Bitcoin getting clobbered…down 30% as of writing, making this the worst one-day decline in the history of its existence. Good thing I sold some in the $18k-19k range and warned people to be careful before buying, and not to subscribe to the dollar-is-doomed hype.
As mentioned a week ago, Bitcoin does not solve any problem, but rather it is a solution in need of a problem. Facebook, Google, and Amazon solve problems: advertising, commerce, helping people find information, and bringing friends and family together. Payment processing, for decades, worked fine without Bitcoin and does not need Bitcoin to work better. For a technology or product to be useful, it either has to solve a problem or remind people of a problem they didn’t realize they had.
Bitcoin does not solve the ‘chicken and the egg’ problem, that in order to get Bitcoin (the chicken) one must have the egg first (fiat). For example, on overstock.com there is an option to pay with Bitcoin, but in order to pay they advise people to go to Coinbase and then use their fiat to buy Bitcoin so they can then buy with Bitcoin on overstock.com…how pointless is that. Why not just use the fiat to buy on overstock.com instead of paying Coinbase a large transaction fee and having to wait a week or longer for the Bitcoin to arrive.
Bitcoin is useful for storing large sums of money in a manner that is irrecoverable, irreversible, and hard to trace and requires no storage space…there is value in that. But is that enough to threaten the existence and legitimacy of the central banking system? I don’t think so.
I will be buying back around $3k-4k. If you want to buy Bitcoin, I advise putting half in Bitcoin and keeping half in cash. If it falls lower, you will have some dry powder. If it goes higher, you will still food good that you bought.