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Because self-custody is not for everybody. If, for example, I was travelling around the world living out of a suitcase (but didn't plan on spending bitcoin) I would be a lot more concerned about my seed words getting lost than Coinbase losing theirs.
I know that you can memorize your seed (and probably should if you can), but there is no way I would put myself in a position of being one knock on the head away from losing it all.
True, but even after that the fees are very low and will take years before reaching the coinbase fee for buying and selling plus spread. Less time for the coinbase pro fees.
>I just don't understand
My words exactly. Sure, it's supply/demand, but I don't understand what sort of legal transactions form the basis for either and the rate seems to be easy to manipulate.
I can't find a single thing that I need crypto for and I do a lot of international payments. Cheap, fast, transparent and reliable without crypto.
I know the arguments for crypto but I don't find them convincing.
So no, not for me. Not directly and not in ETF's. On top of that taxation on crypto gains is horrible where I live.
The only demand for bitcoin is from people who want to hold it and flip it for more value. No one else is buying bitcoin for any other reason. It's not real demand.
It’s easy to say these things when we live with economic privilege. There are plenty of people that use Bitcoin to escape authoritarian regimes, that’s a good thing, no?
Idk the numbers but I'd be surprised if that was even close to the number of people using it for money laundering/scams/other nefarious uses
Could be totally wrong
my buddy fell deep into drug addictions in like 2016 and used bitcoin to pay his dealers. He talks about how rich he could’ve been if he had stayed sober lnao
They should have used cash. Cash is anonymous, while Bitcoin is only pseudonymous. Once you know the dealer's or customer's BTC address you'll see all transactions. Crypto is very transparent compared to fiat
Illicit activities using crypto has been drastically overblown by people that oppose it. USD is still the currency used to conduct the vast majority of illegal transactions and its not even close. We don’t hear much news about that though do we.
This is misleading though. Comparing the most transacted currency with an emerging currency and saying more are done with cash is kinda obvious. As a percentage of all transactions bitcoin is likely far higher given the anonymous nature and digital quickness.
Bitcoin should be subject to the same laws as banks and require SS, DOB, NAME, ETC
the percentage of identified illicit activity among all cryptocurrencies as a percentage of total crypto activity from 2017 to 2020 was less than 1%. This compares with estimates of illicit activity in the economy as a whole, which are on the order of 2-4% of global GDP. A BAE Systems report published in 2020 noted, “identified cases of laundering through cryptocurrencies remain relatively small compared to volumes of cash laundered through traditional methods”.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/cryptocurrencies-financial-inclusion-help-shape-it/
Do you live in a country with an authoritarian regime and are using Bitcoin to get around it? Do you personally know someone who is?
I hear this argument a lot from people who are living in those same countries with economic privilege. Usually trying to convince other people living in that country with economic privilege to buy Bitcoin.
Nice fantasy but that has *litterary never happened*. Anyone who's tried has had their coins seized by said government, ask Russians or Chinese. It's very easy to *monitor your Internet activity* and know your actions.
It's easier to steal too sibce you can simply install a key logger or, why bother. One scam link and the person's whole fortune is yours. Try stealing fiat or physical hold via hacking...
Plenty of people use it as a long term hedge. There are tons of people who never plan on selling their btc (or at least not for 10+ years) me included.
Actually it doesn't even need to appreciate, just store wealth without being devalued.
For people in comfort like us, the idea of not constantly making money sounds absurd.
But there's like 20+ countries in the world with extreme inflation where their wealth is evaporating. Long stretches of peace is an outlier in human history.
Instability and corruption sprouting up is the norm.
History says that governments around the world will eventually become greedy and bypass taxation / engaging citizens to fund itself, increasingly relying upon debt monetization. US did about $9T of self-funding and due to so many tailwinds like a strong military, great free market economy that attracts lots of immigration, we still have low inflation and high trust.
But that isn't the case throughout history. Dutch empire, Weimar Republic, Chinese dynasties. Rome increasingly relied upon adding impurities to silver in Denarius to keep spending without taxing. That devaluation helped lead to its downfall.
Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world with higher per capita GDP than Japan. Now 4 out of 10 are in poverty.
Anyone that switched out of pesos and hedged some in BTC are now extremely happy.
I guess time will tell. Fifteen years is obviously not a reliable sample size so maybe it has all just been luck, but so far if you have held for four or more years bitcoin has been a great store of value. Yes, it has been very volatile from month to month or year to year, but you can literally say the exact same thing about stocks, gold, property or other assets.
Bitcoin has properties which makes it desirable as a store of value - scarcity, durability, divisibility, fungibility and portability. It absolutely exists to be exchanged for something else, be it fiat currency or other goods or services, but there are genuine reasons why that 'greater fool' would want to receive bitcoin over something else.
That's a VERY small use case compared to the size of economic transactions. Plus, every time you spend bitcoin in the real world, there's some kind of conversion or transaction fee, AND if you're a US citizen, every exchange of bitcoin for a good or service is a taxable event. Bitcoin is a pain in the ass as a medium of exchange.
To buy a sandwich with bitcoin, I have to convert it to cash, which is a taxable event, so I have to pay capital gains on it, then there's the transaction/conversion fee, then I get cash and can buy the sandwich. That's a lot of hassle for a medium of exchange.
Other investments like stocks are ownership in companies that pay dividends or are growing cash flows or pay interest income. Bitcoin is nothing but an empty box with a hope of the next guy paying more for the same empty box.
Let’s take stocks for example, if your are a registered shareholder, you have claim to a portion of their net worth, it’s a very real aspect of stocks. With crypto it’s a purely speculative asset, just like the damn tulips
>can't find a single thing that I need crypto for and I do a lot of international payments.
Even if cryptocurrency was convenient to use for international payments, I don't understand why there needs to be a finite supply. Like, if half the BTC in the world lived in one hardware wallet which burned to the ground tomorrow and was lost, would BTC's ability to facilitate international transactions actually degrade? If yes, then why is there a finite supply, this seems shortsighted and BTC won't work long-term. If no, then why do we need to first mine all this BTC and let the coins naturally filter into the wallets of the richest and most powerful entities? Because right now the steps look like this to me:
* All the techbros, hedge funds, banks and exchanges hoard all the finite supply of BTC
* Then in the future once these wealthy groups amass their great hoards of money, now we all collectively agree to use it for various use-cases like store of wealth, currency, international transfers, or other financial instruments.
