If bitcoin according to Satoshi is digital money then why call it investment.

[CryptSafe]

I know you must be wondering what's up with my topic right? I too was having a thought over this and I  felt I should bring it here for discussion so we all can share our own various opinions.

For quite sometime now all I have been seeing is statements and topics of bitcoin being an investment and it bothered me to look into it and I as well stand to be corrected logically and with facts with respect to this conversation.

The sole reason why bitcoin was invented was to serve the purpose of digital money for which it was clearly stated on the white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto as captured below by quote;

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.

    Bitcoin White Paper
If you look at the top page of the while paper, it is clearly written there and there was no captions like investment  attached to it or being mentioned by Satoshi Nakamoto himself. Now I ask how come it deviated to being an investment?. I have read all through the white paper and never saw anything like investment but rather " an electronic peer 2 peer cash payment system" which means bitcoin is money but in a digital way of making payments. So how come it became an investment?

I believe in the course of adding more value to it's existence, whales bought large volume by market manipulation at the early stage of bitcoin inception and those who couldn't stand the market wave sold out giving way for the whales to take over the market and since then along with other occurrence and scenarios,  bitcoin became an investment and store of value aka digital gold as per say as it worked out for the whales according to their schemes. Would it be that easy to correct that notion of bitcoin being called an investment other than money.
When it is used for payment of goods and services on daily basis and we having full custody of our funds in a digital way would it be necessary we calling it an investment aside the price increase which is fluctuating and barely stable for a long time.? I believe Satoshi Nakamoto the sole originator of the bitcoin knows much better than everyone why he invented the bitcoin and I also would be looking forward to his reappearance be it pseudo anonymous or otherwise to making some notable observations on the bitcoin journey so far.

[OcTradism]

The world has freedom of speech and you can call Bitcoin as anything you want in your vision.

You can call it as it is, Bitcoin but you can call it as a shitcoin, a virtual currency, digital currency or even a scam currency.
If you buy it and hold it as an asset, you will call it as a store of value, for your investment.
If you use it at a gambling site, you will call it as a gambling currency.
You use bitcoin in your own ways and other people use their bitcoins in their ways which can be different than yours.

It can be called as The Internet of money
or as a Bitcoin standard.

Whatever you call it, others call it, Bitcoin is Bitcoin.

[BD Crypto]

Now I ask how come it deviated to being an investment?. I have read all through the white paper and never saw anything like investment but rather " an electronic peer 2 peer cash payment system" which means bitcoin is money but in a digital way of making payments. So how come it became an investment?

Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin isn't a digital payment system but also a store of value. It is a virtual currency as well as an asset but we can say it a Virtual asset where gold is a physical asset. So Bitcoin becomes too much popular as an investment because of its price volatility. You can say every asset who has price volatility or a potential chances to climb up it can be called as an investment. But the problem is Bitcoin isn't Physical asset that's why you are discussing here. In short Volatility makes Bitcoin as an investment.

Although I don't think without volatility or potential growth we can't say any asset as a investment like stable coins USDT, BUSD. But there also have a little price fluctuation so they aren't a perfect investment.

[wxa7115]

The sole reason why bitcoin was invented was to serve the purpose of digital money for which it was clearly stated on the white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto as captured below by quote;

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.

    Bitcoin White Paper
If you look at the top page of the while paper, it is clearly written there and there was no captions like investment  attached to it or being mentioned by Satoshi Nakamoto himself. Now I ask how come it deviated to being an investment?. I have read all through the white paper and never saw anything like investment but rather " an electronic peer 2 peer cash payment system" which means bitcoin is money but in a digital way of making payments. So how come it became an investment?

This happened because money is no longer a store of value, when commodity currencies were first created one of the problems a great deal of them had is that you could not use them for long before the material from which they were made deteriorated, precious metals solved that issue as they can last forever, and once they were minted into coins of the same weight we finally got money as we know it.

However fiat currencies do not store value, as such bitcoin was created in a world in which our money no longer performs perhaps its most important function, so while bitcoin can be used as a currency and you can buy whatever you want with it, it makes more sense to keep it, as what you can buy with fiat goes down while what you can buy with bitcoin goes up, making bitcoin not only a currency but an investment as well.

[Husires]

The fact that Satoshi invented Bitcoin for a specific thing and it was used for something different, this does not preclude the selfishness of using it for both parties. There is a quote from Satoshi, which is that during the next 20 years, Bitcoin will have either many transactions or zero effect.

