That isn't a store of time, it is a speculative return. Gold, silver & the US dollar all did pretty much what they are advertised and expected to do (go flat, flat and steady down in value respectively). Nobody knows what Bitcoin is going to do next.
What Bitcoin does has nothing to do with storage. Obviously we'd all rather have had Bitcoin from 2013 to 2021 than storage, but hindsight makes these decisions easy.
Nobody knows what gold or fiat is going to do next either:
- Fiat can be advertised in whichever way but ultimately there is no guarantee things will behave the same as it's centrally planned. The pandemic triggered unprecedented action from the money printer.
- Producing more efficient ways of mining gold, discovering new reserves on the planet or outwith will trigger a re pricing of gold's value.
The only meaningful horizon is time, and so far Bitcoin is doing well.
Neither the global money supply nor inflation has increased by 600 fold. No other asset class has had a 600 fold increase in this environment either. Not equities, not gold, not commodities.
Yes, every position is more or less speculative, but BTC is pricing in tremendous future potential that needs to be realized to justify the price.
I know very few people who store their excess income as cash (or Bitcoin, or gold).
It's the store of value component of Gold and it can perform that role in a much better way. If we took that property alone, it should realize a market value of around $7T.
Shouldn't it be more of a credit to the invention rather than a failure?
Mind you I don't think speculation is a bad word. Here are some speculative bets that are in the price right now:
- It will be adopted as the global reserve currency - No other crypto currency will replace it - It will replace gold - It will not be restricted by governments - The price will never stop going higher in the long run - Lighting network will appear - More corporations will add it to their balance sheet - A mature, reliable financial system will develop around BTC - Mt Gox won't happen again - Old coin holders can't dump into the market - The chain can't be attacked - The current leverage in BTC isn't a problem - BTC lending is currently safe - There will never be a run on BTC
Given how much speculation plays a role in the value, these are all fuses that if ever lit could cause significant down movements.
Note I'm not predicting any of these things. I'm just saying that 600x holds a lot of future promise that if unrealized will be painful in the short term.
Gold, having been around for millenia, does not have this issue. The market is mature, well understood, and well regulated.
> it's very accessible and in this age information is quick and erratic.
That seems like an untrue statement. Assets like gold are very easy to buy, depending on where you live (and laws against bitcoin) probably much easier than bitcoin which has weird laws restricting it.
That may have been true in the past but not likely to be the case going forward.
Stable is in the eye of the beholder; over the coming years, much of the $10 trillion dollars of the gold market will flow to bitcoin.
Just in general, Bitcoin is kicking gold’s ass:
$1 Invested in Bitcoin vs Gold over 11.4 years