How a 2014 essay shockingly predicted the era of corporate Bitcoin bonds

I. The Forgotten Blueprint

In July 2014, when Bitcoin was trading near $600 and most executives were dismissing it as an Internet novelty, Pierre Rochard published an essay titled: speculative attack. It was a heavily Austrian paper that argued that Bitcoin would not be adopted because it is a “better technology” but because economic realities dictate it. force Adopted. People end up borrowing weaker money to buy stronger money, and in doing so, they end up setting off a chain reaction that undermines fiat currency itself.

Ten years later, the system quietly shifted from individual investors to corporate finance. Publicly traded companies are now issuing bonds and stocks to build Bitcoin vaults, not to fund factory expansions or acquisitions. Bitcoin treasury companies, whether they realize it or not, are implementing the strategy Rochard outlined ten years ago, when all of them existed.

II. Austrian premise: Good money drives out bad money

Roshard’s argument is based on the foundations of classical monetary theory. Thiers’ lawthe inverse of Gresham’s law. When the market is free, good money drives out bad money. History bears that out. The Persian darick, Roman denarius, Florentine florin, and British pound all replaced inferior currencies with perfect consistency and quality.

Austrian economics frames this as a spontaneous order. Healthy money is more competitive than deteriorating money, as agents seeking to preserve value move in search of scarcity and reliability. Bitcoin represents the culmination of that process.

• complete rarity – Final supply of 21 million units.
• Decentralized issuance – There is no discretionary power to extend it.
• verifiable integrity – All units can be audited in real time.

Under Thiers’ Law, companies with melting cash reserves face the same decisions that individuals once faced. That is, either hold on to the inferior currency or reprice the reserves of the superior currency. The invisible hand of the market is a force that influences balance sheets.

III. Speculative attack explained

In finance, speculative attack Traditionally, it refers to a trader who sells short a currency that he or she expects to fail. A famous example is George Soros versus the British pound. Roshard has redesigned this term. His version was adaptive rather than adversarial. That is, borrow a weaker currency, acquire a stronger one, and pay it back later with devalued money.

For individuals in 2014, that meant buying Bitcoin on the asset side while taking out a mortgage or car loan with fiat currency. The logic is simple: if Bitcoin’s expected appreciation exceeds the cost of borrowing, then the trade is rational.

Today, companies are industrializing the same strategy.

• Debt issue: Low-coupon convertible bonds denominated in dollars, yen, or euros.
• Stock offering: Stocks were sold in a market that priced in a weaker currency.
• Booking conversion: Proceeds are distributed in Bitcoin.

Each step reflects Roshard’s thought experiment. The balance sheet is a means of speculative attack on fiat currency as a system, not the currency of a country.

IV. Balance sheet as a battlefield

The first modern execution was Strategy Co., Ltd. (Formerly MicroStrategy). In early 2020, the company issued billions of dollars in convertible debt to acquire Bitcoin and restructured its equity as leveraged debt against digital scarcity. Its reporting has evolved beyond GAAP. Bitcoin per share and Bitcoin yield Replaced traditional ratios.

In Japan, Metaplanet Co., Ltd. repurposed an ailing hospitality business into a Bitcoin-only financial company and amassed over 5,000 BTC using public equity financing. In Europe, Capital B Listed on Euronext Paris and issued Bitcoin-denominated convertible bonds to raise funds for permanent accumulation. Other companies are following the same trajectory, from Semler Scientific in the US to Smarter Web in the UK.

Regardless of the jurisdiction, the blueprint is the same.

1. Take advantage of low-yielding statutory debt.
2. Obtain the most complete financial assets.
3. Translate increased value into stronger equity and lower cost of capital.

Corporate treasurers are effectively performing financial arbitrage through accounting.

V. Recursion: The feedback loop expected by Roshard

Rochard explained the process by which Bitcoin’s rising value justifies his demand. It’s a textbook case of participants recognizing an advantage, acting on it, and the resulting increase in price confirming their claim. reflective.

This dynamic is currently played out through capital markets.

• The rise in Bitcoin increases the stock valuation of financial companies.
• Higher valuations enable further financing on favorable terms.
• The new revenue buys more Bitcoin, tightening supply and preserving Bitcoin’s value.

Each cycle strengthens the movement of currency. It’s no longer retailer speculation, but corporate reflexivity that is accelerating Thiers’ Law.

VI. Practical science in the boardroom

The Austrian economy starts with practical studiesthe study of purposeful human behavior. Every economic choice is an attempt to maintain or increase value under uncertainty. When business owners choose to hold Bitcoin instead of cash, they are performing praxeology in real time.

This is not an ideology. It’s a reasonable adaptation. The fiat system penalizes savings and rewards leverage. Bitcoin reverses the incentives and rewards prudence and long-term orientation. Companies, like individuals, respond to these incentives. What appears radical when viewed through a Keynesian lens appears inevitable when viewed through an Austrian lens.

Hayek once imagined denationalization of moneypredicted that private forms of sound currency would outperform government paper. What he could not have predicted was that the first actors to realize his vision would not be central banks but public corporations.

VII. CFO Calculus

For treasurers evaluating their capital policies over the next decade, the question is no longer whether Bitcoin fits their brand, but whether their balance sheets can survive without it.

Key strategic considerations:

1. Cost of capital and Bitcoin appreciation rate
   When the bond market yields less than 5% and the compounding value of Bitcoin dwarfs that, holding fiat currency becomes mathematically inefficient.
2. Diversification of reserves
   We treat Bitcoin as a long-term government bond asset that is less liquid than cash but much more resilient to inflation.
3. Report innovation
   Employ performance metrics such as: BTC yield or mNAV Measure strategic execution from a Bitcoin perspective, not just fiat accounting.
4. Storage and auditing
   Distribute keys across institutional providers. Schedule regular security audits to reduce trading partner and operational risks.
5. Communication for investors
   We view this decision as a capital preservation strategy rather than speculation. The market rewards clarity of theory and discipline of execution.

For CFOs, this philosophy becomes a reality. If we ignore the dynamics of speculative attacks, the Treasury remains on the other side.

VIII. Systematic speculative attacks

Roshard ended his essay with a prediction that “good money will drive out evil” as the hiring wave reaches its climax. Hyper Bitcoinizationthe “money is no good here” phase. He expected it to start with a shaky economy. Instead, it started with Wall Street and Euronext.

Public corporations serve as a transmission mechanism for monetary fluctuations. Each convertible note, each equity raise, each treasury conversion represents a small-scale speculative attack on fiat currency, a voluntary retreat from soft money to hard money.

Unlike past currency crises, this one is peaceful, unauthorized, and cumulative. There is no need for any government to devalue. Companies are doing it preemptively by changing the price of their reserves to Bitcoin.

The result is the same phenomenon that Roshard envisioned, scaled up, and institutionalized. speculative attack As a corporate function.

IX. Conclusion: Strategy, not rebellion

Bitcoin’s foray into corporate finance is not an act of rebellion, but one of discipline. This is the logical endpoint of the free-market financial competition described by Austrian economists for a century.

Where individuals once took the initiative to downgrade fiat currencies from their laptops, CFOs now do it through fixed income desks and board approvals. There are no changes to the incentive structure. The only thing that has evolved is scale. Each balance sheet that moves to Bitcoin strengthens the theory that money, like any other product, is subject to competitive pressures and creative destruction.

Eleven years later, Rochard speculative attack This is more like a playbook from the sound money era than a theory.

Disclaimer: This content is written on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations.. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a solicitation or invitation to acquire, purchase, or subscribe for any securities.