Even if a cryptocurrency changes the financial world and becomes the default unit of transactions, there would be no reason to invest in it. It would quietly work in the background as a good currency should, maintain a stable value, and help facilitate routine transactions. It should be about as boring as a checking account.mbasherp wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 9:24 am I am forever grateful for this community and all of its moderators and admins for being so invaluable on my financial journey. And I recognize and respect that this is a private space, allowed to be shaped by the desires and vision of those who run it. Thank you all.
I very humbly want to add a bit of perspective. A community like Bogleheads could not and would not have existed prior to "Common Stocks as Long Term Investments" - published in 1924. Bonds were the way, and stocks were risky - even surely similar to tulips to some. But as the world evolved, an understanding of what stocks "really" were changed as well. A few decades later we had modern portfolio theory and you'd be questioned if you didn't include common stocks in a portfolio.
It is not impossible that all of the issues mentioned with crypto are transitory growing pains on the way to a truly fundamental change in the financial world. Looking deeply at the DeFi space in particular, it looks a lot like the stock market was a century ago, before it was "safe."
Of course, you would've done okay with a never-changing bond portfolio held from the 1920s onward, but you would lag far behind those that knew the financial world was evolving.
If there's even a possibility that this perspective turns out to be correct, I think the world needs as enlightened a place as Bogleheads to discuss (not trade) it.
That vision is clearly not what is driving the current cryptocurrency mania. Bitcoin was set up to increase in value after the the initial investors got in at low cost. The rules behind Bitcoin generation suggests a pyramid scheme, not a stable currency. And the subsequent mania driven by price increases support that.