Start Something – College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Iowa State University

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"I kind of noticed it at the time—but not as much as I should have. My ties to the open-source software community date back to my first business, E-Markets, when we built a server room in Ames with Dell boxes running Linux as their operating system. Out of the open-source and cypherpunk communities came this thing: Bitcoin.

A couple of young entrepreneurs I spend time with had told me to check out Bitcoin. Yeah, yeah. Someday.

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Someday came in 2021 when I purchased my first bitcoin at $47,000. When the FTX exchange collapsed in November 2022 and bitcoin prices fell toward—and below—$20,000, my investment was underwater. Instead of exiting, I began to research more deeply.

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I have long been part of a very small minority of economists who believe a return to hard money would be beneficial. This raised a question: Could Bitcoin be digital gold? Had Satoshi Nakamoto created a digital commodity?

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If Bitcoin is digital gold, then it is also a digital commodity. Commodities have historically served as money, and commodity producers are deeply affected by monetary systems. As monetary and financial systems evolve toward decentralization, new opportunities emerge for producers.

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The evolution toward decentralized money signals a new era of opportunity in commodity markets.

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Buckle up, agriculture. It will be a ride."

Source:
https://startsomething.cals.iastate.edu/post/commodity-markets-and-decentralized-money-opportunities-white-paper