For most of the year, as Bitcoin soared, crashed, and soared again, cryptocurrency vs. physical gold-silver talking heads engaged each other in heated rhetoric about which of these venues is here to stay. Some of the biggest names in finance, government, and the newsletter analyst space have made comments that — to be charitable — appear less-than-fully informed. Comments like “Even though bitcoin could rise to $100,000, it’s still going to zero!” don’t offer much insight. Some other questionable assumptions:
2017 percent price change comparisons: Relating this year’s gold and silver’s price range to that of bitcoin misses an important point. Yes, bitcoin (BTC) has risen by a much greater percent, but it’s also fallen more. I don’t recall gold dropping 40% this year, which bitcoin has… on a couple of occasions.
Trash-talking gold and silver as “antiquated”: Bitcoin is now considered legal tender in Japan, but at this time, its primary function is for use in the purchase and sale of the 900+ “alt coins” currently available. Most of these exchange entries in the crypto-space are not really “currencies” at all and will never trade as such. Rather they are “coins” or “tokens” digitally created and circulated to raise seed money, via initial coin offerings (ICOs) in order to solve some business application in a blockchain-connected manner. Many have no trading volume — possibly because the market is skeptical of their business plan — and have become more or less “dead” coins.
At present, a relative few have an actively trading market. Investors have dropped literally millions of dollars into scores, if not hundreds of entrants which have appeared on the scene like dragon’s teeth, in many cases only to see volume dry up soon thereafter. At present, digital apparitions can be created and marketed by just about anyone. The following example demonstrates how easy it is (for now), and how gullible some people really are…