Why the bitcoin craze is the modern-day equivalent of tulip bulb mania
sourceBitcoin has become a casino. It is almost a perfect reflection of the tulip bulb mania of 1637 in these two ways: 1) Most people buying bitcoins have no use for bitcoins (just like tulip bulbs), and 2) The rapid increase in bitcoin valuations cannot be substantiated in any way that reflects reality.
In other words, there is no fundamental reason why bitcoins should be 2000% more valuable today than four months ago. Nothing has changed other than the craze / mania of people buying in.
Mark my words: A bitcoin crash will occur, and a lot of people are going to be financially hurt by it. More and more, this bitcoin craze is looking like a "pump and dump" operation, where the only winners are those who are the first to sell.
When bitcoins were in the sub-$20 range, I was not concerned about any of this. I actually encouraged people to buy bitcoins and support the bitcoin movement. But alarm bells went off in my mind when it skyrocketed past $150 and headed to $200+ virtually overnight. These are not the signs of rational markets. These are warning signs of bad things yet to occur.
By the way, the simple way to prove to yourself that everything I'm saying here is true is to ask yourself this simple question: What do the people who are buying bitcoins plan to spend them on?
The answer is NOTHING! They don't plan to spend bitcoins on anything. They have no use for bitcoins. Their only play (for 90+% of those buying them) is to buy low and sell high. That's it! For them, bitcoin is nothing more than a speculative vehicle for gambling with some of their money.
Every speculative bubble market that goes up must come down. And it will usually come down at a multiple of the speed at which it went up.
The velocity of bitcoins is a huge red alert
Now, if most bitcoin buyers were actually using the currency on a day-to-day basis, purchasing things online, sending bitcoins to pay off debts, exchanging bitcoins for services, etc., then that would be different. The circulation of a currency is classically known as its velocity. The higher the velocity, the more frequently the currency is being routinely used for transactions.But the velocity of bitcoins after the initial purchase is shockingly low. What this indicates is that people are buying lots of bitcoins but then sitting on them. Once bitcoins are purchased, in other words, they basically just sit around and aren't used for any practical purpose.
Amazon.com, for example, doesn't accept bitcoins. You can't buy gas for your truck with bitcoins. You can't shop with bitcoins at the local grocery store. Until bitcoins are more widely accepted and the velocity rises, there is no fundamental reason why their value should suddenly skyrocket.
Of course, those who are deep into bitcoins right now will call me a doom and gloomer. Sure, it's okay for them to talk about how the dollar is going to crash, or how the Fed is a criminal operation, but the minute I start invoking mathematical reality with bitcoins, suddenly I become the bad guy.
Well, my answer to the critics is that I have more faith in the laws of mathematics than the self-deluded logic of people who own millions of dollars worth of bitcoins and who therefore have a strong self-interest in promoting the bitcoin mania.
They are blinded by their own positions in bitcoins and cannot see through the fog of self delusion. In contrast to that, I own only two bitcoins worth approximately $400 or so, meaning that I have no substantial position in bitcoins to speak of. Whether bitcoins go up or down does not impact me in any meaningful way. My sole motivation in writing this is to warn others away from the extreme risks that are now clearly associated with buying bitcoins at present-day prices.
There is nothing new under the sun
As always, there will be people (we call them "noobs" or "suckers") who think they have stumbled upon the one exception in the universe to the laws of mathematics and that bitcoin somehow represents a galactic shortcut to universal wealth where everyone can become billionaires by trading each other electronic chunks of data with higher and higher numbers encoded in them. These people are fools, and history will prove them so.After the bitcoin crash takes place, people will ask me, "Mike, how did you know bitcoin was going to crash when everybody else thought it was going to keep going up forever?" And my answer will be, "Because I believe that 2 + 2 = 4."
If you understand mathematics, you know that the bitcoin bubble is doomed. Sell while you still can and be happy with the profits you've made so far. Importantly, remember that the only reason you can sell is because there's a "greater fool" on the other side of that transaction who is buying your bitcoins.
The problem with all bubbles is that sooner or later the world runs out of greater fools.
Final notes: Why 95% have no clue what I'm writing about
Frustratingly, perhaps 95% of the people who will comment on this article in social media websites have no understanding of high-level mathematics, no understanding of economics, no understanding of free markets, no understanding of greed vs. fear psychology and no historical context through which they might understand what's happening with bitcoin. Almost no one buying bitcoins has any clue what they are. They don't even understand the meaning of the phrase "decentralized peer-to-peer crypto currency" and they have absolutely no working knowledge of public / private key cryptography. They have no idea what they are buying and they have no qualifications whatsoever to even discuss the topic.This is a case where 95% of the people talking about bitcoin need to be told, simply, "Shut the hell up!" because they literally have no clue what they are talking about.
If you are going to talk about bitcoin, make sure you understand the fundamentals of mathematics, cryptography, free markets, economics and human psychology before opening your mouth. Otherwise, you are only announcing to the world that you're a complete fool who will soon be parted from his money.
And to all those who think they are going to "get rich" by buying bitcoin today and selling it off when bitcoin goes higher, let me offer you a piece of practical advice: After the bitcoin crash, when you are screaming bloody murder and selling your bitcoins at perhaps 1% of what you paid for them, it will be people like me who will buy them and thus receive a 99% discount on the bitcoins you once bought at a hundred times the price. That discount is called the "IQ discount."
You know how lotteries are called a "tax on people who can't do math?" The bitcoin crash will be a massive global wealth transfer from people who can't understand the dynamics of decentralized crypto-currencies to those who do understand.
If you don't follow what I'm saying here, then don't buy bitcoins. You will only be led to the mathematical slaughter.
