[cryptoanonymous]

Author here. I agree that past inflation has been minimal; what I was referring to was the expectation of future inflation after the pandemic has materially ended. It would have been rational (or so my thinking went at the time) for investors to buy into Bitcoin in anticipation of this shift.

[H8crilA]

There are explicit contracts for such things (based on TIPS, so it's not some small shady market). Inflation expectations are still low, though materially higher than even in May:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T5YIFR

In particular they do not go outside of the 3.0% range where we've been stuck for decades (the US CPI itself hasn't printed anything above 2.5% year-over-year since the 90s).

Inflation will come one day (one year? one decade?), but sure as hell isn't here yet.