I have noticed that the majority of people in this thread think that Bitcoin is not in danger. I dig this sentiment, but we must acknowledge the fact that although BTC now enjoys a rush of institutional adoption, we can still have major dips that might be "produced" intentionally by specialized hedge funds and algorithms in order to engineer liquidity for the big funds from the retail.

Look at the bright side when people don't handle their wealth properly: less Bitcoins in circulation >> less supply >> higher value. Just joking lol
I wouldn't wish anyone to lose their private keys (unless they are bad guys of course) - I'm sure it is a very frustrating event especially if you happen to hold a significant part of your net worth in crypto.

As an ending note, make sure you follow the best practices when it comes to securing your keys. Don't keep them on a computer with internet access as someone with evil intentions could hack it or you can get viruses. Not even talking about electricity shocks that sometimes (in extremely rare cases) can permanently damage the hardware.

During the pandemic Bitcoin experimented a crash like most of the assets (Gold included), but since then institutions started to use it to hedge against fiat inflation. But we don't really know if they are doing this mainly for the capital appreciation or to actually hedge their cash balances.

Given the features of Bitcoin I'd say it is a perfect candidate for a crisis safe-haven and not only, but what I think is not that important. What matters is what the market thinks

Nope, Bitcoin price does not fluctuate because of a big number of people trading back and forth between altcoins and BTC. Bitcoin is so volatile because it is a pretty new asset class and investors are not accustomed to. They don't know how to evaluate it so the price moves mainly due to speculation. Nowadays we see big companies like Tesla and Microstrategy hoarding BTC as a hedge against fiat and for capital appreciation.  This trend could change the violent moves of BTC especially on the downside.

Another factor is the low liquidity in the markets. Institutions with deep pockets cannot get their hands on BTC yet, but only with very low amounts that do not impact their yearly performance significantly. That's why you see investment funds like Blackrock only "dabbling" with Bitcoin - because they don't want the market to get in a buying frenzy, at least not yet.

I'd rather ask myself: is there a better investment alternative that can protect my wealth from fiat depreciation and at the same time yield me a decent yearly return? There are very few exceptions that can beat Bitcoin's annual average growth of over 200%.

Of course that a sound investor needs to practice a minimum amount of diversification, but is Bitcoin such a risky asset? Except from regulatory risks which are getting lower (in my opinion) as institutional adoption is rising, Bitcoin doesn't face many risks. I mean it has stood the test of time pretty well (+12 years since genesis block) and the network has been expanding at an incredible pace.

If you look at it objectively do precious metals deserve to be better capitalized than a beautifully designed, digital, ultra-secure and portable, inflation-proof cryptocurrency? My answer is an unequivocal NO and therefore I don't see why BTC shouldn't continue its climb *at least towards $500k when its market cap should be equal to Gold's, but again, I expect a lot of money to flow from other assets classes so it can achieve much higher heights.

Remember to be careful when investing. This is just my humble opinion.

Bitcoin should be a included in a person's net wealth. It is like holding any other asset (precious metals, real estate, land are all assets). Bitcoin is a different asset class of course, but it is still an asset and can & should be included be in a person's or in a company's balance sheet.

What do you define as "pure wealth"? Fiat? - you must be joking...

I was caught by this fallacy as well in the past. I think that is something that every developing trader must go through. It is a lesson that is best learnt on your own skin and hopefully when you are not rolling with a large capital.

Just tell your friend to stop feeling sorry and instead look at it as a valuable lesson for the future. 

Am I the only one who hasn't heard about the Motley Fool publication before?

$5M is not a lot of money in the institutional world, but yet as I see the website provides financial education for the average joe and not only.
According to CoinTelegraph article the website has 87 million views/month. That's serious exposure for Bitcoin. If let's say 10% of those views (8.7 million) are unique people that put $500 into BTC that would be $4bn added to BTC market cap. So it's kind of a big deal if you think about it.

The purpose of investing is to postpone current benefits for future gains. If you want to enjoy profits go ahead and spend your BTC. You can't have both capital appreciation and nice stuff at the same time. Now there are centralized finance (CeFi) platforms that enable you to get a loan in stablecoins or fiat currencies while keeping your crypto as a collateral in their custody. However there is a risk in doing this. These platforms are not insured by financial authorities so if they default you probably won't get your holdings back.

