As with any asset, you need to understand what it does, what it doesn’t do, and who controls it. For instance, who controls gold? Iron?
And ETF will give some semblance of “control.”
Currently very few people own bitcoin. I cannot imagine millions deciding the morning after an SEC approval that they absolutely MUST get in on it. Honestly, I expect a bump up in the price, followed by another short crash as the short term holders bail out.
Bitcoin has returned pretty decent annualized growth over the past ten years. It might just be “a number”, but that number seems to just keep growing. My bank account thanks you for that.
Up 4.6%.
$44,100.
Every trade is jumping a couple hundred dollars, up or down.
I do not really understand it, myself.
It should make a good inflation or foreign currency hedge because of its finite quantity - just 22 million Bitcoins, as I recall.
The intensive computer calculations necessary to mine Bitcoins make no sense to me, and the Public Ledger makes no sense at all.
If you have a public trading market, you already have a Public Ledger, with millisecond calculations. If someone wants to buy or sell Bitcoins privately, so what?
Finally, if each Bitcoin had a permanent unique serial number, they would be impossible to steal, and impossible to lose.
Frankly, as it stands today, Bitcoin has significant value only to tax criminals, to money launderers, and to speculators.