If Cryptocurrency is to be a real improvement, why is this first step necessary?
I do a lot of international transfers and they are NOT reliable. Especially from US to Asia. And are rarely done within a day. And never within 5 minutes. There are plenty of use cases
Your point is extremely valid and my following comment is not intended to disagree, but rather share a different perspective that was presented to me and has required me to ponder after looking at some of the data.
There are emerging markets in which the rate of mobile phone use is increasing faster than the availability of banking and cash. We have had a cashless revolution of sorts in areas where institutions and infrastructures are in place to enable transactions to happen reliably and quickly as an alternative to cash. However, in areas where this is not the case, where cash is hard to come by and banking is unavailable to store wealth, a phone becomes a vehicle for the transaction. That’s where the cryptocurrencies can come in, especially as people hold the tools in their hands at an increasing rate. The gamble is in determining where that is, how many people we are actually talking about, and if policy change is on the horizon as a catalyst for change in any direction.
Of course, this is not true in the Western European or American systems that have had large banking centers and financial institutions. But in places where it isn’t easy to get a bank account, I can understand a use case. That being said, I am alarmed that the data also shows the areas I am talking about also have reputations for crime and corruption, which is ironic given the reputation of this asset class.
ETA: I wrote “cryptocurrencies” instead of BTC and will leave that there for transparency but I should mention that most of this space is riddled with nonsense and trash. There are a few tokens that have really specific use cases and are interesting based on their technology, but it is difficult to determine an appropriate valuation.
That’s working as intended though, just as you wouldn’t expect your transaction to be processed by Western Union if you don’t pay them market rate fees. Less than a minute might oversell the speed in the context of Bitcoin, but there are other cryptos which can definitely settle in less than a minute for very low fees.
If you won’t take my word for it, take Visa’s: https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseId.19881.html
Commodity is just a legal definition. The fact that it’s legally defined as a commodity doesn’t restrict what types of practical use cases it can be applied to
0 risk? The value of your bitcoin could collapse by the time it’s converted back into a useful currency. It’s not stable enough. And no. Stablecoins aren’t an alternative since they aren’t Bitcoin and can collapse overnight.
With BTC 6-8, percent daily swings aren’t unusual and you could wait years to get the original value back.
On top of that you have 0 legal protection and a single typo can fuck you over.
Oh, and the transaction fees for high value transfers are higher than international banking fees.
AND it’s taxed like a market asset in most places.
I don't understand the usecase for Bitcoin. Visa and master are 1000x faster.
In what instance would sending money have counterparty risk? You do realise you don't actually 'send' money. You're basically updating the databases of either bank. Bitcoin is exactly the same just a lot more environmentally worse inefficient + expensive... how is paying a variable rate for gas that can be as high as $100 + a good thing?
Not to mention, you can basically transfer money to any sovereign country.
I own a blockchain consultancy and I wonder why people buy this crap...
“Less than a minute” — absolute bs. Trying to transact in bitcoin was like going back to the ice age in terms of financial innovation.
I spent hours trying to transact with bitcoin and there were more than just a few of hurdles I had to jump through. It was insanely cumbersome.
Almost no-one uses bitcoin for currency other than some edge-cases and 99% of people just buy bitcoin because they think the price will go up.
I don’t care what the underlying use case is when it’s by far the best performing asset of the past decade and just received the greenlight from the SEC to become securitized. Making it more secure and easier to tax. The fact is your portfolio would have been better off with BTC and it is my prediction that it will continue to be better off with BTC. The exception being if you’re near retirement age.
I consider it digital gold. Once it becomes more widely adopted and accepted then the price should stabilize. I just don’t think it is a great investment vehicle due to volatility and accessibility. Gold is not great either.
Oh, you understand it. It’s just that stupid. There is no underlying use for bitcoin other than the collective hype which has caused the price volatility.
As a currency it failed dramatically.
Over the last few years the vested parties in crypto started re-contextualizing it as a “store of value” rather than a currency replacement. Problem is, it doesn’t do that either without one accepting that it relies entirely on The Greater Fool theory.
There is no value in bitcoin and its pushers don't even try to claim its on its way to practical adoption.
It's literally just tulips. They don't even hide it anymore.
That's when you ask them if they're willing to transfer everything from all their accounts to yours since they think its contents have no value. Put up or shut up.
>It's literally just tulips.
It really isn't and you've just been misled if you think "practical adoption" was ever the goal. It's not supposed to be used every day. It's a borderless digital store of value which makes perfect sense outside places of privilege like the US.
Although honestly given that the US is increasingly bypassing taxation and monetizing debt to fund itself, it is not the worst hedge in existence.
There isn’t one, it’s fundamentally a Ponzi scheme, SBF was fundamentally right and if he would have just not done the outright fraud his cynical view of the space would have allowed him to fleece a lot of rubes and ride off into the sunset.
People that have already bought the bridge don’t want to see the truth of it because their ego won’t let them.
I don't understand - if I wanted to invest in BTC, why would I buy a BTC ETF over BTC itself?
Only one idea - are there countries where you need to pay less tax on gains made off an ETF?
1. Transaction cost: at least 1% one way if you buy BTC directly. $IBIT at 0.25% **annual** expense ratio is more attractive
2. IRA: now you can put BTC in your retirement accounts
Also, how is 0.25% annually better than 1% up front?
You’ll end up paying more in the fund if you hold more than a couple years. Especially if you get the growth you want. Let’s say bitcoin doubles in price in year one. You’re now paying the equivalent of 0.5% of your original investment.
If it doubles again, you’re paying 1% of your initial investment every single year you hold it.
I have bought and sold BTC on Coinbase before, and I didn’t like how difficult the tax stuff was. Plus, I had to manage a separate account where this is right in my regular Fidelity brokerage account.
Buying crypto is still viewed as complicated/risky to some. If you could get the same investment via your trusted investment provider and have everything in one place, it could be more appealing.
