Remember the good old days of 2010 when you could buy 2 Pizzas for 138 Million US Dollars (as of Dec 6 2017)? Yeah, the world has gone batshit crazy over Bitcoin, the major crypto currency in an ever expanding ocean of other digital currencies that run their ledgers on a distributed, impossible-to-manipulate database. First is: where is most of that money going to? The 241 Billion $ of Market capitalization that traded for secret numbers went mostly to energy producers you may think. And you may not be far off the truth with that assumption.
However, like any currency or investment vehicle, it relies on its use. Okay, you cannot buy much yet with Bitcoins. And most probably will never spend your BTCs at all. Then why stashing all these hash-codes, how can that be of any use to anyone other than speculation and the assumption that one day any holder of a bitcoin will be a millionaire? The truth may be simpler than most visionaries that are hoping for the new, unbanked, fair, uncorrupt monetary future where we all trade in unregulated, self-securing and -validating, anonymous transactions: plain old money hiding.
Yes, you can hide money in Bitcoins. Like with most corrupt practices this one offers an amazing opportunity to stash that moolah away from any international tax-detectives. And it washes your corrupt Dollars pristine-white in case you managed to funnel them into one of the BTC-exchanges. Boom, your money turns invisible like a superhero with a magic cloak.
The old stigma of Bitcoin to be the Online-Drugdealer, -Pedophilia consumer, Weapons-Trader and Terror-Network-Supporting weapon of choice, it is now entering a new phase in which it starts mixing with basic clean investment portfolios as well as tax-evasion. Which since the dawn of times have been going hand in hand. The ugly, corrupted, capitalistic face is slowly emerging on top of that mountain of Terabytes and Petaflops and oh boy will it be mighty! Forget the days when your fatherly government was able to steer through a crisis by printing some quick, fresh bank notes to calm the markets. That won’t be no more with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is more than just the Digital Gold everyone was hoping for. It is much more versatile. It is not good, nor is it evil. But for sure it will be brutal. With its holders (lose it, get hacked, make a mistake… no refunds!), the taxman (bye bye you tax-dodger-hunters, just declare your governments bankrupt already) and the markets (a rollercoaster with G-forces that will make your guts fly out).
But with any new thing, there will be a next stage. It may be calmer, more mature, more stabilizing, in fact, if everything goes according to those crackers who think that this is magic silver bullet for all our monetary problems, then Bitcoin (and all other cryptos) will take us to a new phase of prosperity. Until then, we all gotta drink the cool aid mixed with Red Bull and some shots of Liquor to get through these times.