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Bitcoin - investment or gamble? - Your opinion

A quick note in advance: My last post led to a controversial discussion - and that's exactly what I find exciting, to be honest. But let's remain fair and respectful.


On the subject of Bitcoin: I've been wondering for some time what the whole thing actually is. Is it a serious investment or just a huge gamble at the end of the day? To me, Bitcoin clearly feels like a bubble. Not necessarily because the price is high, but because I don't see any real benefit.


In my opinion, Bitcoin is completely uninteresting as a means of payment. Hardly anyone pays with it, hardly any merchants really accept it. Too volatile, too slow, too complicated. And this despite the fact that the price has risen dramatically over the years. If there is no widespread use even with such increases in value, when will there be?


What remains is above all the story: digital gold, limited quantity, inflation protection. Sounds good, no question. But at the end of the day, the price almost only lives from the fact that others are prepared to pay even more for it. There are no cash flows, no business model, no product behind it.


Then there are all the side effects: high energy consumption, problems with regulation, use for criminal purposes. At the same time, Bitcoin is shunned rather than promoted worldwide as a real means of payment. For me, none of this really fits together.


And before anyone says "you just don't get it": Yes, I was there myself. I also gambled and made profits. But looking back, that's exactly what it was for me: a gamble on further price rises, not an investment in the traditional sense.


Bitcoin can theoretically become almost worthless when the bubble bursts. But it can just as easily continue to rise, perhaps even to completely absurd valuations, if the hype simply doesn't end. The only question for me is: is this a serious investment - or are we simply deliberately riding a wave?


I look forward to your opinions.


$BTC (-1,93 %)
$MSTR (-2,68 %)

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48 Commentaires

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Have you ever been for a walk in Monaco in the evening?
Many apartments are unlit. Why?
There are a lot of people with far too much money who have to spread their wealth around somewhere.
At some point they end up with a finca in Mallorca or an apartment in Monaco. But the thing in Monaco simply stands empty. But it still has a certain chance of increasing in value due to scarcity. But it needs maintenance, has high transaction costs, etc.
Think of Bitcoin as the digital form of an apartment in Monaco. Also with narrow national borders, i.e. a certain lack of space or scarcity.
Bitcoin can therefore be a more cost-efficient solution for parking surplus money with the desire to multiply it.
Just as a thought experiment.
I think that's speculative. But I think BTC will break the USD 1 million barrier.
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@Wealth-Accelerator I don't think you can compare Bitcoin as an investment with real estate. Firstly, you can rent out a property and thus achieve an ongoing return. The profit with Bitcoin is purely based on the fact that someone pays more later.

Furthermore, the more important argument is demand. Just because Bitcoin is limited is no guarantee that its value will rise. This is only the case if demand also increases. And this is where I see the problem with Bitcoin: in my opinion, this demand is not guaranteed. The situation is different with real estate; the desire for a home or larger living space is a basic need and will remain so. Bitcoin as a long-term investment is therefore purely speculative in my opinion.
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@Wealth-Accelerator only minor difference is that your apartment cannot dissapear from the wallet 😂
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@Astrr
I'm not talking about real estate held for cash flow.
I'm thinking about a use case for very wealthy people. Unfortunately I don't have time to answer in more detail right now. Gladly later
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@Wealth-Accelerator your analogy is pretty good. I got it exactly as you meant it to be.
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@Wealth-Accelerator Most apartments in Monaco are not dark 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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The fact that there are still so many critical comments, some of them unfounded, makes me feel very positive about how early we are actually still in the game with Bitcoin. I never hear that with gold :D It's limited, but to how much? Transportation difficult? If the price of gold rises, will mining go up and with it inflation? Hardly or not at all digital? And so on, ...
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@Alexander_Bitcoin gold is not as limited as Btc, can always be new or chemically produced
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@Investingyoung perhaps Elon Musk will also find gold deposits on Mars.
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I can't imagine that $BTC will ever reach the masses of society. The main reason for this is that even in the generations 1-2 younger than me, i.e. between 15-40, $BTC is not an issue. And even here in this financial bubble, people like @stefan_21 who really know a lot about the subject are very rare. So I don't know what will happen in 50-100 years' time, whether you'll be able to pay for flying practice and parking machines in the sky with $BTC 😂 , but for me it's just a speculative asset class.
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@Multibagger I also think that we will probably not see BTC become a fully established means of payment in the West. As you say, BTC / crypto plays virtually no role in the tik tok generation
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Personally, I am in this generation @Multibagger and I have to say that for me a 5-10% admixture of Bitcoin is part of a balanced portfolio.

I also see this in my environment, that everyone recommends this addition.

At the latest since the major American banks and now also savings banks have opened up this asset to customers, I can imagine that it is more difficult to trade this asset past the masses 😅
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@Mathias_Rr I agree about trading. But I don't see paying 0.0001 Bitcoin with the wallet as a means of payment at the bakery.
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@Multibagger Absolutely not, that's true.

For me personally, it is an asset that has been 100% missing from the financial world. That's why I see it as another building block in the portfolio.

I also don't see the lack of correlation with the gold price as negative.