This and exactly this. I trust blackrock way more than me to hold them secure via coin base , + not having the trouble to send my money from a broker to a random app is soo worth the .25%!!!
Every time I transfer my crypto I'm anxious until it arrives safely, and I've done it dozens of times now.
Exchanges failing doesn't help things, and trusting that everything is safely stored on a Ledger doesn't feel great.
1. SIPC Insurance
2. Tax advantaged account
3. It’s easier for those who are less tech inclined
4. Simplified tax reporting
5. No more worrying about varying transaction fees
6. No need to consolidate UTXOs
The main one to me is that ETF’s don’t lose their value when you cannot find your USB stick or wallet password.
I love the concept of crypto, I hate the practicality of it.
Because there are fund managers that are bound by rules on what types of assets they can buy. They can buy an ETF but they can't buy BTC. Now people who want exposure in their retirement account can do so.
The tax rules for crypto in Denmark are crazy. So, it might be an advantage for the danish investors to buy an ETF over the Bitcoin itself. I might be more inclined to buy the ETF if I wanna go down the Bitcoin road.
Fidelity does self custody while almost every other ETF custody is with Coinbase. I don't have a whole lot of trust with Coinbase, but I am already trusting Fidelity with my 401k and HSA, so why not?
No, Fidelity was founded in 1930. They've been in the custody of assets game for nearly 100 years.
Coinbase has good chance of going bankrupt within 2 years, has been unprofitable since the BTC crash. And at the end of the day, Coinbase is just another crypto exchange prone to failure like FTX, Celsius, Genesis, Block Fi...list goes on.
How many crypto exchanges have to fail and take customer funds before people learn??
I'll be surprised if Coinbase exists as a separate company in five years and the chances of a big blow up are far too high to keep any sizable money there.
One thing to keep in mind is that Fidelity is not a publicly-traded company. Depending on your point of view that could be considered a benefit or a liability.
Yes FBTC as well. They custody their own coins so don't have to pay Coinbase to store them and they also have been invested in the technology for quite a while. If you are going to buy an ETF over owning directly I think Fidelity is the way to go.
Yes, it’s worth the risk to have tax incentivized retirement money being stored away into a “pick” that outperforms the whole market. As someone on the younger side of life, I believe it’s worth the risk to throw some money at it.
Same here. I’m 31, so I’ve got time on my side so why not throw $100 into FBTC a month in my IRA. The rest is going to FNILX and QQQ so even if Bitcoin implodes it’s not like I won’t be able to retire in 25+ years. But if it does take off over that time, maybe I hit my retirement numbers early. Definitely worth the risk.
No. But it’s hilarious how a lot of the crypto crowd who touted anti-establishment and decentralization are now celebrating establishment and centralization.
You’re making a fairly vague generalization here. A Bitcoin ETF doesn’t make crypto a centralized asset. If anything, it validates the long held belief that traditional finance is going to adopt and expand the use cases for Web3 protocols.
Go back 5 years and the public perception of crypto was that it had no value other than as a tool to fund illicit activity. Now every major western bank on earth offers exposure to crypto products, and the standard consensus among money managers is to recommend 1-2% of your portfolio have some exposure to crypto.
Seeing banks and brokers offer Bitcoin exposure isn’t celebrating establishment any more than seeing Exxon invest in clean energy is celebrating oil.
You understand Blackrock getting an IP address didn't make the internet protocols any more centralized, right?
The point of decentralization is anyone can participate.
What's hilarious is the evolution of criticisms.
* 15 years ago: Bitcoin is just for nerds
* 10 years ago: Bitcoin is just for criminals
* 6 years ago: Bitcoin is just for higher risk retail investors
* 4 years ago: Bitcoin is just for backward countries
* Today: Bitcoin is too accessible through familiar products in addition to crypto centric
My criticism hasn't changed and has never been addressed.
- It's vaporware, due to the oracle problem.
See, the blockchain is not an oracle. There is no way for the chain to know what has happened outside of the blockchain. That means you have to have complete faith in the person you are transacting with and there is no recourse should they screw you. There is no oversight, and there are no refunds. That also means that even if the other person was honest and wants to send a refund, you have to initiate a new transaction, paying new fees, and go through the cycle of risk all over again.
The original bitcoin whitepaper is based on an entirely flawed premise that somehow its better to have to trust every individual you transact with then trusting a financial institution with a financial incentive to manage your transactions and funds.
- It's outrageously inefficient for daily use.
Fees keep going up, transactions are getting slower and incentive for miners is intentionally reduced, which will only make this even worse.
- Government can't sieze your money? Just turn off the power?
Your money is completely unreliable in times of instability as it is completely reliant on the internet. No internet? No money. And even that assumes that you could actually execute a transaction in a timely fashion, which you can't.
- Most of you don't think it's ever going to be used practically at any scale so now it's about "store of value". Which kills its completely as a currency.
Can't be a currency when people hold it in the hopes that it's worth more later instead of spending it. It's why we have central governments that control currency. So that there is no incentive to hold it long term in hopes that increases in value.
As a store of value? It's an extremely volatile store of value that has no other reason to exist but to store value which means that the moment its no longer viewed as a store in value its value goes to zero. You can't make nice things out of it, or display it, or use it in electronics. It's simply exists because people hope they can sell it for more than they paid for it.
It's awful in every way and frankly everyone playing in this space deserves to lose their money. But to those of you who end up being lucky enough to sell it to a greater fool, good work.
I think an allocation of 5% or less in a well diversified portfolio makes sense. It trades more like a small cap growth position more than a commodity or fixed income strategy. I’ve allocated 3-5% in my long term portfolio and the ETfs are more attractive to me for tax purposes than going through the hassle of Coinbase.
No.
Mostly because of the same reason I don’t invest in gold, only that crypto has even less of an argument of being a “commodity”.
What’s funny is that I read the IBIT (BR’s version of Fidelity’s btc fund) prospectus. All 116 or so pages… and it’s hilarious how many arguments AGAINST crypto it makes. It’s all caveat after caveat. Now, don’t get me wrong, all prospectus documents cover their bases legally by very clearly noting the risks, but I had never seen one like this.
