IMO this crown belongs to ETFs.
Putting all your eggs in the Bitcoin basket would be an extremely risky strategy. A portfolio of ETFs is a much better place for most people’s savings.
Read about Authorized Participants if you're confused as to what HFT has to do with ETFs. Overall it's a decent improvement over the very old idea of open-ended funds, given the recent digitalisation of trading and super fast market making with tiny spreads.
PS. I like ETFs, I think they're achieving exactly what are they supposed to achieve.
Bitcoin is borderless, permissionless storage of value. Game theory built in (anyone powerful enough to attack the network is better incentivized to participate in it.)
So is Bitcoin.
Otherwise it's just numbers hopping around anonymously on a ledger.
That’s tax evasion.
I know it’s chic to be callous about tax fraud in some cryptocurrency circles. But the same has been true of cash, art and bearer bonds for centuries.
This is why Bitcoin is an existential threat to government power. I personally think it's empowering and great for the individual, however if you tend towards more statist views then this would seem like anarchy.
I don't want some drug lord to pump/dump/coerce/tax-evade their way into being the richest person on my continent, and then hire an army to take my nation over. That is easier with crypto currency than it is with fiat.
The tech community dropped the ball in the '90s by being panglossian about the potential problems with the web. It would be nice if, this time, we could get ahead of the ball with crypto currencies.
The ideal case would be a hybrid system of state fiat and cryptocurrencies where liberal democracies incentivize their citizens to use fiat through better governance and services while also respecting the sovereignty of individuals to accumulate value that cannot be debased by dumb political decisions.
Why not both?
The liberal democracies are pretty open and positive on cryptocurrencies. So no, it does not seem to be threat to them.
Instead, it is more of a threat to the less liberal countries.
If large portions of the economy aren’t paying taxes, I am not paying taxes. This breaks down the social contract. Given authoritarian nations’ increased force projection, this vision of cryptocurrencies first corrodes liberal democracies, where those not paying have courts and Constitutions between them and the state.
Nope! Liberal democracies allow cryptocurrency and it very well could be the case that some of these crypto events are non taxable events.
Thats just working within what liberal democracies allow.
> have courts and Constitutions
Courts and constitutions are pretty important in liberal democracies. I support the protections that those provide, personally.
Seems more likely that they’re going to be wiped out before then by either a fraudulent/bankrupt exchange (if they never moved the funds to a Bitcoin address) or by losing the private key (if they did).
This technology is absolutely not where a Sussex nurse should park their hard-earned pennies at this point.
The same monthly payment into globally diversified ETFs is almost guaranteed to be liquid and in gains in 2050. If it’s not, the global collapse has rendered the Bitcoin thesis untenable too.
Also, there are "safer" / "more classic" way to buy such puts, gold bullion works wonders in times of severe disruption, and I don't think it's unreasonable to commit 5-10% of your capital to gold, almost regardless of personal situation and net worth levels. Of course you never know when the next "Executive Order 6102" happens, but there's kind of no good solution for that :(
(all of the above are personal opinions, feel free to disagree as much as you like)
I used to hold Bitcoin at various times in the past, and I would absolutely not recommend Bitcoin to anyone unless they truly can stomach total loss on the "investment". This means appropriate position sizing, alignment with current personal financial situation and personal plans/goals/objectives. And don't even think about leverage here.