I understand your reasoning with regards to inflation. But what makes you so sure Bitcoin will keep going up?
Yes it has gone up over the last 10 years. But 10 years is a relatively short time, and moreover this was a period during which all assets went up. I don't think one can really extrapolate from that alone that Bitcoin will just keep going up forever.
And how do you explain away the various risks? Governments could theoretically hurt the price if they decided to pass more regulation that made interacting with an exchange harder. Or if they tried to close the exchanges altogether. And we are talking here about worldwide governments. I am not very worried the US would do something like that since they have mostly shown support towards cryptotech. But China or Russia or India or the EU might. And the other big worry is the lack of transparency. The exchanges are hardly as trustworthy as the NASDAQ or the NYSE. One cannot tell what sort of plays they are making to manipulate the price.
And then there's the risk of speculation itself. The price is not determined by anything more fundamental than user sentiment. There is no constant stable demand or anything.
User sentiment can be manipulated (by government regulations for example) or a big scare might happen organically. There is also the risk from competing cryptoassets. And risks from infighting between Bitcoin developers and miners as is happening right now with Ethereum.
Now of course all investments have risks so this alone is not a reason to not put money in Bitcoin. But I just have not yet seen a rigorous examination of all the risks.
Yes it has gone up over the last 10 years. But 10 years is a relatively short time, and moreover this was a period during which all assets went up. I don't think one can really extrapolate from that alone that Bitcoin will just keep going up forever. And how do you explain away the various risks? Governments could theoretically hurt the price if they decided to pass more regulation that made interacting with an exchange harder. Or if they tried to close the exchanges altogether. And we are talking here about worldwide governments. I am not very worried the US would do something like that since they have mostly shown support towards cryptotech. But China or Russia or India or the EU might. And the other big worry is the lack of transparency. The exchanges are hardly as trustworthy as the NASDAQ or the NYSE. One cannot tell what sort of plays they are making to manipulate the price. And then there's the risk of speculation itself. The price is not determined by anything more fundamental than user sentiment. There is no constant stable demand or anything. User sentiment can be manipulated (by government regulations for example) or a big scare might happen organically. There is also the risk from competing cryptoassets. And risks from infighting between Bitcoin developers and miners as is happening right now with Ethereum.
Now of course all investments have risks so this alone is not a reason to not put money in Bitcoin. But I just have not yet seen a rigorous examination of all the risks.