Furthermore, the implosion of crypto is very bullish for junior miners, since speculative money will return to its natural home in bullion. Michael Saylor, a big player in the crypto world, tweeted the following last week: "If it has counterparty risk, it’s not money. #Bitcoin." The timing of this was ironic, since the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, went belly-up on Friday. Just a week earlier, high-profile investors, including some Silicon Valley billionaires, were still shoveling money into FTX. Now they likely understand that the exchanges themselves are the counterparty risk.

Some will still argue you can put all of your bitcoin holdings on a thumb drive and avoid exchanges. But do you really believe the average consumer will put up with the hassle? FTX's competitors -- OKX, KuCoin, Poloniex and Huobi -- immediately told their customers they would do a "proof of reserves" to let them know whether their Bitcoin funds were actually there. I come from a different generation – a generation where verifying one's reserves entailed lifting one's mattress to determine whether your gold, silver and ammo were still safe and sound. My gut feeling is that we are going back to the way things used to be.