Bitcoin has penetrated the $30k USD and appears to be holding, looking at the charts, it looks like the beginning of another bull market which can take its price to $100k, $200k and beyond. Goes without saying, but still this is my own opinion only, not financial advice. I'm just opining on the potential future price of BTC, it may or may not eventuate, I don't have control over the price of BTC. Do not rely on my posts and comments, its for educational/entertainment/lively debating purposes only.
I look at other investment classes, shares, bonds, property, its all doom and gloom. This is why I've decided against buying an investment property, I just do get where the attraction is from. I'm investment vehicle agnostic, I just want the best vehicle to make the most returns. Of course risk is very hard set, and some investment vehicles are much much more susceptible to regulation and other shocks. Take the property market for example, there is a range of regulation changes, which governments can implement which will cause it to break, look at China as a very good example, a rule change reining in how much debt developers can take on, rippled through the market and broke it.
Cryptocurrencies are not immune, however they are much much more resilient to these regulation changes. Of course, it will be affected by it if governments attempt to ban it or otherwise restrict it.
I find it very funny reading through https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/, which shows a collection of what naysayers have said throughout the years and Bitcoin has proven them all wrong. Take a look at this from Dan Pena, he said this when Bitcoin dropped from $6k to $3k and he was doing a little victory rant, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX21rnDV-oo. Now Bitcoin has proven him wrong, and he has egg all over his face. Its so funny, everything he said about Bitcoin turned out to be wrong.
Personally, I thought Bitcoin was a scam from 2009 to 2013. I knew about its existence shortly after it was created and I read and understood the whitepaper, but didn't believe it would work. This changed in 2013, happy to be proven wrong and Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have allowed me to accumulate a nice small fortune. I've done calculations on the alternatives, if I didn't buy Bitcoin and other cryptos from 2013, eg purchased an investment property, purchased apple shares etc, and none could have allowed me to amass my net wealth today. So with 20/20 hindsight, I'm glad I made the right decision back in 2013.
Has your perception about cryptocurrency changed over the years?
Update - adding in some common points people put in the comments.
Crypto is a zero sum game. For you to make money, someone needs to lose money.
This is not true, shares and property are not zero sum games, hence crypto which is another asset just like shares and property is not a zero sum game.
Here's a recent trade I did. I purchased 20.82 BTC late 2022 at $16688 USD per BTC, I sold it over the last few days at an average price of around $30100 USD per BTC because I want to purchase a property to live in soon.
In this scenario, who lost money?
1. The people who sold it to me late 2022
2. me or
3. the people who bought it off me a few days ago. BTC is $30184 USD at the time of writing.
Bitcoin is based on "thin air", its not backed by anything.
Bitcoin was created in the aftermath of the GFC, which is either forgotten or just not experienced by people. Bitcoin's value is based on its decentralised, censorship resistant and permissionless network, which is a god send for people in oppressive regimes with unstable fiat currencies. It is also based on trust, through its open sourced code.
Much of our economy is based on trust without the transparency. We trust that our RBA gives us accurate data on how much money it conjures up from "thin air". Unlike Bitcoin, we can't easily verify it, how do we know they haven't printed a trillion AUD?
My 'money' is on money.