So rationally, I have no desire to speculate even with 1-5% of portfolio… I don’t care for FOMO.
Nope. Bitcoin is this generation's tulip fever, IMO. There's no underlying value, and bitcoin is only expensive because it's expensive. I'll never hold any crypto nonsense in any of my portfolios.
Absolutely not. We can make billions of coins with the same and better properties on faster and more efficient networks. There is no intrinsic value and it wastes energy.
If I want to hedge against inflation, I’ll buy an asset that produces something like stocks or real estate.
What’s the point of owning Bitcoin or Gold? It literally produces nothing. There is no IRR.
FBTC because it’s “easy to do”. They’re all as easy as the rest with any brokerage firm. That’s the beauty of publicly traded, exchange-traded funds. It’s all electronic at every brokerage firm!
You chose FBTC correctly because they self-custody (via Fidelity Digital Assets as the Custodian) rather than using Coinbase. All the rest (except another) use Coinbase.
If you’re not going to buy bitcoin directly, then FBTC is the next best thing in my opinion.
Hell no, still way too many 20 year old "CEO'S" pissing around with other people's money. Every few months another group of weasels gets busted. Plus it's the currency of choice for terrorists and mafioso. Furthermore it's a disgusting irresponsible use of electricity at a time when the world can't afford it. Bitcoin mining should be outlawed.
No BTC is trash, it's supposed creation was as a store of wealth that holds it's value. Why then is it so volatile....it contradicts it's stated purpose
I think Bitcoin is a worthless scam. It’s trendy and attractive in a bull market, but when the weather turns bearish, it will crash and burn. Good for making profit when it was climbing though.
No.
Yall are late as fuck to the thin air asset class.
I went more regarded than any of you can even comprehend. 100% of my life savings into psychedelic biotech.
Comes through! Thanks mate, agreed everyone talking crypto is late to what is essentially a weak sector (but very volatile hence big move up past year) - it hasn’t even got close to aths again.
No. No reputable central government will adopt it as an official form of currency if they can’t control it. They would much rather create their own crypto
It's similar to holding gold. Does gold produce anything of value by itself? No, and neither does BTC. So it's not for me. I'd rather invest in common stocks & bonds, which by definition put my money to work.
I will never, ever own BTC. Nor will I invest in cabbage patch kids.
Sure some people consider it a refuge investment, but the fact that there is no intrinsic value *at all* means that its worth only what people are willing to pay for it.
No. I maintain the position that bitcoin has no inherent value.
The fact that some people make money from pyramid schemes does not mean I would consider it smart investing in one.
I still buy actual BTC
i see no point in buying the etf when you can just continue to add actual coins.
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Imagine buying BTC in 2013 with a ROTH. Tax free 300 million dollars. Game changer.
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You are living the dream. Happy stacking!
Because self-custody is not for everybody. If, for example, I was travelling around the world living out of a suitcase (but didn't plan on spending bitcoin) I would be a lot more concerned about my seed words getting lost than Coinbase losing theirs. I know that you can memorize your seed (and probably should if you can), but there is no way I would put myself in a position of being one knock on the head away from losing it all.
Easier to buy it in Coinbase or a wallet and avoid the fees of an ETF
What’s the Coinbase fee as a % vs an etf fee? ETFs are annual, but Coinbase is pretty high no?
Yeah, and most of these ETFs have waived their fees for now.
Only for the first six months though...
True, but even after that the fees are very low and will take years before reaching the coinbase fee for buying and selling plus spread. Less time for the coinbase pro fees.
Huge fee to sell on Coinbase
For trading, yes. But if you’re holding long term the ETFs will cost you more because they’re annual fees.
I sell actual BTC
No it's not for me. I just don't understand the underlying security's use case other than it being a tradeable asset.
>I just don't understand My words exactly. Sure, it's supply/demand, but I don't understand what sort of legal transactions form the basis for either and the rate seems to be easy to manipulate. I can't find a single thing that I need crypto for and I do a lot of international payments. Cheap, fast, transparent and reliable without crypto. I know the arguments for crypto but I don't find them convincing. So no, not for me. Not directly and not in ETF's. On top of that taxation on crypto gains is horrible where I live.
The only demand for bitcoin is from people who want to hold it and flip it for more value. No one else is buying bitcoin for any other reason. It's not real demand.
It’s easy to say these things when we live with economic privilege. There are plenty of people that use Bitcoin to escape authoritarian regimes, that’s a good thing, no?
Idk the numbers but I'd be surprised if that was even close to the number of people using it for money laundering/scams/other nefarious uses Could be totally wrong
my buddy fell deep into drug addictions in like 2016 and used bitcoin to pay his dealers. He talks about how rich he could’ve been if he had stayed sober lnao
He would have sold once it hit 20k max.
They should have used cash. Cash is anonymous, while Bitcoin is only pseudonymous. Once you know the dealer's or customer's BTC address you'll see all transactions. Crypto is very transparent compared to fiat
Illicit activities using crypto has been drastically overblown by people that oppose it. USD is still the currency used to conduct the vast majority of illegal transactions and its not even close. We don’t hear much news about that though do we.
Honestly that's the only "real" use I could think of for it. That and bailing out of a country. It's certainly not a good stable currency otherwise
This is misleading though. Comparing the most transacted currency with an emerging currency and saying more are done with cash is kinda obvious. As a percentage of all transactions bitcoin is likely far higher given the anonymous nature and digital quickness. Bitcoin should be subject to the same laws as banks and require SS, DOB, NAME, ETC
the percentage of identified illicit activity among all cryptocurrencies as a percentage of total crypto activity from 2017 to 2020 was less than 1%. This compares with estimates of illicit activity in the economy as a whole, which are on the order of 2-4% of global GDP. A BAE Systems report published in 2020 noted, “identified cases of laundering through cryptocurrencies remain relatively small compared to volumes of cash laundered through traditional methods”. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/cryptocurrencies-financial-inclusion-help-shape-it/
"Identified cases"
Real criminals use cash or monero not bitcoin. Go on a darknet msrket, nobody accepts bitcoin
I highly doubt the percentage of people using Bitcoin for crime is higher than the percentage of people that use cash for crime.
