The value investing principles popularized by American economist Benjamin Graham no longer apply in today’s world, says ProCap BTC investment chief Jeff Park.
"If you're still investing like Benjamin Graham in 2025, you're already losing," Park said Tuesday on X. "The Intelligent Investor is dead."
Intelligent investing principles no longer apply because the foundations on which they rest have "eroded," Park said in a blog post expanding his views.
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According to Park, the foundations for the principles of intelligent investing are the free market ideals of fiscal restraint, financial liberalization, stable exchange rates, deregulation and privatization outlined in the Washington Consensus. But the Washington Consensus is now giving way to the Beijing Consensus, he said.
Park cited the launch of the Main Street Lending Program as one of the key moments highlighting the shift. The Federal Reserve launched the program to make credit available to small and mid-sized businesses during the COVID pandemic. He said the program went beyond the Fed's neutral mandate and into fiscal policy territory.
Another key moment cited by Park was when a coalition of countries, including the U.S., seized Russia’s reserve assets in 2022 in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
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These developments indicate a clear shift, Park said. He said in this new paradigm, markets are shaped by political discretion and cross-border flows rather than traditional free-market principles.
‘An Age Of The Ideological Investor'
Park said that this is now "an age of the ideological Investor." In this era, value is not measured by risk-free rates, weighted average cost of capital, discounted cash flow and capital asset pricing, he said.
According to Park, "the primary drivers of value" in this era are geopolitics, artificial intelligence and culture.
He said artificial intelligence will determine how "societies are organized and power distributed," citing Karl Marx‘s views on how the means of production shape life.
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He also highlighted that cultural positioning now significantly influences market outcomes, citing American Eagle’s (NYSE:AEO) recent gains following a polarizing ad for the retailer’s jeans featuring actress Sydney Sweeney.
"The Ideological Investor does not abandon analysis but reorients it," he said. "Instead of treating geopolitics, technology, or culture as ‘externalities' to be hedged, they treat them as the primary drivers of value."
Bitcoin As ‘The Ultimate Horse And Hedge'
According to Park, Bitcoin is "the ultimate horse and hedge" in the age of the ideological investor. He said the asset could escape geopolitical shifts because it was sovereignless. He also added that it was AI-agnostic and owned by a global community.
"For the Ideological Investor, Bitcoin is the ultimate horse and hedge, an embodiment of a worldview in which capital is allocated according to principles that survive crises, regime changes, and paradigm shifts," he said. "This is why Bitcoin will win. Because in the end, Bitcoin is value."
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