the best tool for storing their value. Bitcoin has a significant advantage in that regard.
If you’re a small business owner still holding surplus profits in dollars, this article is going to show you exactly why that decision is costing you money every single day — and why you should turn dollars to Bitcoin.
The Dollar Is Losing a War It Can’t Win
Here’s a fact that most business owners know instinctively but don’t fully appreciate: the U.S. dollar loses purchasing power every single year. Not sometimes. Every year.
Since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913, the dollar has lost over 96% of its purchasing power. A dollar from 1913 buys about 3 cents worth of goods today. This isn’t a conspiracy theory — it’s the stated policy of the Federal Reserve, which targets 2-3% inflation annually. They want your dollars to lose value. It’s by design.
But here’s what makes the current moment different from any period in recent history: the pace of dollar debasement is accelerating.
The U.S. national debt now stands at approximately $38.7 trillion and growing at a pace of roughly $77,000 per second. In Trump’s first year back in office alone, the federal government added approximately $2.25 trillion to the national debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects annual budget deficits will total $24.4 trillion over the coming decade, exceeding $3 trillion annually by 2036.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in 2025 is estimated to add $4.7 trillion to the debt through 2035 when accounting for interest and economic effects. Even with tariff revenue partially offsetting costs, the net result is roughly $1.4 trillion more in borrowing over the next decade compared to just a year earlier.
And here’s the part that should make every business owner sit up straight: interest payments on the national debt are now larger than the entire defense budget. By 2036, carrying costs on the debt are projected to reach $2.2 trillion annually — that’s $15,700 for every household in America, or about $1,300 per month.
How does the government pay for all of this? There are only two options: raise taxes dramatically (politically difficult) or create more dollars (the path of least resistance). Throughout history, governments have overwhelmingly chosen option two. They print money.
When they print money, every dollar you hold becomes worth less. Your business savings account doesn’t shrink in number — it shrinks in what it can actually buy. And that erosion is happening faster now than at any point in your lifetime.
The Unit of Account Problem: Why Everything Looks Backwards
Here’s something that fundamentally changed my thinking as a business owner, and it’s the single most important concept in this entire article:
Most people measure their wealth in dollars. But the dollar itself is shrinking.
Imagine you had a tape measure, and every year someone secretly shaved an inch off the end. You’d measure your room and think it was getting bigger every year, when in reality, your measuring tool was just getting shorter. That’s exactly what’s happening with the dollar.
When you hear that the stock market is at “all-time highs,” that sounds incredible. But measured in gold, the stock market has barely moved in 25 years. Measured in Bitcoin, the stock market has gone down dramatically. The S&P 500 hasn’t grown in real terms — the dollar you’re measuring it in has just gotten smaller.
Let me make this concrete with examples your Main Street business can relate to:
Your commercial rent:
If you signed a lease in 2020 at $3,000/month and it’s now $3,900/month, that’s not your landlord being greedy — that’s the dollar losing purchasing power. Your landlord needs more dollars to buy the same amount of goods and services they could buy with your old rent.
Your inventory costs:
If the supplies you buy for your business cost $50,000 in 2020 and now cost $62,000, those supplies didn’t get more valuable. Your dollars got less valuable.
Your employees’ wages:
If you’re paying your team 20% more than you did four years ago and they’re still struggling, that’s not because they’re irresponsible with money. It’s because the dollars you’re paying them buy less than they used to.
Every single price increase you’ve experienced as a business owner is the dollar losing its purchasing power. You’re not getting poorer — you’re just measuring your wealth with a shrinking ruler.
The House Priced in Bitcoin: The Chart That Changes Everything
Let’s go back to that house example, because it tells the entire story of why converting dollars to Bitcoin matters.
The median U.S. home priced in dollars:
- 2012: $177,000
- 2016: $234,000
- 2020: $340,000
- 2024: $412,000
- 2026: ~$420,000
Looking at this, you’d think houses are getting dramatically more expensive. Real estate only goes up, right?
The median U.S. home priced in Bitcoin:
- 2012: 30,000 BTC
- 2016: 664 BTC
- 2020: 45 BTC
- 2024: 4.8 BTC
- 2026: ~6 BTC (during the current drawdown)
Houses aren’t getting more expensive. Dollars are getting weaker. When you measure that same house in a currency with a fixed supply — one that can’t be printed, debased, or inflated — the house is getting cheaper over time.
This is what Jack Mallers means when he says he views money as a representation of our time and energy, which can be saved or exchanged. If you save in dollars, the time and energy you’ve invested into earning those dollars gets debased. Every year, the government effectively takes a portion of your past labor through inflation.
Mallers himself has said he saves in Bitcoin and spends in dollars. His logic is straightforward: why would you hold a currency that’s constantly being debased when you can hold one that’s provably scarce?
This isn’t theoretical. This is the math of your actual life as a business owner.
