> At least with gold, you can make something with it.
Well, no, you can't use Bitcoin for integrated circuitry. Since it's literally bits, it's not useful as jewellery either. So let's put that aside. There isn't even a point discussing it. Gold wins here, hands down. Some people do think the addresses, both in b64 and QR form are quite aesthetic tho...
What we are really discussing is the ease and cost of transacting these assets. Ask any South African armed transport guard, and he'll tell you that he'd only transport gold in a heavily armoured truck, with heavy weapons and backup. Despite that, a lot of trucks, with far less value than gold in it, get violently hijacked every year. Sometimes even with RPG's! I can't imagine the cost of all that, but let's just agree that it's extremely expensive. So I think you can safely say that gold is both harder and more expensive to mine, transact and to look after than Bitcoin. Meanwhile all you need to keep your Bitcoin safe is a private key.
Bitcoin has at least 4 highly valuable use cases.
1. It's regulation resistant. When two parties voluntarily agree to exchange Bitcoin for a trade, nobody can step in between.
2. It's crime resistant. It's almost useless for extortions due to how flagged addresses and accounts can be tracked and shut down by users and exchanges.
3. It's easy and painless to transact across borders and regulated regions.
4. It's a store of value, due to how it's an absolutely finite resource.
It beats gold hands down in all these categories. On top of that it's far more environmentally friendly than gold. But no, you can't fill your teeth with it.
None of this matters to ASA. All they care about is that the number of pounds you can swap for Bitcoin can go up or can go down, so Luno have to say that in their adverts. They'd be held to the same standard if they were flogging index funds.
- If a workaround is found to its cryptographic formula, it goes to zero immediately,
- If quantum computing is invented,
- If a government tightens the tax declarations about it, making it a pain for a lot of holders who would then look into liquidating en masse,
- If EY wanted to squash ransomware (as France does, being #1 victim) and requires “source of wealth proof” for every BTC transaction,
- If a country like US or China assimilates BTC to terrorism or evasion, since Iran has been found using it to circumvent petrol restrictions, since Chinese people use it to evade the country, any country could decide for any reason that BTC is illegal and provoke a mass sale.
It might be the case, and if it is it means that in the worst case, you'd still have 10%, which is more than the nothing that a 100% speculative asset has.
Of course they would. The speculation of future growth and sustained growth is built into the price of all stocks. And if you think that's wild wait until you learn about derivatives.
I guess on a super literal level, predicting future cash flows based on past cash flows is "speculation", but certainly not in the same way that derivatives are.
