“With AI today and with 3D printers, you can replicate a Monet perfectly. Every color, every brush stroke. And yet the original, I don't know, is probably worth $100 million. Who are we to tell our collectors that that's not what they want as their store of value?”
Masters in Business · October 2026
Asked whether Bitcoin could challenge the dollar, Michele says he has always seen it as a store of value. When clients tell him it represents nothing, he answers with fine art: something can be worth a fortune even when it can be copied perfectly.
Transcript
…and deliver on their primary objective, which is price stability, inflation. Gold's more a reflection of the outcome of their policies than allowing them to alter their policies. So today we sit here and really the dollar is the only reserve currency out there. Nobody wants to fight it for now.
…yellow metal we scrape out of the ground each year, but hold that aside You didn't mention Bitcoin or any of the crypto currencies is that is that a fantasy that some people hold that we can replace the US dollar with either central bank issued currencies or Crypto currencies or perhaps Bitcoin.
I know bitcoins been controversial. I know a lot of the controversy about has to do with what does it actually represent. I'm going to talk to that. And I know a lot of it is concerned that if it's untracked, unregulated, it gets used for criminal enterprise. And yes, of course, that's a concern. Let me go back to store of value. From the time it was created, I stepped back and thought, I can see this as a store of value. I can see the millennial generation and surrounding cohorts coming along, and this is something they would like to have as a store of value. What does it represent? A mathematical formula? Okay, I have a math background. I kind of get that. I'm okay with that. When I get into debates with clients about, but you own nothing, and it just goes on and on, I bring up fine art. And I bring up the thought that, look at some of the fine art. A few months ago, a Jackson Pollock painting sold at Christie's for close to $ 200 million. And I went to see it because I wanted to see it. It was beautiful. It was like squiggly lines. Probably…
An alternative to fiat currency. Could that ever be an alternative to the dollar?
I'm not sure. I think you would need central banks to come in. You would need treasuries to come in. I think there's a big difference between and the confusion between crypto and a stable coin and what can be tracked and regulated and what has the full faith and credit of the u.s behind it and is…
So I'm glad you brought up stable coins. And I don't want to spend too much time talking about currencies, but I've always thought of the dollar more as a medium of exchange than a store of value, if only because we tend to have inflation at 2%, 3% or higher over longer periods of time. And I could…
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