A year ago, asking this question sent me down what is easily the most fascinating and rewarding rabbit hole of my five decades on this planet to date (it did involve a minor & short-lived detour into Alt-coins: otherwise known as ‘Shitcoins’. I have since seen the error of my ways).
At its most basic level, Bitcoin is the best form of hard money that has ever existed. It is a decentralised digital store of value and medium of exchange that obeys the transparent rules inherent in its own original code: it is therefore utterly incorruptible and beyond the manipulation of governments or central banks, since its value cannot be debased by reckless increase in the supply of money by simply printing more, at whim. (Or as Bitcoiners term it, ‘money printer go brrrrr’).
Why is this important? Well, to date every human civilisation that debased its money crashed and burned. A year ago I stopped singing ‘la la la la’, took my fingers out of my ears and really looked at the figures. Aghast and incredulous, I joined the ranks of those who believe our globalised economy is fixed on an impossible path from which there is no return: whatever we do now the crash is inescapable, it is merely a matter of time.
This graph (produced by FRED, Federal Reserve Economic Data) shows US data, but the situation is similar all over the world. The blue line shows US GDP, and the red line shows US debt (and the grey shaded areas are US recessions). Blue line generates income to pay interest on red line. See the problem?
As we squint into the first gusts of the impending ferocious inflationary storm unleashed by decades of easy money -with the last two years bringing us to levels of previously inconceivable danger – the choice is a simple one. We can crash with no alternative system in place*, or we can crash and attempt to weather the storm with Bitcoin.
You must come to your own conclusions on what to do now, in this brief window before the storm hits us. My view is that it is considerably more risky to own no Bitcoin than to own some Bitcoin. You pays your money (ideally while you can still buy something of value with it) and you makes your choice.
* Unless you’ve been living under a rock (and actually who could blame you?), you’ll have heard mentions of proposed Central Bank Digital Currencies, which would indeed constitute an ‘alternative system’. However, unless you are happy with the money you earn, spend and save being reduced to a voucher system linked to a social credit score, this probably isn’t the alternative you’re looking for.