Crypto enemy government we had in the last 15 years. China ban, ftx collapse, SEC screwing the ETF as much as they could. During that period BTC went from 1 dollar to 60k. And now in the crypto friendly environment, it went to 100k. If you think in percentages, the crypto enemy environment was not bad at all. Everybody should do the due diligence. I think the current arguments and counter arguments will be valid also at 300k, or 30k. It is funny though that it was a bubble at 1k, and now if it would blow up and would go to 20kâŠit would be still really nice value storage⊠anywaysâŠ
One more smart thing I heard today regarding the stock market: you donât need to guess the best company for investment, you need to guess what others will think will be the best company for investment. I think this idea is applicable for any asset classes.
It also lost went back from 60k to less than 20k after FTX, and who knows how much itâd be now if Trump hadnât been elected.
As the other poster commented, I donât follow your reasoning to say itâs somewhat independent from everything else. 2/3 of its value lost temporarily disappeared because of FTX. If anything, itâs very regulation-dependent.
BTC is not a store of value given its current volatility.
Thatâs Greater fool theory - Wikipedia, and thatâs what distinguishes speculation and investment. A company has a floor valuation because of its cashflow, BTC doesnât. Maybe the valuation of Nvidia has nothing to do with its fundamentals and that some of its price is due to speculation, but you can still argue that itâs worth more than 0 because of its cashflow.
The problem with speculation is that itâs a zero- or negative-sum game as opposed to a positive-sum game, creating more losers than winners along the way. Of course if you end up winning, itâs all fine, but thereâs no guarantee. The gains of some BTC speculators are the losses of others.
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I just enjoyed a Cohiba⊠I rarely do.
Whichever 3 letter agency is behind this, please more of it.
Rich people buy gold to preserve their value once they are already rich . Buying gold doesnât make you rich.
In case of Bitcoin story is other way around.
Assumption is that buying Bitcoin will make you rich and that would make BTC more valuable.
If this works out well, this would be biggest wealth transfer from rich to not rich in the history of world. But the question is why would rich people hand over all their wealth to buy BTC and in process make other who bought BTC at 1 USD richer?
When someone thinks about it rationally. Things might become clear. Itâs not about 300K or 3 million. Itâs about what is the mechanism of value creation and if there is no value creation and itâs only wealth transfer then how would that eventually continue forever.
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It works for the speculative part of it, the P/E multiple for stocks, or expectations of future growth if you want to link it to reality.
It forgets the earnings part of the equation, which is part of what you buy with a share of a company. Part of their hard assets, part of their know-how, part of their name recognition, part of their earnings and part of their debts.
Those earnings âshouldâ come back to you in the way of either dividends or actual company growth. Of course, the market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent: actual growth may not translate to other investors recognizing enough value into it and the price can still stay low, in which case, good company governance or shareholders pressure could lead to shares buybacks by the company itself to bring the price âin lineâ with its shareholders expectations. If its actual growth did actually deliver, it should have the means for it.
Not all companies allow for the right processes to happen, as bad governance exists and some have locked in the voting rights so that public holders donât hold an actual meaningful voice, but for good companies, it should.
Granted, that is not how most people see stocks nowadays but on a personal level, it is what I think investing actually is and should be. Itâs not about putting your money in whatever and expecting x% of growth without moving a finger but carefully choosing your investments and doing things yourself that will push them in the direction you want. I admit to not doing much financial investing by my definition myself.
While the perspective of a crypto friendly US government contributed a lot in this recent push from 70 to 100K, I would argue that itâs been almost a year already that the coin is in bull market territory. The effect of the halvening should not be discarded.
Imagine that on this forum there have been people talking about bitcoin since April. 2020, and who still donât have any in their portfolio 
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I have some basic questions for comparison of Bitcoin vs Bitcoin ETFs (IBIT/FBTC etc)
- What is the wealth tax treatment of one vs the other?
- Will US domiciled Bitcoin ETFs be considered DA-1 relevant assets?
The answer to the above will make difference in DA-1 refunds calculations
I find them overpriced, and overall Cuban cigars seem to overplay what I call âFrench food syndromeâ - ie âthe earthier the betterâ. Iâm a pleb who likes Toscanos no matter how many supposedly great cigars Iâve tried. Have you ever tried a Toscano?