I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume -- Satoshi Nakamoto

In other words, there will be a high demand for Bitcoin, and since the supply is only limited, we can say that the price will rise, so can we consider this as a sign from Satoshi because the price of Bitcoin will rise?

All possibilities are now available, but the end result is that Bitcoin is a high-risk investment and can lead to zero.

[odolvlobo]

Eventually, it will reach a high level of adoption and then investing in bitcoins will be no more profitable than investing in any other widely used currency.

[kro55]

Now I ask how come it deviated to being an investment?.

People didn't call it an investment, they turned it into an investment property. Right, bitcoin was initially created to be a decentralized currency not controlled by anyone. But it is we investors who have turned bitcoin into a speculative asset, all because of our behavior and usage. But honestly, if bitcoin is not an investment, it is not volatile and not profitable. I wonder how many people will use it? Are you sure you are getting into bitcoin because you need privacy, not profit?

[DapanasFruit]

Well, when you are buying something and you expect it to rise in value later then it can be called as an investment. This is very true with real estate but can also be true with anything like art object and yes even luxurious bags and other properties. Now, of course, the same is true with Bitcoin. Now, this is a very basic concept with investing and as a BTC enthusiast it would be good if you can familiarize yourself with the term and the concept.

[franky1]

   
If bitcoin according to Satoshi is digital money then why call it investment.

because people could invest their old money too..
yep money can be invested

heres some examples

putting fiat into your childs college savings account is investing your money in your sons future

putting bitcoin into a family multisig is investing in families future

its not rocket science

the deeper meaning is this
bitcoin is deflationary meaning it buys more college books if left invested for a couple years compared to invested for college in fiat..

yep if you have a 13yo kid in 2018 and you had the option of putting $10k into a college account for 5 years. or into bitcoin for 5 years.. you would have a better investment in bitcoin.

$10k fiat after 5 years wont buy as many college books of courses compared to 5 years ago.. but $10k of bitcoin invested 2018 would cover his whole standard community college course and accommodation

($10k=2btc in 2018 = $60k this year)
its not rocket science, its math

[Yaunfitda]

I don't know what is the intention of the OP, but in the last 10 years its obviously that,

a) when it started to have a price and then traded globally at Mt. Gox then it become an assets and investment
b) people not trading it, but just keep on buying become a HODLer

But it doesn't mean that you can't used it as digital money, you can still used it that way. If there are online merchants that are going to used then it become a payment scheme. So there is nothing wrong with bitcoin becoming a investment or digital money or payment scheme.

[Despairo]

It's because people are always view Bitcoin in USD or local currency equivalent. Whenever Bitcoin price was $20K in the last few months and now Bitcoin price is already $30K, they're think if Bitcoin price is highly volatile, but they're forgot if their local currencies are always inflated.

If there's a country only use Bitcoin as legal tender, people will view Bitcoin price is really stable and the goods or bills would be cheaper since Bitcoin is inflationary currency.

1 BTC = 1 BTC.

[Latviand]

It's an investment because if it can be traded hands then there's value, look at Forex, isn't that some kind of an investment too? Another obvious reason would be the value of a bitcoin, it's going up in value and I don't think it's a good idea to just let it stagnate if there's a room to grow.

[Darker45]

It's probably unintended but Satoshi must have an inkling about it. He/she/they likened Bitcoin to gold, after all. Satoshi must have known altogether that Bitcoin will have this tendency. It's money. It's scarce. It has a growing demand. As a result, it will have an increasing value unlike fiat which is decreasing because it is unlimited. Therefore, many people will probably keep it more than spend it.

Satoshi was certainly mindful of the ratio of 21 million coins to several billion people. He/she/they knew that some coins will be lost for good and it will have an effect on the value of the ones that remain in circulation. Satoshi was probably aware of the tendency of Bitcoin becoming an investment.

[rat03gopoh]

Now I ask how come it deviated to being an investment?

Because gradually people can't deny that bitcoin meets the criteria as an investment asset, and is proven by several success stories of bitcoiners in their investment journey. Even if you personally think otherwise, it's actually not a problem, basically bitcoin still doesn't violate the principle of being a payment instrument for anyone who thinks it's valuable.

[avikz]

Well, Bitcoin is decentralized. Satoshi, who created this Bitcoin, has no control over it. So it is up to the user how they want to look at it. Satoshi has definitely mentioned that it is a peer-to-peer digital currency system, but in reality, Bitcoin worked well as an investment that outperformed multiple billion-dollar enterprises. So I see no issues in looking at it as an investment, but rather a great investment.

