As
@Dublinbay12 remarked does anybody really see bitcoin as the alternative to a house?
It certainly isn't an alternative to a house. However, it is a nascent asset in a nascent and developing asset class in its own right. On the housing inequality, that's real and it has been caused by a conventional economic system that is broken. A system that has allowed your generation to borrow from tomorrow - and in effect borrow from the generation coming after you to their detriment.
Something will have to give.
The postulated logic behind bitcoin is that there is a limited supply of it and therefore it will retain its value. The flaw in this logic is that being in limited supply is a necessary but insufficient condition for something to have an exchange value. Lots of things are rare yet worthless.
Ok, so it seems it will be easy for you to come up with that list. Once you've assembled that list, now go through them and tell me which of them can allow the transfer of value digitally in real time 24/7/365 on a peer to peer basis - with no friction from governments, central banks, retail banks, etc? Which of them can be used for largescale international settlement that can match Fedwire? Which of them provide a payment rail to move value in remittances - whether that be a simple btc transfer or the bitcoin network as the conduit in the middle and usd/euro etc. at either end of that (like Strike is achieving over Bitcoin/lightning network)?
The youth are not the only people being betrayed by Bitcoin. Pity the poor criminals.
I don't have a subscription for the Times - so couldn't read that article. However, maybe the Kinahan's used crypto - but the article is clickbait insofar as it's taking an example (criminal use) that's in no way the norm. Someone made the point about it not being used for anything except for buying magic mushrooms. In the first couple of years of Bitcoin, the dark web did actually form a significant use case - off a base where it wasn't being used for anything else - so an embryonic stage. Over the past three years, there have been a plethora of studies demonstrating that Bitcoin and crypto have less illicit use than fiat. It is opensource and censorship resistant - and so it can be used by anyone - for good or for bad. In that respect, it's just a tool like the internet is.
This is the end of a very long period of economic growth, bitcoin came out the month when Lehmans folded, it hasnt had to survive in any kind of tough period. I think the concept will stick around like other fringe saving methods like antiques or 'luxury' brands where it's mostly just the same money being passed around a small group.
You're absolutely right in that Bitcoin faces new challenges in this cycle as the macro economic picture turns incredibly negative. It will have to come through that - but I believe that it will.
The world if full of financial junk and people will still buy it.
I've no doubt that you're right. There has been talk of 'speculation' but there are different types of speculators too - and that doesn't get considered. Whether consciously or otherwise, I feel if there's a natural bias towards finding Bitcoin to be pointless, then this always seem to feed in to the worst possible examples. In these hype cycles, there are people that never had any interest before getting triggered when things get frothy. Some don't take that interest beyond 'number go up', have no knowledge aside from maybe something that they heard down the pub, and oftentimes just FOMO in with no knowledge on the back of primal greed (which we all possess as a human trait - albeit some have a much better awareness of it than others).
There's no doubt that this category of "investor" or "speculator" gets badly burnt - proportionate to just how greedy they've been. And they've already realized that loss right now as they've already sold. That's not a good outcome - but there has to be some semblance of personal responsibility with this sort of stuff. There may be others who just took a punt with a small amount of money - and now that they've gotten involved, they might go on to actually understand what digital assets are, what purpose they can serve, etc. I'd much rather we didn't have these cycles - it would be much better if Bitcoin could incrementally and gently gather momentum - but unfortunately, that's simply not how humans work. On the up side, each hype cycle draws more and more people in - to understanding what digital assets and Bitcoin are about. Some come for a feverish 'number go up' and some then stay having a better appreciation of what these assets are.
The notion of fast/easy money has been raised in relation to crypto many times. I have no doubt whatsoever that there are folks who have fomo'ed in who thought in those terms (and will do again). However, Bitcoin and crypto is the farthest thing from easy money.
Someone mentioned that smart pension investment doesn't measure itself based on 5/6 months. That's precisely the point relative to Bitcoin too. Anyone who isn't looking at this with a 3-5 year timeframe in mind isn't looking at it properly.
As for DMW, I didn't read his article as its behind a paywall although from the comments and the headline, I assume it's largely negative re. Bitcoin. However, I see from the first couple of lines that for a guy that has been very slow to gather an understanding of Bitcoin, he either is being clever (and covering his bases) or he's actually learnt something - because he states this:
"Some of the promises of Bitcoin in particular and crypto in general may still come to pass..."
This bear market is particularly challenging as it brings together an incredibly difficult macro setup (crypto responds much more quickly in both directions - I don't think we've seen anything yet in relation to more conventional assets) together with weak and unsustainable actors (who paid little heed to proper risk management) in the crypto space being taken out. Clearing them out comes with major pain for those caught up in it - but in the longer run, it's very healthy for crypto and particularly for Bitcoin.