I will try them. Cohiba was my first âgoodâ cigar 20yrs ago and as I rarely smoke cigars, I know what I got when I stand in a room full of cigars in the shop. Thanks for the hint.
Theyâre very different from classic cigars as they use fire cured tobaccos, pretty strong but I really like them. Theyâre dirt cheap so if you donât like them you just chuck them in the bin.
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No distributions = no withholding taxes â no.
Oh, I had no idea what you were talking about. At least now we know what you smoke. Itâs important information when you discuss things with people.
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Currently the price is so high that whoever ever bought BTC, is probably in profit. So letâs be honest, on ATH, not many people should be in loss.
The greater fool theory is true for gold, and honestly for most of the things we buy but we donât really need for our life.
My argument is only that it has a value that a company or government cannot control it.
If you believe that musk and other techno feudalism people love humanity, and we should let them control us, then BTC is not for you.
If you want something what cannot be taken away from you, then BTC might be for you.
The price cycles are higher and higher, always ending with euphoria, but the bottom is also higher and higher. If there ever be a shift in capitalism, Iâm sure that many theories about the current economy will be questioned. Imagine that governments would ban products, or tell you how many cars can you buy, etc. This is not sci-fi, it is history, and possibly future. Then I want to see the strong arguments about the always growing markets, economy, profits. If we do not believe that we can grow forever, then the current setup is not working. If there is scarcity of rare metals which are needed for our technology, then our economy cannot grow forever. If you are not overly optimistic about technology being abel to solve our ass each time, then you might look for alternatives for your storage of wealth.
Just donât lose your passphrase set. 
I was not sure I was allowed to talk about weed in here⊠so. 
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The whole market (not only crypto) has been in bull territory for quite some time now.
I think we can dismiss it as having been priced in ever since professionals have been trading Bitcoin, given how deterministic and predictable it is.
Well thatâs unless they sold some before. But even then, the point is that a speculatorâs profits are anotherâs losses, given that no value is created. Itâs the same in a Ponzi scheme: an individual can make profits, but at some point someone will have to take the corresponding loss.
What does âcontrolâ mean here? Yes nobody can take my 1 BTC unless they get my private key, but it seems that e.g. the US government has an outsized influence on how much buying power this BTC has. The US government could crash BTC right now by selling all the stash they seized. The US government after Trump could end up being less sympathetic to BTC and crash it purely via regulation without spending much.
Iâm not sure having control over my 1 BTC gets me much if something else controls what I can do with it.
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As a store of value1 BTC will have a problem if regulators turn against it. Regulator approval should be baked into the price by now. And itâs utility is surely greater if it can be used unmolested in major jurisdictions.
But this governmental influence is not absolute. For example Monero (the biggest privacy coin) is facing regulatory pressure. Some centralized exchanges have started to drop it. The price dipped, but only shortly. As a response, dedicated decentralized exchanges can now capitalize on demand instead. There are some problems with lacking scripting support in Monero. Atomic swaps work, though.
Another avenue of resisting price fluctuations and government control are concepts like DAI. They create a token pegged to the USD by staking overcollateralized loans of other crypto assets.
Blockchain technology enables trust in absence of or resistance to a central entity. At a very competitive price, since there is no need to run a government with an army (for this specific usecase). Also, I would argue that it might sometimes be more efficient to have mechanical contracts instead of relying on international law court battles.
How much demand there is depends on the behavior of those central entities. Here, in developed nations, most people have few need for this. But there is Russians using it to bypass sanctions, and Chinese circumventing Chinaâs capital export controls.
Footnotes
1 - Store of value is questionable at current volatilities anyway. Means of payment might be holding up a bit better to regulatory pressure, if only in certain areas.
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(Dr. PI ignore this post )
Where do you get your Toscanos? I went in a cigar shop in PfĂ€ffikon SZ and one in Rapperswil SG. They have (slightly derogatory) no âItalianâ cigars. Tomorrow, Iâll be back in Ticino and hope to be more lucky there. I think I should get them in Italy anyway.