In addition, currency losses such as in Iran show that Bitcoin can be a "saving asset" for people who do not have a gold/foreign currency backing.
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@Multibagger You don't pay with Bitcoin either, or do you pay for your purchases with gold?
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@Investingyoung no, but you often read that Bitcoin takes away the banks' ability to print money and thus make it superfluous. For me, $BTC is an asset class, like gold, silver, copper, etc. Nothing more and nothing less! You can earn and lose money. So nothing special!
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@Multibagger many people also vote for the left... there are a lot of idiots. By the way, I've never heard what you said about banks and I've been dealing with it for 3 years
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@Multibagger Yes, Bitcoin is like gold (only better) 🤠🤭
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@Investingyoung anything is possible, but since I'm not invested, I honestly don't care. If $BTC goes to a million, I don't begrudge it to any of you who are invested. If it becomes worthless, it's just a gamble that didn't work out. That's life! But I see the risk of a worthless expiry higher with $BTC than with gold, and I don't see either of them at one million.
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@Multibagger oh yes, BTC will have that in a few decades. Bitcoin wouldn't even have to be as big as gold now. Time + inflation alone will ensure that it reaches a million. Similar to how google and co will then have a mcap as high as gold currently.
It just won't be worth as much purchasing power as it is today
Voir toutes les 3 autres réponses
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Bitcoin is an absolute basic investment.
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@KryX_DE because it has no third party risk and is extremely undervalued. I can use it to cross national borders without having to ask a third party. Transportation is mega easy. It's a growing new asset class. And so on, the list is long.
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@Alexander_Bitcoin I am definitely bullish and yes, I am convinced that we will see 7-digit Bitcoin prices in the long term. Nevertheless, I find this "absolute base investment" framing too simplistic ...

The argument about the lack of third party risk is true in theory, but only to a limited extent in practice. Most people use exchanges (see FTX..), custodians, wallet providers or are indirectly dependent on mining pools and infrastructure. Even with self-custody, you are not automatically safe. Money has been stolen from wallets very often, mostly via compromised browser extensions, phishing or simply poor security practices. This is not a fault of Bitcoin itself, but human stupidity... But that's just part of the reality.

Cross-border and censorship-resistant, Bitcoin is without question a massive strength. The fact that you can move value across national borders without permission is something completely new. At the same time, it is not "mega easy" for many users if you really want to make it secure. Security means responsibility and many people underestimate this.

I basically agree with you on the subject of undervaluation, but not because Bitcoin has classic valuation ratios. There is no cash flow, no dividend. The value arises from monetary properties, scarcity, network effects and trust. This is a long-term process and not a sure-fire success.

I agree that Bitcoin is a new, growing asset class. This is precisely why the upside is huge, but the volatility and regulatory risk are also real. For me, being bullish doesn't mean ignoring everything, but knowing the risks, enduring them and still remaining convinced that Bitcoin will win in the long term precisely because of them. ✌️🤞
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I believe that Bitcoin has a lot of potential as a long-term investment.
I understand your reasoning and additional concern, but I think that Bitcoin has created a basis for something that for many far more intelligent people like us is perhaps just the beginning of something big.
So it's up to them to make it so.
P.S. Many stores don't accept gold bars as payment either 🤣🤣
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@Fl_ow @Fl_ow But when I put Bitcoin on my kitchen scales, unlike gold, they don't show anything.
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@KryX_DE doesn't your cold wallet have any weight? :-)
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@KryX_DE didn't know you could weigh shares
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I use it as a long-term investment. When I was in Thailand last year, for example, I also saw shops/stalls where you could pay with it (I can't say how trustworthy it is).
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@Ash after the earnings I will get in with the first tranche
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@Alpalaka Oops, where? #justontheline
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@Ash right? Now your stupidity is ruining my joke :/
btc
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@Alpalaka "Wall of Shame" 🥺
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You've got that right. Bitcoin is pure hype with no added value. If Bitcoin were to disappear overnight, nobody would notice and that shows how irrelevant it is. The Bitcoin gurus always think you are "free from the system", but they forget that nobody can free themselves from the system.
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I find Bitcoin boring and extremely unsexy. Somehow it always smells a bit like cold pizza, cheap carpeting and basement floor stains to me. Nevertheless, I (naturally) took a smaller position. Why? I have no idea. It's just what "people" do these days. And that could explain both the purpose and the risk.
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After the formulation:".......feelsBitcoin......" you don't need to read any further.
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You say Bitcoin is too slow, too volatile and too complicated.

It may be true that Bitcoin is slow, but this is not a disadvantage but an advantage, as it increases the security of the network. But it is not a problem with second layer solutions.

Too complicated is only partly true. Firstly, it is not that complicated and secondly, yes, it is "too complicated" for the masses. But the Internet was also too complicated and too slow for the masses in the 90s. Only scientists and absolute technology nerds used it, but today...
In other words, the complexity will decrease with more and more solutions.

And now the most important point.
You say it is not a relevant means of payment and also mention volatility in this context. But a relevant means of payment must first establish itself as a store of value. Gold would not have been a currency for hundreds of years if it had not first established itself as a store of value, i.e. if people had not agreed on a certain value to which they attribute gold. It would not surprise me that such a phase of value discovery is insanely volatile, but is actually to be expected. And this is precisely the phase that Bitcoin is currently in. Only when this phase is complete can it establish itself as a widely effective means of payment. And since we are only at around 5% adoption (if I'm not mistaken), this phase could last quite a while.
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For me, BTC is a real alternative. No offense, but from your statements it seems that you really haven't looked into it in any depth (no matter how long you've been gambling with it), because that's what I thought two years ago. The adaptation and benefits are already much broader than we realize - especially in Germany. You can now find very good neutral documentaries on YouTube.
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I recommend either Blocktrainer on Youtube or here @stefan_21 I'm too lazy to explain everything here, I'm busy correcting the people who give crap here
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What is the benefit of gold for you?
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Our monetary system will die. We need alternatives . Bitcoin would be one. Take a look at the transaction options. Nobody knew Paypal 10 years ago. Today the scan code hangs in the kiosk for payment.
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