Bitcoin has rocketed 30% since the beginning of the U.S. war in Iran (with two massive shocks now hurtling toward the bitcoin price).
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The bitcoin price remains far from its 2025 peak of $126,000 per bitcoin, however, even as U.S. secretary of war Pete Hegseth signals China is secretly stockpiling bitcoin.
Now, as traders brace for an “imminent” White House bitcoin game-changer, legendary billionaire Ray Dalio has warned the U.S. dollar is teetering on the brink of collapse—just as JPMorgan analysts predict a huge rotation from gold to bitcoin.
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The U.S. dollar is suffering from a sustained period of debasement, which some fear could spiral into a full-blown collapse—boosting gold and the bitcoin price.
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“The United States now spends $7 trillion. It takes in about $5 trillion, so it spends 40% more than it takes in,” Dalio, the founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, told the New York Times’ Interesting Times podcast.
“It’s been running those deficits for a while, so it has a debt that’s about six times its income, the amount that it takes in. And you can see throughout history that that produces problems.”
U.S. debt has skyrocketed in recent years following huge government spending through the Covid-era and lockdowns, with interest rates that were rapidly hiked to rein in inflation adding to the cost of servicing the ballooning $39 trillion U.S. debt pile.
“So when we look at history, we see that in all such periods, all the fiat currencies go down. And gold goes up,” Dalio said, pointing to gold currently being “the second largest reserve currency of central banks.”
A future “financial crisis will mean that the capacity to spend will be very limited,” Dalio said when asked if the economy is headed for “crisis and collapse,” adding he doesn’t “think any of the fiat currencies will be effective store holds of wealth.”
Dalio’s warning comes at the same time as analysts with Wall Street giant JPMorgan see “the debasement trade [rotating] from gold to bitcoin.”
The gold price has doubled over the last two years, climbing alongside silver, as traders bet that continued inflation and Federal Reserve money printing will devalue and debase the U.S. dollar.
In a note seen by The Block, JPMorgan analysts led by managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said they’re seeing bitcoin, sometimes called “digital gold” due to its capped supply and immutable nature, gaining over gold as the debasement trade after the Iran conflict, as bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) inflows outpace gold ETFs.
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The bitcoin price has bounced after plunging at the beginning of the U.S. war in Iran.
Forbes Digital Assets
In March, another billionaire investor, Stanley Druckenmiller, predicted the U.S. dollar won’t be the world’s reserve currency in 50 years—possibly replaced by bitcoin or crypto.
“We’re doing everything we can to destroy it,” Druckenmiller said, likely referring to the spiraling U.S. budget deficit, which he has previously described as a “debt bomb.” The dollar will “probably outlive me [but] I doubt it’ll be the reserve currency in 50 years.”
Druckenmiller, calling the dollar “the cleanest, [dirty] shirt,” said he didn’t know what might replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency but said he could be “some crypto thing [that] I hate,” echoing a prediction he first made in 2021.
Elsewhere, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has also (repeatedly) predicted the end of the U.S. dollar, sparking speculation he’s gearing up for a bitcoin bombshell.
Musk has warned that the world is headed for a post-fiat currency situation, declaring energy “the true currency” and fueling speculation among bitcoin supporters that he’s quietly backing the cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen has warned that U.S. president Donald Trump could be pushing the U.S. dollar toward “hyperinflation”—a situation some think could blow up the bitcoin price.