In the free market rule, an asset usually finds its own way based on usage and demand. So Bitcoin worked well in that category. Also, I personally believe, Bitcoin will never be considered as a currency unless its price stabilizes. People usually do not like to let go of an opportunity. Bitcoin is an opportunity.

[CryptSafe]

Now I ask how come it deviated to being an investment?.

People didn't call it an investment, they turned it into an investment property. Right, bitcoin was initially created to be a decentralized currency not controlled by anyone. But it is we investors who have turned bitcoin into a speculative asset, all because of our behavior and usage. But honestly, if bitcoin is not an investment, it is not volatile and not profitable. I wonder how many people will use it? Are you sure you are getting into bitcoin because you need privacy, not profit?

Privacy is one of the key features of bitcoin if I am not mistaken. Sole ownership without third party interference was the sole aim where by one can have access to his or her fund and do what ever he or she wants to do with it without any trace or mingling with government or any third party organizations. You have control over you funds.
Everyone individual loves profiting so therefore would utilize every opportunity they have to make more profits. No one is exempted from that even you too would want to use every little avenue to make profit.

[retreat]

Investment is an activity to buy something and then you hope that one day you can get profit from it. Investments can be in any form, such as bonds, stocks, cryptocurrencies, even fiat. So from this, even though Bitcoin is digital money, it can be used as an investment, because when we buy it, we have hope that its value will increase in the future. Because of that, Bitcoin can be said to be an investment or digital money, but I agree more if it's just called digital money compared to an investment.

[franky1]

Now I ask how come it deviated to being an investment?.

People didn't call it an investment, they turned it into an investment property. Right, bitcoin was initially created to be a decentralized currency not controlled by anyone. But it is we investors who have turned bitcoin into a speculative asset, all because of our behavior and usage. But honestly, if bitcoin is not an investment, it is not volatile and not profitable. I wonder how many people will use it? Are you sure you are getting into bitcoin because you need privacy, not profit?

Privacy is one of the key features of bitcoin if I am not mistaken. Sole ownership without third party interference was the sole aim where by one can have access to his or her fund and do what ever he or she wants to do with it without any trace or mingling with government or any third party organizations. You have control over you funds.
Everyone individual loves profiting so therefore would utilize every opportunity they have to make more profits. No one is exempted from that even you too would want to use every little avenue to make profit.

the sole aim was a digital cash for the unbanked, but dev politics make to too costly(fees) for the 3rd world unbanked people. so next they used the lack to requirement of ID feature to next shout out "privacy".. yet a transparent open ledger is not private, it just lacked the requirement of nonsense metadata of users details

it was initially deemed as property2009-2013 thus was not in the jurisdiction of currency laws. but when defined as a currency2014+ then financial laws became applicable to services and businesses interacting with bitcoin. and thus regulations caused those financial businesses to require data on their customers

it became a currency becasue people lobbied to cal it that "to mainstream" it into an investment category

so now using a service to swap fiat to bitcoin is not a private thing.

[rikybrosh]

as it's grow in value people start to considering bitcoin as an investment. in practical bitcoin is mostly used in trading site rather than for buy goods or pay something. we still face many difficulty in country's regulation, there are still so many country that do not accept bitcoin yet. because of that problem, so many businessman having difficulty to adopt and utilize bitcoin as money or payment method. there are still so many website that accept bitcoin as payment method but i think mostly they are selling service or digital goods, not many that sell actual goods. I think those businessman should establish company in countries which already accept bitcoin and contribute to those country's economic development, also serve people outside that country too. by this way, those country can be good example for other country to consider bitcoin as catalyst for development of country's economy.

[Zaguru12]

as it's grow in value people start to considering bitcoin as an investment. in practical bitcoin is mostly used in trading site rather than for buy goods or pay something. we still face many difficulty in country's regulation, there are still so many country that do not accept bitcoin yet. because of that problem, so many businessman having difficulty to adopt and utilize bitcoin as money or payment method. there are still so many website that accept bitcoin as payment method but i think mostly they are selling service or digital goods, not many that sell actual goods.

Yes the lack of its massive usage as a payment method due to government restrictions is actually pushing it to been an investment since this doesn’t need to have government approval. Just like Gold which is rarely used by common people to trade and after finding out about its value they decide to hold the little they have just to beat the devaluation of the fiat is why bitcoin is used too. Currently it is more of an investment than a currency it was intended for because this, should nations begin to relax laws against it and it is used more freely for buying and selling of goods then it would be treated as a currency. But investment purpose of it would never be eliminated because of its value and scarcity.