On Mar. 11, 2025, Washington, D.C., saw a gathering of top-tier Bitcoin enthusiasts organized by the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
Michael Saylor gave a strong speech about Bitcoin in America. On X, the video of the speech sparked the debate over the need for a “better Bitcoin.” The Riot Platforms’ Pierre Rochard joined the discussion and provided his views on why there cannot be a better Bitcoin.
The debate started after a podcaster, entrepreneur, and angel investor, Jason Calacanis, responded to the video of Michael Saylor’s speech. The speech suggested that the U.S., as a superpower, has to dominate cyberspace so as not to lose its status. Saylor explained why Bitcoin is important and why America should own a huge portion of it.
Calacanis reposted a video, adding that Saylor is damaging the brand and the ecosystem of Bitcoin via constant pumping and high-risk accumulation techniques. According to Calacanis, there is “Too much centralization, too much hyperbole and too many conflicts.” He concluded that Saylor perfectly sets the stage for launching “a better Bitcoin.”
Of course, the comment didn’t go unnoticed by the Bitcoin maxis. They were saying that launching “a better Bitcoin” is impossible, suggesting that Calacanis simply doesn’t understand Bitcoin properly. For instance, Matty Ice of Consensus Pro responded that one cannot “reproduce the network effects, security, decentralization, origin story, etc.” He explained that Saylor’s ownership of a huge portion of Bitcoin doesn’t make it centralized.
Enter Pierre Rochard
Pierre Rochard, a Riot Platforms, Inc. Research VP, gave a detailed answer to the Calacanis’ concerns. He started by saying that decentralization is inherent to Bitcoin’s design and proof-of-work, and the distribution of nodes around the globe matters more than the accumulation of bitcoins in the hands of one person. The ownership of a large amount of BTC doesn’t provide the power to exploit the network. Rochard reminded us about the consensus rules, saying that “even a high-profile advocate or a single large holder is subject to the same validation and consensus processes as all other users.”
According to Rochard, Saylor’s activity is less significant for Bitcoin’s value than the predictable issuance schedule, global accessibility, security, and the community of decentralized node operators. No matter how aggressive the pumping by a single influencer is, all the involved parties will be treated equally, and no person or institution can have privileges. To confirm his point, Rochard says that Bitcoin survived a number of serious shake-ups like huge exchange collapses, market volatility, protocol disagreements, etc. None of these affected its operations.
Rochard did not explicitly say that a “better Bitcoin” is impossible. Rather, he stated that the creation of such is not probable. Creating a “better Bitcoin” will require challenging Bitcoin’s unique historical role and its dominant position in terms of liquidity, long-standing security, and other characteristics. He noted that existing altcoins and tokens have long-range vulnerabilities, while all the attempts to imitate Bitcoin’s infrastructure were failures.
In conclusion, Rochard repeated that independent verification, decentralization, and a permissionless nature have always played a more important role in the Bitcoin network than cataclysms or the credibility of any influencers. “The protocol’s core properties — secure, permissionless, and verifiable by anyone — ensure that Bitcoin’s fundamental promise is not compromised.”
An X user under the “Chad” moniker was trying to reinforce criticism towards Bitcoin, saying that people like Saylor are damaging the brand, distorting the market, and threatening Bitcoin’s “decentralized ethos,” however, these concerns were dismissed with lazy nah-level responses.
Rochard’s detailed excursion effectively finished the debate. Interestingly enough, Calacanis didn’t respond to Rochard.
What did Rochard say in his speech?
Pierre Rochard himself participated in the Washington, D.C., event, providing a speech aimed to prove that Bitcoin is a better gold. The things he said in his remarks add some points to the debate over Bitcoin’s characteristics.
Rochard built his speech around the doubt of whether the Fort Knox gold was still there. He argued that the latest audit that occurred 50 years ago wasn’t a real audit, as it was just a senator who looked at what he visually identified as gold and decided that everything was fine.
Rochard estimates that Fort Knox must hold $425 billion worth of gold and hopes that DOGE will make a proper audit involving an assay, a sonogram, and other procedures that will confirm the purity of gold in Fort Knox. The procedures are expansive and require much expertise.
He continued by saying that even if all the gold in Fort Knox is real, we cannot estimate how much of the world’s total supply is kept there. Once gold may be discovered outside the Earth. That’s not the case when we speak about Bitcoin. The purity of Bitcoin is verifiable by any person with any connected device. The task of calculating the total supply’s share of any amount of BTC is easy. The audit of Bitcoin is easy. The secure storage and transport of Bitcoin is much easier and cheaper than the secure storage and transport of gold.
In general, Rochard’s remarks echo many things said before by Saylor and other Bitcoin proponents. They all push for a more aggressive BTC purchase policy. In his speech, Saylor mentioned that by 2035, 99% of the BTC total supply will be mined, and the U.S. must solidify its leadership in Bitcoin by that time.
