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Why this review?

_{And why now?}

Why this review? And why now?

_{We have decided to publish this annual review for two main reasons.}

_{The first is purely investment-related. We believe that bitcoin is at the beginning of significant institutional adoption, in large part because of its in-built scarcity. For this reason, we recently developed and launched the first ever defined benefit (DB) portfolio allocation to bitcoin in the UK. The small allocation, equivalent to 3% of total assets, was made after a lengthy consultation with the scheme’s trustees, where ESG, investment case, and asset security were all addressed.}

_{We are actively looking to help other pension trustees, charities, and companies to hold bitcoin as a long-term strategic asset.}

_{We have also recently launched a pioneering bitcoin workplace savings proposition, Cartwright Bitcoin Payroll Solutions, which will enable employers to pay bitcoin to their staff as part of their salary or bonus.}

_{The other main reason we are launching this annual review right now is out of concern for the economic future of the United Kingdom. The economies of the world currently find themselves at a critical juncture. The decades-long global experiment with fiat currencies appears to be drawing to a close as public and private debt reach dangerously high levels, the global banking system shows increasing signs of weakness and fragility, and the various fiat currencies themselves, including the world’s reserve currency, the US dollar, lose more and more of their purchasing power each year.}

_{A ‘hard’ form of money}

_{Against this backdrop, bitcoin has emerged as the hardest form of money ever created. So-called ‘hard money’ refers to a currency whose supply is difficult to inflate, ensuring its scarcity and long-term value. Unlike fiat currencies, whose supply can be, and indeed has been, increased at will by central bank monetary policies, bitcoin has a hard-capped maximum supply, protecting its value over time. In so doing, it serves that essential function of money: as a store of value.}

_{Bitcoin's fixed maximum supply of 21 million ensures its scarcity, giving it the unique potential to appreciate over time, rather than steadily lose value as all fiat currencies have done since the US dollar – and all other floating national currencies – was untethered from gold in 1971.}

_{This shift away from the gold standard enabled the unlimited creation of fiat currency, contributing to inflation and the erosion of purchasing power. In our view, this ‘fiat flexibility’ has subsequently created; the erosion of purchasing power, a cost of living crisis, an artificial societal wealth gap, a distortion of prices and a capital allocation throughout the economy reducing productivity, a short term mindset which has encouraged degrading societal and environmental standards, disruptive and, for some, devastating economic boom and bust cycles, and the gradual build up of the current fragile debt and monetary situation.}

_{Bitcoin, by contrast, represents a return to the principles of sound money which gold had gradually ushered in over the previous 5,000 years or so.}