The Stock Market Illusion
“But my stocks are doing great!” I hear this from business owners all the time. And in dollar terms, they’re right. The S&P 500 has risen from about 3,200 in early 2020 to roughly 5,500 in early 2026 — an increase of about 72%.
Sounds fantastic until you measure it differently.
The S&P 500 priced in gold:
Gold has gone from about $1,500/oz in 2020 to approximately $4,800/oz in 2026. When you price the S&P 500 in gold, it’s essentially flat or slightly down. Your stocks didn’t really grow — the dollar you measured them in just shrank.
The S&P 500 priced in Bitcoin:
Bitcoin went from roughly $7,500 in early 2020 to approximately $67,000 in early 2026 (even during this drawdown). When you price the S&P 500 in Bitcoin, it has declined by roughly 80%. Your stock portfolio, measured in the hardest money humanity has ever created, actually lost significant purchasing power.
This is the illusion that keeps business owners parked in traditional investments while their real wealth erodes. The numbers on your brokerage statement go up, you feel wealthier, but your actual purchasing power — what those dollars can buy in the real world — is shrinking.
The stock market goes up in dollars because dollars are losing value. The stock market goes down in Bitcoin because Bitcoin is gaining value. Once you understand this, you can never unsee it.
Why Bitcoin Is Different From Every Other Asset
At this point, you might be thinking: “If the dollar is losing value, why not just buy real estate, or gold, or stocks?”
Those are all reasonable strategies, and they’re all better than holding cash. But Bitcoin has characteristics that none of them share:
Fixed supply: There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin. Not 21 million and one. This is enforced by mathematics and a global network of computers, not by politicians or central bankers. No government, corporation, or individual can change this. As Mallers put it: the only thing that’s clear is that you cannot hold and save in dollars anymore. Bitcoin’s fixed supply is the antidote to a world where governments print money without limit.
Perfectly divisible: You don’t need to buy a whole Bitcoin. You can buy $50 worth, or $500 worth, or $5,000 worth. Each Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million units called satoshis. This makes it accessible to every business owner regardless of surplus capital.
Globally portable: Try moving $500,000 in real estate or gold across borders. Now try moving $500,000 in Bitcoin. It takes ten minutes and costs a few dollars. For business owners thinking about generational wealth, this matters.
Verifiably scarce: You can’t verify that your gold bar is real without specialized equipment. You can’t verify that your stock certificate represents actual shares without trusting intermediaries. You can verify Bitcoin’s scarcity by running a node on a laptop.
No counterparty risk: Your stocks depend on companies not going bankrupt. Your bank deposits depend on your bank not failing (remember Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic in 2023?). Bitcoin depends on mathematics and the laws of physics. And when you store your Bitcoin on a hardware wallet like a Ledger, you eliminate even the risk of an exchange failing — your Bitcoin is in your hands, secured by you alone.
Growing institutional adoption: In 2020, Bitcoin was considered fringe. In 2026, BlackRock, Fidelity, and Goldman Sachs all offer Bitcoin products. Spot Bitcoin ETFs exist. Nation states are accumulating Bitcoin. The world’s largest financial institutions have validated what early adopters knew all along.
The Data-Driven Case: Bitcoin Over the Next 5, 10, and 20 Years
Let me be clear: no one can predict Bitcoin’s price in any given year. But we can look at the data and the structural forces at play.
The supply argument:
Bitcoin’s supply decreases over time through a process called “halving” — roughly every four years, the rate at which new Bitcoin is created gets cut in half. The most recent halving occurred in April 2024. By 2140, all 21 million Bitcoin will have been mined. Meanwhile, demand continues to grow as more individuals, businesses, and institutions recognize Bitcoin’s value proposition.
Fixed supply + growing demand = higher prices over time. This isn’t speculation — it’s basic economics that every business owner understands from running their own company.
The debt argument:
The U.S. national debt is growing by approximately $2.25 trillion per year. Deficits are projected to exceed $3 trillion annually by 2036. This debt must be serviced, and the most likely path is continued dollar debasement through money creation.
Every dollar printed makes the dollars you hold worth less and makes Bitcoin — with its fixed supply — worth relatively more. The government’s fiscal trajectory is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term tailwind.
And here’s the silver lining for business owners: because Bitcoin is classified as property, every purchase you make can be precisely tracked for tax purposes. Tools like CoinTracker make this effortless — automatically logging your purchases, calculating your cost basis, and generating the reports your CPA needs at tax time. Proper record-keeping turns what seems complicated into something simpler than your existing bookkeeping.
The adoption argument:
Bitcoin adoption follows an S-curve similar to the internet, smartphones, and every major technology before it. In 2020, institutional ownership of Bitcoin was negligible. By 2026, Bitcoin ETFs hold hundreds of billions of dollars, public companies hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets, and sovereign nations are building Bitcoin reserves.
