I think I'd advise caution on bitcoin as a 'stable source of value' with a 'limited supply' untill you've done some serious and in depth research into Tether, the service they provide and the security they cite as backing their bitcoin positions. Bitcoin might have a finite supply, but most of the bitcoin market trades on unregualted exchanges with Tethers as the interim medium of exchange (i.e, the thing that people actually buy and sell for real world money).
Tethers claims to have $Xbn in assets to back their interim bitcoin 'substitute' intermediary, which they claimed was 100% backed by dollars and therefore tethered in value to the dollar. Under legal pressure, they're now claiming that their token is 74% backed by dollars or dollar equivalents. Not the same thing. Personally, based on their trading volumes and their stated reserve bank based in the Bahamas, I believe their actual backing with real world assets to be less than 20%. Tethers account for well over half the total bitcoin daily trading volume worldwide. Ergo, half of the bitcoin market cap, world wide, is functionally worth 20% of what it trades at.
Links here (the first one is sensational, but also summarises my concerns best):
This is the story of a Bitcoin trade — the most financially impactful trade I’ve ever made in my life. It’s also the story of the…
crypto-anonymous-2021.medium.com
Whenever the curtain is pulled back on the operations of Tether, the representations made by its executives change dramatically.
coingeek.com
I'm not saying the entire market is wildly fraudulent and will absolutely collapse as soon as the ongoing investigation into Tether by the NY Attorney General gets to court, but I'm also saing that based on what I personally have researched and understand of crypto capital flows, it definitely is.
Of course, I made my money and exited the market, maybe I'm just jealous of those who are still net long on crypto. I can't claim to have ever understood what Crypto truly offers as an asset class
today, having dipped in and out over the years, short and long, to make money off the hysteria and enthusiasm of others, but I would seriously suggest that anyone who is long to a meaningful degree, treat it as a lucrative, but massively volatile bubble market that is at best built on confidence an enthusiasm and may, in fact, be entirely fraudulent to its core. If it were me, I'd take the gains and run. At the very least I'd be hedging hard and hoping someone is bullish enough to support that short.
Personally, I'd still retire with savings in Dollars, Euro, Yen or Sterling. Even Yuan. I would absolutely 100% not trust my financial future to a pension fund priced and traded in Litecoin, or Bitcoin, or Cardano or Ethereum. There's a reason for that and it's because they're not real and the're certainly not currency, irrespective of what the latest generation of social media 'investors' claim.
fundingthefuture.substack.com
unchainedpodcast.com
