Bank of America Puts Bitcoin in a Very Strange Club
Bank of America’s research arm just did something unexpected. In a new report tracking major technological shifts over the last thousand years, they’ve lumped bitcoin in with inventions like the printing press and the steam engine. That’s a big deal—not just for crypto fans, but for anyone paying attention to how money works.
The chart itself is dense, full of tiny labels marking everything from the rise of railroads to the birth of the internet. Bitcoin sits right there in the thick of it, wedged between quantum computing and electric vehicles. It’s an odd pairing at first glance, but maybe it makes sense. After all, bitcoin wasn’t just another tech fad. It introduced something entirely new: money that doesn’t need banks or governments to function.
Why This Feels Different
What’s striking isn’t just that Bank of America acknowledged bitcoin’s existence. It’s where they placed it—right at the steepest part of the curve, where technological change starts accelerating wildly. The implication is hard to ignore: bitcoin isn’t just another asset. It’s part of a fundamental rewrite of how value moves around the world.
That said, the bank hasn’t exactly embraced it yet. You still can’t buy bitcoin directly through them. But CEO Brian Moynihan has hinted that could change. Earlier this year, he told the World Economic Forum that banks will jump into crypto “hard” once regulators give clearer rules. It’s a cautious stance, but also a telling one. Even the old guard seems to think this isn’t going away.
The Bigger Picture
There’s a quiet shift happening. A few years ago, most Wall Street firms treated bitcoin like a curiosity at best, a scam at worst. Now, it’s being discussed alongside inventions that reshaped entire societies. That doesn’t mean it’ll definitely succeed—plenty of world-changing ideas fizzled out, too. But it’s harder to dismiss as a passing trend when analysts start measuring it in centuries instead of quarterly earnings.
What’s still unclear is how much of this is genuine belief versus covering their bases. Banks aren’t exactly known for taking bold risks. Then again, neither were the publishers who initially dismissed the printing press. History’s full of things that seemed ridiculous until they didn’t.
For now, the report feels like a small but significant nod—an admission that bitcoin, for all its volatility and quirks, might actually belong on that list after all. Whether that’s good or bad depends on who you ask. But it’s getting harder to pretend it doesn’t matter.