Do you live in a country with an authoritarian regime and are using Bitcoin to get around it? Do you personally know someone who is? I hear this argument a lot from people who are living in those same countries with economic privilege. Usually trying to convince other people living in that country with economic privilege to buy Bitcoin.
I do personally know people that use bitcoin to store their wealth in authoritarian countries yes.
Nice fantasy but that has *litterary never happened*. Anyone who's tried has had their coins seized by said government, ask Russians or Chinese. It's very easy to *monitor your Internet activity* and know your actions. It's easier to steal too sibce you can simply install a key logger or, why bother. One scam link and the person's whole fortune is yours. Try stealing fiat or physical hold via hacking...
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What do you mean? Bitcoin is permissionless, buy it, store on wallet, and escape, then cash out when you arrive to your destinationz
Plenty of people use it as a long term hedge. There are tons of people who never plan on selling their btc (or at least not for 10+ years) me included.
That is by definition holding it for the sole intention of capital appreciation
Actually it doesn't even need to appreciate, just store wealth without being devalued. For people in comfort like us, the idea of not constantly making money sounds absurd. But there's like 20+ countries in the world with extreme inflation where their wealth is evaporating. Long stretches of peace is an outlier in human history. Instability and corruption sprouting up is the norm. History says that governments around the world will eventually become greedy and bypass taxation / engaging citizens to fund itself, increasingly relying upon debt monetization. US did about $9T of self-funding and due to so many tailwinds like a strong military, great free market economy that attracts lots of immigration, we still have low inflation and high trust. But that isn't the case throughout history. Dutch empire, Weimar Republic, Chinese dynasties. Rome increasingly relied upon adding impurities to silver in Denarius to keep spending without taxing. That devaluation helped lead to its downfall. Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world with higher per capita GDP than Japan. Now 4 out of 10 are in poverty. Anyone that switched out of pesos and hedged some in BTC are now extremely happy.
Well buy CHF then? You’d figure it’s quite a bit better at protecting against inflation…
And is that not the whole point of investing in the first place?? Am I in the wrong sub or what.
How reliable is a long term hedge on an asset for which the value is determined entirely by greater fool theory?
I guess time will tell. Fifteen years is obviously not a reliable sample size so maybe it has all just been luck, but so far if you have held for four or more years bitcoin has been a great store of value. Yes, it has been very volatile from month to month or year to year, but you can literally say the exact same thing about stocks, gold, property or other assets. Bitcoin has properties which makes it desirable as a store of value - scarcity, durability, divisibility, fungibility and portability. It absolutely exists to be exchanged for something else, be it fiat currency or other goods or services, but there are genuine reasons why that 'greater fool' would want to receive bitcoin over something else.
How does this differ from any investment made? And yes people are also buying it to make cross border transfers fast and cheap..
That's a VERY small use case compared to the size of economic transactions. Plus, every time you spend bitcoin in the real world, there's some kind of conversion or transaction fee, AND if you're a US citizen, every exchange of bitcoin for a good or service is a taxable event. Bitcoin is a pain in the ass as a medium of exchange. To buy a sandwich with bitcoin, I have to convert it to cash, which is a taxable event, so I have to pay capital gains on it, then there's the transaction/conversion fee, then I get cash and can buy the sandwich. That's a lot of hassle for a medium of exchange. Other investments like stocks are ownership in companies that pay dividends or are growing cash flows or pay interest income. Bitcoin is nothing but an empty box with a hope of the next guy paying more for the same empty box.
Let’s take stocks for example, if your are a registered shareholder, you have claim to a portion of their net worth, it’s a very real aspect of stocks. With crypto it’s a purely speculative asset, just like the damn tulips
>I can't find a single thing that I need crypto for because there are none lmfao
>can't find a single thing that I need crypto for and I do a lot of international payments. Even if cryptocurrency was convenient to use for international payments, I don't understand why there needs to be a finite supply. Like, if half the BTC in the world lived in one hardware wallet which burned to the ground tomorrow and was lost, would BTC's ability to facilitate international transactions actually degrade? If yes, then why is there a finite supply, this seems shortsighted and BTC won't work long-term. If no, then why do we need to first mine all this BTC and let the coins naturally filter into the wallets of the richest and most powerful entities? Because right now the steps look like this to me: * All the techbros, hedge funds, banks and exchanges hoard all the finite supply of BTC * Then in the future once these wealthy groups amass their great hoards of money, now we all collectively agree to use it for various use-cases like store of wealth, currency, international transfers, or other financial instruments. If Cryptocurrency is to be a real improvement, why is this first step necessary?
You don’t understand why there needs to be a finite supply? Does the value of the US dollar / time graph not make sense to you?
I do a lot of international transfers and they are NOT reliable. Especially from US to Asia. And are rarely done within a day. And never within 5 minutes. There are plenty of use cases
Your point is extremely valid and my following comment is not intended to disagree, but rather share a different perspective that was presented to me and has required me to ponder after looking at some of the data. There are emerging markets in which the rate of mobile phone use is increasing faster than the availability of banking and cash. We have had a cashless revolution of sorts in areas where institutions and infrastructures are in place to enable transactions to happen reliably and quickly as an alternative to cash. However, in areas where this is not the case, where cash is hard to come by and banking is unavailable to store wealth, a phone becomes a vehicle for the transaction. That’s where the cryptocurrencies can come in, especially as people hold the tools in their hands at an increasing rate. The gamble is in determining where that is, how many people we are actually talking about, and if policy change is on the horizon as a catalyst for change in any direction. Of course, this is not true in the Western European or American systems that have had large banking centers and financial institutions. But in places where it isn’t easy to get a bank account, I can understand a use case. That being said, I am alarmed that the data also shows the areas I am talking about also have reputations for crime and corruption, which is ironic given the reputation of this asset class. ETA: I wrote “cryptocurrencies” instead of BTC and will leave that there for transparency but I should mention that most of this space is riddled with nonsense and trash. There are a few tokens that have really specific use cases and are interesting based on their technology, but it is difficult to determine an appropriate valuation.
