“Past performance is not indicative of future results.” That is mostly true, but is it always true? There are examples where past performance may provide guidance on what might persist. Take gold. Over the last 55 years, gold compounded at roughly 9% per year, while commodities like corn, soybeans, and wheat averaged closer to 2%. Gold’s unique monetary properties and scarcity likely explain this long-term divergence. Understanding this, it would be unreasonable to expect soybeans to suddenly start outperforming gold over the next 55 years. So where do we draw the line between using history as a guide for future performance (including bitcoin) and overfitting it?(Joe Burnett, MSBA)