Gold, Art, and Crypto — The Search for Value | AWM Insights #222

Key takeaways

• Speculative assets like gold, cryptocurrency, and NFTs often promise quick highlights but add unpredictable risk, falling short as tools for building enduring, generational wealth.

• Generational success isn’t won with isolated plays; it comes from an integrated, disciplined game plan guided by professionals who see the full field.

• Athlete families achieve long-term prosperity when their investments, taxes, and estate planning align seamlessly—like a well-coached team executing on both sides of the ball.

• AWM Capital delivers a research-driven investment strategy built for longevity, shielding families from distractions and anchoring every decision to a legacy that outlasts the headlines.

Chasing the play, or playing the long game?

In sports, the crowd loves the spectacular—last-minute shots, improbable comebacks, underdog wins. Financial headlines aren’t much different. Gold rockets past historical highs and graces the front page. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin hit round number milestones and whip up a social media frenzy. Meanwhile, collectibles and digital assets, from Swiss watches to Non-Fungible Tokens, attract eyes and dollars with promises of unique opportunity.

With every headline, families ask: Is it time to make a move? Yet the difference between fleeting victory and enduring success is often in the details. Gold, crypto, and collectibles do not share profits, pay dividends, or generate rents. Their price depends not on what they produce, but on what another is willing to pay. That’s not a foundation—it’s a high-wire act, balancing on hope and sentiment.

Gold’s legend, crypto’s promise, and what the scoreboard shows

Gold’s appeal has endured for generations. It is finite, tangible, and entrenched in tradition—whether as a safe haven, luxury symbol, or industrial resource. But when you dig deeper, the story gets complicated. Gold is regularly pitched as an inflation hedge. Look closer at the data, and you’ll see that periods of rampant inflation have often left gold investors disappointed, with prices only recently matching past highs when adjusted for cost of living. In contrast, ownership in well-run businesses has delivered value: companies respond to inflation, raise prices, and share their productivity with investors.

The same playbook gets rewritten with cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin. The narrative: limited supply, decentralized, a new age store of value. Yet Bitcoin, like gold, remains speculative—no income stream, no underlying economic activity, just the bet that global demand will keep climbing. Blockchain technology itself? Now, there’s potential, but capturing value means investing through profitable companies building practical solutions on that backbone—not by hoping a token’s price will rise.

Collectibles, NFTs, and the hidden opportunity cost

Art, cars, and rare watches dress up portfolios, and sometimes serve as conversation starters. But investing in them comes with real-world baggage: insurance, upkeep, and illiquidity. Wines spoil, cars rust, and art markets move in unpredictable bursts. The NFT hype was notorious. For a moment, celebrities and influencers chased digital bragging rights, pouring six and seven figures into pixelated artwork. Today, some studies estimate that 95% of NFTs minted in the last five years are now essentially worthless—a costly reminder of how quickly hype sours.

What’s less visible is the opportunity cost. While capital sits tied up waiting for the next collector to bite, it could have been working—earning, compounding, and producing real value in businesses that never take a season off.

The stewardship mindset for generational wealth

For athletes and families intent on building a 100-year legacy, the gold standard (pun intended) is measured, disciplined investment in productive assets. At AWM Capital, we steer portfolios with intention, anchoring allocations in companies and ventures that produce income and adapt. Hype fades, but fundamentals endure. Legacy is created by smart stewardship and careful play-calling, not by chasing whatever lights up the scoreboard this quarter. That’s how families win—year after year, generation after generation.