If you want to help your friends and family once the traditional system collapses, buy bitcoin – advised Max Keiser.

With the largest Bitcoin conference to date taking place in Miami, CryptoPotato had the chance to speak with one of the most prominent BTC proponents – Max Keiser. During the interview, the host of the Keiser report talked about the remarkable difference between the first Bitcoin conference in Prague ten years ago, price movements, crypto sentiment, and more.

What a Difference Ten Years Can Make
Keiser, who has been among the most well-known BTC bulls for over a decade, spoke about the general mood shortly before the start of the 2021 Bitcoin conference. He went back ten years to the first such event in Prague, which was “dominated by tech guys, coders, hackers – about 40 people were there.”

He compared it to now when official numbers say tens of thousands of people will be in attendance in Miami. Moreover, Keiser noted that even the recent price drops in the market, which drove the primary cryptocurrency from $65,000 to $30,000 in weeks, cannot change the positive vibes.

He referred to recent reports showing that mostly short-term holders dumped their coins during the crash while long-term investors, miners, and institutions kept accumulating. This only goes to show that “real players are here to stay.”

They won’t be deterred by FUD coming from Elon Musk, China, rumors, and more, Keiser added. Just the opposite, he believes that Bitcoin will ultimately prevail and keep attracting new people to itself.

Miami is Just the Start
Keiser spoke about the city of Miami and its pro-Bitcoin mayor, Francis Suarez. As reported, Suarez has displayed a highly positive approach towards BTC and even plans to turn the town he runs into a Bitcoin hub.

The host of the Keiser Report noted that more and more mayors, senators, and politicians will get involved in the following years. Thus, Miami will be the start of a new trend until it becomes a “federal mandate or law.”

He also outlined another city – Austin, Texas – which is “Bitcoin centric” as well.

Buy Bitcoin to Help People Later
While speaking about the retail investors that enter the BTC space when it goes into mainstream media, and its price has skyrocketed, Keiser said that long-term investors should not worry about them yet.

Furthermore, he argued that Bitcoin investors should not be concerned with those who have chosen to buy altcoins – shitcoins – rather than the largest digital asset.

Instead of thinking about them, though, BTC holders should be focused on accumulating more portions. Then, they will be able to help their friends and family survive once “the US dollar and the global economy has collapsed.” That’s why investors would “want to have as much Bitcoin as possible. That will be the only thing left.”

Focus on Hash Rate, not USD Price
On the question of what’s his price target, Keiser, who previously predicted a price tag of $220,000 by the end of the year, said that hodlers actually should focus more on how the hash rate grows in time.

The hash rate is the metric that shows the amount of computational power miners put in the network to validate transactions. The higher the hash rate goes, the more robust the blockchain is.

Aside from a few fluctuations, the metric has also been impressively increasing in the past several years to new all-time highs, showing that more and more miners prefer putting their devices to work on the BTC blockchain.

“Hash rate is much more consistently moving in a higher direction. In my view, it’s a lot more important metric because it shows to what extent Bitcoin is going into the traditional legacy system because it’s taking energy away from these other things.” – Keiser concluded.

Read more: CryptoPotato

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, finally sustained a breach of its 2017 ATH on the 16th of December on the back of exponential price appreciation on the charts. However, it wasn’t done, not by a long shot. In fact, at the time of writing, BTC was valued at just over $34,000 on the charts, having risen to as high as $64,000 less than two months ago.

Now, while the degree of corrections in the said case has been understandably significant, the fact of the matter is Bitcoin, at press time, was still giving YTD returns of over 35%, with the 1Y change v. USD as high as 246%.

What this means is that brushing aside the obvious, exaggerated complaints of volatility, Bitcoin has once again proven its credentials as a store of value asset. This narrative is particularly powerful for crypto-holders in countries where citizens might not necessarily have access to high-performing assets.

It is in the context of the same that it’s worth looking at who benefitted the most from the world’s largest cryptocurrency’s bullish boom, with the same being the subject of Chainalysis’s latest report. Here, it’s worth noting, however, that the said report only looked at 2020’s realized gains. In light of the fact that 2021 saw BTC climb even higher, one can expect the figures for the same to be even higher.

The aforementioned report found that investors based in the United States made over $4 billion in realized Bitcoin gains over the course of the year, over 3x more than China, a development that probably came on the back of U.S-based exchanges noting huge inflows in the early part of the year, most of which appeared to have been realized by the end of it.

The more interesting findings, however, were down the charts. While everyone expected the United States and China to lead from the front, what wasn’t really expected was the contradiction in well-to-do economic metrics and Bitcoin investments, and by extension, Bitcoin realized gains.

Consider this – according to Chainalysis, countries like Vietnam and the Czech Republic are punching above their weight. Vietnam, a low-middle income country, while ranked 53rd on the GDP charts, was ranked as high as 13th for Bitcoin investment gains with figures of $351 million. Similarly, while the central European country was 54th on the GDP charts, it was 18th when realized Bitcoin investments were looked at.

On the contrary, there was some variation to this juxtaposition too, with India being the prime example. The world’s fifth-largest economy with a GDP of $2.9 trillion was ranked a “lowly 18th.” Chainalysis attributed the same to,

“This may be a result of the Indian government’s historical unfriendliness to cryptocurrency.”

Here, it should be underlined that such unfriendliness was seen in countries like Turkey too, with the Erdogan-led government and the central bank regularly cracking down on crypto-holders and entities dealing with them. Even so, the nation-state was ranked 16th with respect to realized Bitcoin gains for 2020. It can be assumed that this might not be the case in 2021, especially since recent actions have shaken the local community’s confidence in the asset class.

Read more: AMB Crypto