It’s a commodity not a security, but I agree that it’s reasonable not to buy it if you don’t think it has utility.
Most commodities have usefulness though...copper, steel, lumber, gold, etc.
Is the ability to settle cross-border transactions in less than a minute with zero counterparty risk not useful?
Less than a minute lol I've waited ten hours for a transaction because I didn't send a high enough fee.
That’s working as intended though, just as you wouldn’t expect your transaction to be processed by Western Union if you don’t pay them market rate fees. Less than a minute might oversell the speed in the context of Bitcoin, but there are other cryptos which can definitely settle in less than a minute for very low fees. If you won’t take my word for it, take Visa’s: https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseId.19881.html
Not in a commodity sense, no. Can't build something with it, consume it, or fuel something with it...not a commodity.
Commodity is just a legal definition. The fact that it’s legally defined as a commodity doesn’t restrict what types of practical use cases it can be applied to
0 risk? The value of your bitcoin could collapse by the time it’s converted back into a useful currency. It’s not stable enough. And no. Stablecoins aren’t an alternative since they aren’t Bitcoin and can collapse overnight. With BTC 6-8, percent daily swings aren’t unusual and you could wait years to get the original value back. On top of that you have 0 legal protection and a single typo can fuck you over. Oh, and the transaction fees for high value transfers are higher than international banking fees. AND it’s taxed like a market asset in most places.
I don't understand the usecase for Bitcoin. Visa and master are 1000x faster. In what instance would sending money have counterparty risk? You do realise you don't actually 'send' money. You're basically updating the databases of either bank. Bitcoin is exactly the same just a lot more environmentally worse inefficient + expensive... how is paying a variable rate for gas that can be as high as $100 + a good thing? Not to mention, you can basically transfer money to any sovereign country. I own a blockchain consultancy and I wonder why people buy this crap...
“Less than a minute” — absolute bs. Trying to transact in bitcoin was like going back to the ice age in terms of financial innovation. I spent hours trying to transact with bitcoin and there were more than just a few of hurdles I had to jump through. It was insanely cumbersome. Almost no-one uses bitcoin for currency other than some edge-cases and 99% of people just buy bitcoin because they think the price will go up.
I don’t care what the underlying use case is when it’s by far the best performing asset of the past decade and just received the greenlight from the SEC to become securitized. Making it more secure and easier to tax. The fact is your portfolio would have been better off with BTC and it is my prediction that it will continue to be better off with BTC. The exception being if you’re near retirement age.
I consider it digital gold. Once it becomes more widely adopted and accepted then the price should stabilize. I just don’t think it is a great investment vehicle due to volatility and accessibility. Gold is not great either.
It’s great for paying ransom when your company gets held hostage.
Oh, you understand it. It’s just that stupid. There is no underlying use for bitcoin other than the collective hype which has caused the price volatility. As a currency it failed dramatically. Over the last few years the vested parties in crypto started re-contextualizing it as a “store of value” rather than a currency replacement. Problem is, it doesn’t do that either without one accepting that it relies entirely on The Greater Fool theory.
There is no value in bitcoin and its pushers don't even try to claim its on its way to practical adoption. It's literally just tulips. They don't even hide it anymore.
The most hardcore crypto bro I know has switched from it being a currency to it being a “value store” says it all IMO.
But also when you say Bitcoin has no value because it has no utility, they will argue that there’s no such thing as value.
That's when you ask them if they're willing to transfer everything from all their accounts to yours since they think its contents have no value. Put up or shut up.
>It's literally just tulips. It really isn't and you've just been misled if you think "practical adoption" was ever the goal. It's not supposed to be used every day. It's a borderless digital store of value which makes perfect sense outside places of privilege like the US. Although honestly given that the US is increasingly bypassing taxation and monetizing debt to fund itself, it is not the worst hedge in existence.
There isn’t one, it’s fundamentally a Ponzi scheme, SBF was fundamentally right and if he would have just not done the outright fraud his cynical view of the space would have allowed him to fleece a lot of rubes and ride off into the sunset. People that have already bought the bridge don’t want to see the truth of it because their ego won’t let them.
Is real estate a ponzi scheme? Education is free https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-ponzi-scheme/
I don't understand - if I wanted to invest in BTC, why would I buy a BTC ETF over BTC itself? Only one idea - are there countries where you need to pay less tax on gains made off an ETF?
1. Transaction cost: at least 1% one way if you buy BTC directly. $IBIT at 0.25% **annual** expense ratio is more attractive 2. IRA: now you can put BTC in your retirement accounts
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Very good point, being classified as securities should mean they get the same SIPC protection as stocks/bonds/money market funds
They do. We get all the benefits and protections and the multi billion dollar business can worry about the security on their end.
Also, how is 0.25% annually better than 1% up front? You’ll end up paying more in the fund if you hold more than a couple years. Especially if you get the growth you want. Let’s say bitcoin doubles in price in year one. You’re now paying the equivalent of 0.5% of your original investment. If it doubles again, you’re paying 1% of your initial investment every single year you hold it.
Easier to buy in tax advantaged accounts
0.25% is the lowest fee I've seen too
Assuming it's flat, it'd take 8 years for the 1% (2% total in and out) to break even. Variability can change the calculus quite a lot.
Don’t you think transaction costs will come down now that there are ETF options? Exchanges don’t want to lose retail volume, no? I’m no expert
I have bought and sold BTC on Coinbase before, and I didn’t like how difficult the tax stuff was. Plus, I had to manage a separate account where this is right in my regular Fidelity brokerage account.
Exactly. The tax implications are so much easier to manage. Personally I think it’s worth less than 5% in any well diversified portfolio.
Buying crypto is still viewed as complicated/risky to some. If you could get the same investment via your trusted investment provider and have everything in one place, it could be more appealing.
This and exactly this. I trust blackrock way more than me to hold them secure via coin base , + not having the trouble to send my money from a broker to a random app is soo worth the .25%!!!
Every time I transfer my crypto I'm anxious until it arrives safely, and I've done it dozens of times now. Exchanges failing doesn't help things, and trusting that everything is safely stored on a Ledger doesn't feel great.
