Imagine betting your entire fortune on Bitcoin back in 2012, when it traded at $20 a coin.

That's what George Kikvadze, Executive vice chairman of Bitfury, did in 2012 when most people dismissed Bitcoin as “magic internet money”.

On the surface, it sounded like pure madness. Newly fired from his hedge fund job, family thinking he’s lost it, the asset trading below a dollar just two years earlier. Who does that?

But as George puts it, “The comfort level of owning Bitcoin is directly proportional to the time you spend studying it.” He studied math, cryptography, monetary history. He watched the Cyprus banking crisis play out, saw accounts frozen, and connected it back to his childhood in the Soviet Union where his parents’ savings evaporated overnight.

That’s where his core thesis came from:

- Global debt levels keep rising
- Governments and central banks will keep printing more fiat money
- Bitcoin, with 21 million hard-capped supply and declining issuance, is an asymmetric bet on that lack of discipline.

This understanding allowed him to hold his nerve when everyone thought he was crazy — and then use that belief to build, not just trade.

Along with his co-founder Val, he built not one but THREE bitcoin unicorns from the BitFury Universe, choosing to focus on enabling mining versus hoarding coins.

And George still isn’t done. On CNBC, he doesn’t say Bitcoin might hit a million dollars. He says it will — driven by the same forces he’s been tracking for over a decade.

Karthik sits down with George to unpack his journey, his book “And Then You Win”, and his $1M Bitcoin thesis on the latest weekday episode of the Blume Podcast.

Chapters:

0:00 — Trailer

1:05 — The $20 Bet, Reinvention & Early Bitcoin Lessons

8:19 — CNBC Moment, Chip Failure & Bitfury’s Toughest Crisis

13:32 — Why Bitcoin Still Wins: Scarcity, Debt & Discipline

Season Partners: IDFC FIRST Bank and Ultrahuman (Blume portco)