We are still in the early innings. Current estimates suggest only 3-5% of the world’s investable assets are allocated to Bitcoin. As that percentage grows to 10%, 15%, or 20% over the next two decades, the price impact on a fixed-supply asset will be extraordinary.
The historical argument:
Over any four-year period since its creation, Bitcoin has outperformed cash, stocks, real estate, and gold as a store of value. Not cherry-picked timeframes — any four-year window. For a business owner making decisions on a 5, 10, or 20-year horizon, the data overwhelmingly supports allocating a portion of surplus profits to Bitcoin.
Your Framework for Converting Dollars to Bitcoin
So how do you actually do this as a business owner? Here’s the practical framework:
Step 1: Calculate your surplus
After all business expenses, taxes, emergency reserves, and personal needs are covered, what’s left? That surplus — the money sitting in your savings account losing 3-4% per year to inflation — is what you allocate to Bitcoin.
Step 2: Set up automatic weekly purchases
Don’t try to time the market. Don’t wait for a “good price.” Set up a recurring purchase — $100, $250, $500, $1,000 per week — whatever your surplus allows. This is dollar-cost averaging, and it’s the strategy that has produced the best risk-adjusted returns for Bitcoin investors over any multi-year period.
Think of it this way: every week, you’re converting shrinking dollars into an asset with a fixed supply. Every purchase is an exchange of a depreciating currency for an appreciating one.
Step 3: Secure your Bitcoin
When your holdings exceed $10,000, move them to a hardware wallet like a Ledger device. This gives you full control of your Bitcoin — no exchange, no bank, no third party can freeze, seize, or lose your funds. It’s the equivalent of having a safe in your office, except it’s protected by the most advanced cryptography on the planet.
Step 4: Track everything for taxes
Bitcoin is treated as property by the IRS. Every purchase, sale, or exchange is a taxable event. Use a platform like CoinTracker to automatically track all your transactions and generate tax reports. This saves you hours of headache and keeps you compliant. You can save 20% on CoinTracker using my link.
Step 5: Think in years, not days
Bitcoin’s price on any given day is noise. What matters is where it will be in 5, 10, and 20 years relative to the dollar. Given the structural forces of increasing debt, accelerating money printing, and growing Bitcoin adoption, the data strongly suggests that converting dollars to Bitcoin on a regular basis is one of the smartest financial decisions a business owner can make.
What Jack Mallers Gets Right
Jack Mallers is one of the most compelling voices in Bitcoin because he frames it in terms that matter to everyday people — not in terms of blockchain technology or cryptographic protocols, but in terms of your time, your energy, and your labor.
His view is simple: money is our time and energy in an abstracted form. When governments debase the currency, they’re not just printing paper — they’re devaluing every hour you’ve ever worked. Every dollar you earned last year buys less this year. Every dollar you earn this year will buy less next year.
Mallers argues that governments around the world have borrowed a tremendous amount of our time and energy from the future with no growth to pay it back. That loss has to be realized somewhere. Either the bondholders lose (the banks), or everyone who holds dollars loses through currency debasement. History tells us which option governments choose every single time.
This is why Mallers himself holds zero cash. He saves in Bitcoin and spends in dollars. His reasoning: why would you save in a currency that’s constantly being debased when a superior alternative exists?
You don’t have to go that far. You don’t have to sell everything and buy Bitcoin. But the logic of converting a portion of your shrinking dollars into the hardest money ever created is, at this point, backed by nine years of my personal experience and over a decade of data.
The Bottom Line for Main Street Business Owners
You work hard. You wake up early, solve problems all day, deal with customers and employees and suppliers, and at the end of the month, you have profits left over. Those profits represent your time and energy — the most valuable things you have.
Right now, if those profits are sitting in a bank account, they’re losing purchasing power every day. The government is spending $77,000 per second more than it collects. The national debt is approaching $39 trillion. Deficits are projected to exceed $3 trillion per year for the foreseeable future. And the only way to service that debt without politically impossible tax hikes is to create more dollars — making every dollar you hold worth less.
Bitcoin offers you a way out of that trap. Not a perfect one. Not a risk-free one. But a mathematically sound, data-driven one.
Twenty-one million. That’s all there will ever be. No politician can change it. No central bank can print more. No emergency, no crisis, no executive order can alter the supply.
Every week that you convert a portion of your dollars into Bitcoin, you’re making a bet — not on any politician or policy, but on mathematics. You’re betting that a currency with a fixed supply will outperform a currency being printed into oblivion.
After nine years of making that bet every single week, I can tell you: the math works.
Start small. Start today. And measure your wealth in something that doesn’t shrink.
About the Author
I’m a small family business owner serving my local community. I’ve been buying Bitcoin since 2017 — nearly a decade of experience through multiple market cycles, including four major crashes. I’m not a financial advisor — I’m a business owner sharing what I’ve learned through years of real-world experience. Nothing on this site should be considered financial advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making investment decisions.