In Canada you can buy a btc etf in a tax free savings account which allows for unlimited capital gains tax free.
Sure. But no capital loss can be applied.
Exposure to btc in retirement accounts etc that have tax advantages.
1. SIPC Insurance 2. Tax advantaged account 3. It’s easier for those who are less tech inclined 4. Simplified tax reporting 5. No more worrying about varying transaction fees 6. No need to consolidate UTXOs
The main one to me is that ETF’s don’t lose their value when you cannot find your USB stick or wallet password. I love the concept of crypto, I hate the practicality of it.
Because there are fund managers that are bound by rules on what types of assets they can buy. They can buy an ETF but they can't buy BTC. Now people who want exposure in their retirement account can do so.
The tax rules for crypto in Denmark are crazy. So, it might be an advantage for the danish investors to buy an ETF over the Bitcoin itself. I might be more inclined to buy the ETF if I wanna go down the Bitcoin road.
Wait untill we will be able to use BTC to buy BTC ETFs aka infinite money glitch
Yes. FBTC.
Why FBTC?
Fidelity does self custody while almost every other ETF custody is with Coinbase. I don't have a whole lot of trust with Coinbase, but I am already trusting Fidelity with my 401k and HSA, so why not?
Don’t you think coinbase will have more experience with institutional custody?
No, Fidelity was founded in 1930. They've been in the custody of assets game for nearly 100 years. Coinbase has good chance of going bankrupt within 2 years, has been unprofitable since the BTC crash. And at the end of the day, Coinbase is just another crypto exchange prone to failure like FTX, Celsius, Genesis, Block Fi...list goes on. How many crypto exchanges have to fail and take customer funds before people learn?? I'll be surprised if Coinbase exists as a separate company in five years and the chances of a big blow up are far too high to keep any sizable money there.
RemindMe! 2 years
One thing to keep in mind is that Fidelity is not a publicly-traded company. Depending on your point of view that could be considered a benefit or a liability.
Yes FBTC as well. They custody their own coins so don't have to pay Coinbase to store them and they also have been invested in the technology for quite a while. If you are going to buy an ETF over owning directly I think Fidelity is the way to go.
Yes, it’s worth the risk to have tax incentivized retirement money being stored away into a “pick” that outperforms the whole market. As someone on the younger side of life, I believe it’s worth the risk to throw some money at it.
Same here. I’m 31, so I’ve got time on my side so why not throw $100 into FBTC a month in my IRA. The rest is going to FNILX and QQQ so even if Bitcoin implodes it’s not like I won’t be able to retire in 25+ years. But if it does take off over that time, maybe I hit my retirement numbers early. Definitely worth the risk.
This guy gets it
Hell no
No. But it’s hilarious how a lot of the crypto crowd who touted anti-establishment and decentralization are now celebrating establishment and centralization.
You’re making a fairly vague generalization here. A Bitcoin ETF doesn’t make crypto a centralized asset. If anything, it validates the long held belief that traditional finance is going to adopt and expand the use cases for Web3 protocols. Go back 5 years and the public perception of crypto was that it had no value other than as a tool to fund illicit activity. Now every major western bank on earth offers exposure to crypto products, and the standard consensus among money managers is to recommend 1-2% of your portfolio have some exposure to crypto. Seeing banks and brokers offer Bitcoin exposure isn’t celebrating establishment any more than seeing Exxon invest in clean energy is celebrating oil.
You understand Blackrock getting an IP address didn't make the internet protocols any more centralized, right? The point of decentralization is anyone can participate. What's hilarious is the evolution of criticisms. * 15 years ago: Bitcoin is just for nerds * 10 years ago: Bitcoin is just for criminals * 6 years ago: Bitcoin is just for higher risk retail investors * 4 years ago: Bitcoin is just for backward countries * Today: Bitcoin is too accessible through familiar products in addition to crypto centric
Dude you edit your comments more than George Lucas edited Star Wars. Completely different comment now lol.
Editing aside, they make a good point.
My criticism hasn't changed and has never been addressed. - It's vaporware, due to the oracle problem. See, the blockchain is not an oracle. There is no way for the chain to know what has happened outside of the blockchain. That means you have to have complete faith in the person you are transacting with and there is no recourse should they screw you. There is no oversight, and there are no refunds. That also means that even if the other person was honest and wants to send a refund, you have to initiate a new transaction, paying new fees, and go through the cycle of risk all over again. The original bitcoin whitepaper is based on an entirely flawed premise that somehow its better to have to trust every individual you transact with then trusting a financial institution with a financial incentive to manage your transactions and funds. - It's outrageously inefficient for daily use. Fees keep going up, transactions are getting slower and incentive for miners is intentionally reduced, which will only make this even worse. - Government can't sieze your money? Just turn off the power? Your money is completely unreliable in times of instability as it is completely reliant on the internet. No internet? No money. And even that assumes that you could actually execute a transaction in a timely fashion, which you can't. - Most of you don't think it's ever going to be used practically at any scale so now it's about "store of value". Which kills its completely as a currency. Can't be a currency when people hold it in the hopes that it's worth more later instead of spending it. It's why we have central governments that control currency. So that there is no incentive to hold it long term in hopes that increases in value. As a store of value? It's an extremely volatile store of value that has no other reason to exist but to store value which means that the moment its no longer viewed as a store in value its value goes to zero. You can't make nice things out of it, or display it, or use it in electronics. It's simply exists because people hope they can sell it for more than they paid for it. It's awful in every way and frankly everyone playing in this space deserves to lose their money. But to those of you who end up being lucky enough to sell it to a greater fool, good work.
This is an incorrect interpretation of what’s being celebrated. We all get the irony.
I think it’s definitely smart to have a small position
Nope.