Personally I'm expecting big, reputable banks to get into this business as well so once we have this option it will be much safer to "leverage" our crypto assets.

Ethereum will most probably grow as well, but in the long run I don't see it nowhere near as successful as Bitcoin is going to be.
I mean sidechains, smart contracts and implicitly DeFi platforms are starting to be built on Bitcoin as well. The need for Ethereum could be soon obsolete.

Moreover ETH does not have a limited supply which kind of removes it from the list of hedge or proof-of-value assets. Bitcoin is at a point now where many stopped considering it a speculation asset, but a tool for wealth preservation and appreciation.

Complexity can be made simple for end-users by front-end engineers and UX designers + a skilled marketing team.

I heard about Hex and I think I have watched an interview with Richard xyz (can't recall his name). It sounded and looked to me like a disguised ponzi scheme and I didn't like his attitude (but hey, it's just my 2 cents).

$50,000 could transform in a very strong support if Bitcoin can keep above the level for a while. People need to get familiar with these price points although the ones who are driving this market up are institutional investors who likely have much more experience. However psychology still applies for them. We are all humans (I think lol) so we are all susceptible to emotions. The difference is some of us learn to control them and some of us not.

1) According to google, electricity fee in USA is 0.13 USD in comparison with China where it is around 35% lower (0.084 USD).

2) We all know that generally in asian countries the labour is much cheaper than in western countries.

3) From my perspective asians (especially japanese companies) have excelent production competences (maybe I'm not informed enough).

I believe the network fee issue will be solved in time as the crypto mining industry matures. Probably they are making some nice gains. Presently, the cost of mining is probably significantly lower than the current market price. There are current solutions like Lightning Network that people can use, but implementation of technology will surely come.

Just had an interesting thought. If we would live in a world where wealth would be equally distributed, each person would own 0.003 btc, so holding even 0.01 btc makes you wealthier than 3 people bundled together. But we don't live in that world so 0.01 BTC could be worth much more if Bitcoin gets adopted as the worldwide standard of value.

In the lending world, these companies earn even more than 20%/year if they are funding for example personal loans. I don't know how much interest they charge to institutional borrowers though. So think logically - when you're making 20% and your cost of capital is 6% you still make 14% APY. So I'd say this a pretty sustainable business model.

IMO, DeFi at this moment is more risky than CeFi simply because we don't have certified authorities that can offer insurance on audits performed on smart contracts. You don't know for sure if the smart contract is flawed or not.

I'm currently studying Sovryn - a layer 2 DeFi platform built on Bitcoin tech.

You can find opportunity in everything as there are very few things that are 100% efficient. There will be gaps of value in anything.

Look at the equity/stocks market today. A lot of stocks are overvalued but they continue to grow and others are undervalued and they are decreasing in price or remaining flat. If you take the time to study methods of fundamental analysis you can actually come with a fair price of each stock that interests you and invest based on that due diligence. But most people are too comfortable and think that is not necessary or too complicated. They are the gamblers and gamblers always lose money over time.

Don't be like them and take informed investment decisions which are not driven by fear, but by your reason.

Personally I believe in the freedom of speech and no man, famous or not, should be denied the right to express himself no matter the subject. It is a free market after all and we are all supposed to be grown-ups. People who invest based on other people opinions need to learn the lesson as soon as possible or else they would find the consequences of not doing due diligence at 30-50 years old where the risk is much bigger.

If Elon believes in Bitcoin, it is common sense for that to reflect both on Tesla's balance sheet and on his social media. I do believe Musk is going to start a trend in corporates and not only. I mean why not  expose at least a few percentages of the cash in your company on an assymmetrical risk reward opportunity that also happens to have strong fundamentals and price history?

Remember, do your own diligence and practice sound risk management.

You should not ask whether the allocation is "ok", but whether the allocation is ok for you. If one does not know your financial situation and risk tolerance, their advice cannot be anything else but subjective opinions. Moreover it is unlikely that any of us here are certified financial advisors.

In my opinion Bitcoin is less risky than the other assets out there, just because it has stood the test of time so well and it is now looking to become a reserve asset for companies' balance sheets.

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