Bitcoin OG Willy Woo described Bitcoin as “the perfect asset” for the next thousand years but noted it won’t surpass the U.S. dollar or gold without a major influx of capital.
“You don’t get to change the world unless this monetary asset — in my view, the perfect asset for the next thousand years — attracts enough capital to rival the U.S. dollar,” Woo said at the Baltic Honeybadger conference in Riga, Latvia, on Sunday.
Currently, Bitcoin’s market cap is $2.42 trillion, just under 11% of gold’s $23 trillion valuation, while the U.S. dollar’s money supply stands at $21.9 trillion.
Bitcoin treasury firms drive adoption, but carry risks
Woo pointed to at least two major hurdles standing in the way of Bitcoin becoming a global reserve asset.
While Bitcoin treasury firms are helping accelerate adoption, he warned that the lack of transparency around their debt structures poses a serious risk — one that could trigger a Bitcoin treasury bubble.
“No one’s really examined the debt structuring in detail, so I’m certain the weaker players will collapse, and investors could lose a lot of money,” Woo said, noting that altcoin treasuries are now following the same approach, potentially “creating another bubble.”
He also raised concerns about how Bitcoin treasury adoption might fare if a major market correction or prolonged bear market were to hit.
“What happens to the bear market? Who’s swimming naked and how many coins get slapped back out into the market?”
Bitcoin vulnerable to nation-state interference
Woo warned that relying on spot Bitcoin ETFs and pension funds for exposure — rather than self-custody — could place more Bitcoin within reach of nation-states, raising the risk of a government-led “rug pull.”
He noted that while capital is flowing into Bitcoin, the deep-pocketed investors aren’t taking control of their own keys.
Instead, they’re turning to spot Bitcoin ETFs or treasury firms like Strategy, while pension funds are using institutional custodians such as Coinbase Custody.
Woo acknowledged that while these Bitcoin on-ramps bring in significant capital, they also expose investors to the risk of “being rugged at a nation-state level.”
He made the remarks during a panel alongside Blockstream CEO Adam Back, What Bitcoin Did host Danny Knowles, Bitcoin analyst Leon Wankum, and Max Kei.
Kei — founder and CEO of Bitcoin self-custody platform Debifi — predicted that self-custody will spread gradually, starting with large custodians like Coinbase, then moving to everyday businesses, and eventually to individuals.
“Companies will learn how to self-custody, and they’ll start doing it,” Kei said. “Then individuals within those companies will pick it up, and eventually it will spread on a massive scale.”
Companies remain the most ‘logical’ entry point for Bitcoin adoption
Despite Woo’s warnings about the risks of corporate Bitcoin adoption, Back argued that companies are still the most logical entry point for wider adoption.
He suggested using Bitcoin’s expected future returns as a “hurdle rate” for evaluating investments: “If a company can’t beat Bitcoin, they should close up shop and buy Bitcoin.”
Back added that businesses with strong core operations can still succeed while incorporating Bitcoin, noting, “It doesn’t have to be a pure play.”