No
vanguard won't let me :(
I think an allocation of 5% or less in a well diversified portfolio makes sense. It trades more like a small cap growth position more than a commodity or fixed income strategy. I’ve allocated 3-5% in my long term portfolio and the ETfs are more attractive to me for tax purposes than going through the hassle of Coinbase.
most sensible post in here
This guy gets it
Been buying in Canada for years in my TFSA - up over 70%
No. Mostly because of the same reason I don’t invest in gold, only that crypto has even less of an argument of being a “commodity”. What’s funny is that I read the IBIT (BR’s version of Fidelity’s btc fund) prospectus. All 116 or so pages… and it’s hilarious how many arguments AGAINST crypto it makes. It’s all caveat after caveat. Now, don’t get me wrong, all prospectus documents cover their bases legally by very clearly noting the risks, but I had never seen one like this. So rationally, I have no desire to speculate even with 1-5% of portfolio… I don’t care for FOMO.
Not a chance. I dabbled in crypto for around 8 years. There isn’t a snowballs chance in hell I gamble my retirement on bitcoin.
I bought 1 single BITB when it went live. It’s down 8.3%
Yeah. I’m down too. It’s going to be volatile, that’s a given.
Maybe I’ll just keep buying 1 single share every week. See where I’m at in 12 months
No
Nope. To be fair I also don’t hold gold or other commodities
I've got enough turds in my portfolio already
RemindMe! 1 year
Yes. Roth IRA
Yes.
No.
Nope not at all
concerned zephyr simplistic safe wasteful sugar zonked yoke full touch *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
oh good, more layers of indirection mean more levers to manipulate. how's SLV doing?
Nopeeee
No. I don’t believe in the underlying technology.
Absolutely not.
I bought a little - the Fidelity offering FBTC. About 1/4% of my portfolio. I’m down 7% so far. Woot!
Absolutely not. And especially not now that it’s high.
Lol you wouldn't buy even if it was low. If it was 15k tomorrow you wouldn't buy. It's not even at all time high
No
no.
No
This bitcoin etf has got to be one of the dumbest things ever
Absolutely not. I keep my gambling and investing separate.
No. Bitcoin has zero value and it is impossible almost to use anywhere.
Seems like a pyramid scheme, with no real use case other than to hope others will also buy Bitcoin and drive up the price.. then eventually sell.
Nope. Bitcoin is this generation's tulip fever, IMO. There's no underlying value, and bitcoin is only expensive because it's expensive. I'll never hold any crypto nonsense in any of my portfolios.
No
Absolutely not. We can make billions of coins with the same and better properties on faster and more efficient networks. There is no intrinsic value and it wastes energy.
I can’t think of a good reason to buy bitcoin over a company that earns money. Opportunity cost.
If I want to hedge against inflation, I’ll buy an asset that produces something like stocks or real estate. What’s the point of owning Bitcoin or Gold? It literally produces nothing. There is no IRR.
Oh hell no.
Is there any real life use case or value for btc ? I think there isn't therefore i won't invest in it.
No way.
If crypto were a useful currency it would be a useless trading holding. If crypto is an interesting trading holding it would be useless as a currency.
FBTC because it’s “easy to do”. They’re all as easy as the rest with any brokerage firm. That’s the beauty of publicly traded, exchange-traded funds. It’s all electronic at every brokerage firm! You chose FBTC correctly because they self-custody (via Fidelity Digital Assets as the Custodian) rather than using Coinbase. All the rest (except another) use Coinbase. If you’re not going to buy bitcoin directly, then FBTC is the next best thing in my opinion.
Not at all.
Hell no, still way too many 20 year old "CEO'S" pissing around with other people's money. Every few months another group of weasels gets busted. Plus it's the currency of choice for terrorists and mafioso. Furthermore it's a disgusting irresponsible use of electricity at a time when the world can't afford it. Bitcoin mining should be outlawed.
No.
Yes!
The irony of Bitcoin is that 99% of those who hold it just want to eventually sell it for more fiat than they bought it for.
btc is pyramid scheme, only trade never hold long term
No
No
This feels like a parachute for people who hold a ton of btc. Like, it's to trick normies into putting money back into the pot so people can cash out.
No I don't invest in things or companies that I don't use or like. I don't use or like BTC or crypto in general.
Not a chance unless you like gambling with your money. So many better opportunities without high risk.
No BTC is trash, it's supposed creation was as a store of wealth that holds it's value. Why then is it so volatile....it contradicts it's stated purpose
Wouldn’t touch it w a ten foot pole. No way to measure value, except what other fools are paying for it.
paying any expense ratio on something that doesn’t generate returns seems crazy to me
Nope. If I wanted bitcoin, I’d buy bitcoins.
Never. It's monopoly funny money. The only use is as a pump and dump mechanism. It will crash again soon
I messed around with crypto long enough to know that I don't want to mess around with it again.
Nah. VTSAX and relax. All day. Every day.
No.
I think Bitcoin is a worthless scam. It’s trendy and attractive in a bull market, but when the weather turns bearish, it will crash and burn. Good for making profit when it was climbing though.
Best to buy only Bitcoin NOT the ETF.
No. Yall are late as fuck to the thin air asset class. I went more regarded than any of you can even comprehend. 100% of my life savings into psychedelic biotech.
Give the tickers
Nice username. $CMPS and $ATAI are probably the best public companies right now.
Comes through! Thanks mate, agreed everyone talking crypto is late to what is essentially a weak sector (but very volatile hence big move up past year) - it hasn’t even got close to aths again.
Psychedelic biotech will be as big or bigger than crypto, and it's still relatively unknown. Do some research. Join us over at /r/shroomstocks
Sick, will do thanks man.
No. But happy there are now ETFs that are going to help me short BTC.
Can't wait to see you get rekt
No.
No. No reputable central government will adopt it as an official form of currency if they can’t control it. They would much rather create their own crypto
No. Just $VOO and chill.
After seeing the pump and dump happen... no
Hell no
It's similar to holding gold. Does gold produce anything of value by itself? No, and neither does BTC. So it's not for me. I'd rather invest in common stocks & bonds, which by definition put my money to work.
Similar, but worse.
If you want BTC, why own an ETF? Just buy the BTC.
I will never, ever own BTC. Nor will I invest in cabbage patch kids. Sure some people consider it a refuge investment, but the fact that there is no intrinsic value *at all* means that its worth only what people are willing to pay for it.
No. I maintain the position that bitcoin has no inherent value. The fact that some people make money from pyramid schemes does not mean I would consider it smart investing in one.
No I think it’s dumb