‘Too late to bitcoin?’ There’s no such thing | Columnists #CriptoNews

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.” — Ancient Chinese proverb about bitcoin.

Disclaimer: This opinion column is not intended as, nor does it constitute, investment advice. It is written by a hobbyist/enthusiast with no classical financial education, who will readily tell you that Amazing Spider-Man No. 252 (May 1984) still has lots of room to increase in value. Seriously, look it up. But hey, if you take a career waiter’s opinion as financial advice, that’s totally on you, OK?

Believe it or not, I’ve been where you are, and I understand exactly what you may be feeling on news that one bitcoin now costs over $100,000 — “Shoulda bought bitcoin.”

Nearly all of us have our story of first hearing about, then rejecting and forgetting about, bitcoin. I’d love to hear yours.

Mine’s simple: Following a drastic life upheaval or three, I had a brief minute where things were looking up for me financially, and I started subscribing to a few investing newsletters, just to ponder my “what ifs?” One of them gave a great deal of space to bitcoin, including detailed instructions about “downloading a wallet” to my desktop computer, and how to “safely store my private keys” — whatever that meant.

“This all sounds way too technical for me,” I thought, and decided not to put the effort into learning something new. This was 2014, and bitcoin “closed” at $320 that year.

Two years later, I humbled myself and reached out to my bitcoin guy, and with that friend’s help, I purchased $10 worth of bitcoin via a cellphone app, mostly just as an experiment to make sure that I could buy bitcoin — should I ever really decide to. You know, maybe someday.

Another year passed. Bitcoin reached $1,000, and I was completely unaware that it even happened. By the time I paid it any attention again, the price had “mooned” to $2,500, and all I knew for sure by then was that I was “too late for bitcoin.”

I wasn’t alone, however. I didn’t know it then, but it turns out that one Brian Armstrong, co-founder of the company that sold the $10 worth of bitcoin to me, has shared publicly many times that he walked out of a bitcoin meetup in 2011 thinking that he too had missed out. Bitcoin had just broken $1 on the day that Armstrong thought that he was too late for bitcoin.

The feeling truly is universal. Your unborn descendants will likewise know it.

TLDR (too long didn’t read): Just do a YouTube search on “Forever, Laura.”

If you haven’t grokked bitcoin by now, you’re definitely not alone, and in my humble opinion, you’re definitely not too late. Well OK, you’re too late to turn $1 into $1 million, as was I, but nobody alive today will ever be “too late for bitcoin” (my readers know that there are many non-financial portfolio reasons to own bitcoin, but I’m still warming you up to appreciate bitcoin from property and human rights perspectives — bitcoin’s true contribution to society and the honest, objective reason why it has any value at all: stay tuned).

And in case I haven’t been very clear on this yet, neither the Roswell Daily Record nor this opinion columnist are engaged in the business of rendering financial advice. But since the price of bitcoin is at the top of the news cycle, and everybody’s all curious, let’s have a look at what some of those who are licensed financial advisors have been saying recently.

Professional bitcoin price predictions (two grains of salt recommended)

Forbesthis July: “Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, predicted that bitcoin could reach an astounding $1.48 million by 2030.”

CNBC Pro headline this Thursday: “Bitcoin will double to $200,000 by the end of 2025, says Standard Chartered”

Investor’s Business DailyNovember: “Bernstein added that it remains ‘confident’ in its $200,000 bitcoin price target by the end of 2025. Even as bitcoin pushes to record highs, ‘we believe risk-reward is favorable over (the) next 12 months,’ the analysts wrote.”

Yahoo! Finance October headline: “Bitcoin Price Forecast: Potential Cycle Top of $275K by November 2025”

MSNthis January: “BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has published a research paper advocating for an aggressive allocation of Bitcoin in traditional investment portfolios. The research paper … suggests that Bitcoin should make up a substantial 84.9% of an investment portfolio consisting of 60% equities and 40% bonds.”

And then there’s the niche classic Coinspeaker headline from 2021: “One bitcoin may be worth $1 billion by 2038, Fidelity says,” via an interview with Fidelity’s Director of Global Macro, Jurrien Timmer, shortly after the investment firm, Fidelity, published “an earlier $100 million prediction for 2035.”

This April, Yahoo! Finance followed up on the above article with one titled “Holding 0.001 Bitcoin Could Make You A Multimillionaire, According to Fidelity Director,” explaining that “the value of Bitcoin should increase exponentially as new users join the network. …

“If Bitcoin reaches $1 billion, an investment of $1,000 would be worth $16.7 million in 2038. A minimum investment of $60 (note: $60 in April, roughly $100 today) or 0.001 BTC would be needed to become a millionaire,” the article concluded.

The perfect storm

This current price surge is in keeping with a well-documented, and therefore anticipated (by bitcoiners), four-year cycle. As charted every six- to 18-month period following spring 2012, 2016, 2020 and now 2024, right on schedule, bitcoin consistently reaches new high prices following an event known by OGs as “The Halvening” (simply referred to by most disrespecting young pups these days as the halving, ew).

In (way too) short, the amount of newly minted currency issued by the bitcoin network daily (creating the “supply”) is fixed. Further, the network is programmed to reduce this number of new bitcoin issued daily by 50% every four years, eventually reaching zero new bitcoin ever being issued. Concurrently, more people just like you worldwide are learning about, then coming to trust and wanting to collect some bitcoin (creating the “demand”) as more years pass.

Because of this, online bitcoin exchanges now report five-year lows, meaning that there is less bitcoin available for resale today than there was in years before, and we are now on the cusp of experiencing the “greatest supply crunch” bitcoiners have yet known.

And that’s a feature, not a bug.

As reported by Yahoo! Finance on Wednesday, “Bitcoin’s reserves on exchanges continue to fall, indicating that more investors are holding their coins long-term. This reduced supply, coupled with the growing adoption of Bitcoin, suggests that the cryptocurrency could see significant price increases in the near future, despite short-term volatility.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, am I too late for bitcoin or what?

Actually, we’re hiring.

In November 2023, the Nasdaq website quoted a report from prominent bitcoin financial services provider, Unchained, stating that one in four Americans owns some amount of bitcoin, but more importantly, the report “revealed that 95% of current BTC owners are considering increasing their holdings in 2024.”

Those new to bitcoin might naturally wonder “why” all the people that have studied and accumulated bitcoin for years are still buying even more, and at today’s record prices?

As Mitchell Askew, author of “The Conservative Case for Bitcoin: Hard Money & The Restoration of Traditional American Values,” wrote on X after bitcoin’s milestone,

“This run is far from over. You may not be ‘early’ anymore, but you’re not ‘late.’ It’s time to man up, put your ego aside, and study this ‘magic internet money.’ There’s a reason this asset is worth as much as it is. ‘Bubbles’ don’t last 15 years and become adopted by Wall Street as a financial reserve asset. #Bitcoin will appreciate in value forever against perpetually debased fiat currencies. Study this.”

Similarly, Gary Leland, aka “The Bitcoin Boomer,” who turns 70 in March and is the organizer of the world’s longest-running bitcoin conference, held annually in Dallas, wrote on X Thursday morning,

“Just made my first purchase of bitcoin at over 100k. I have been buying at the high for a long time and it has turned out to be a good move so why stop now.”

Responding for Daily Record readers to my direct message, Leland explained,

“Many people confuse bitcoin with stocks, but it is so much more. At a total supply of 21 million ever it is the rarest asset that man has ever created. Think in the simple terms of supply and demand. When something is this limited you know what will happen as the demand increases.”

Skyrockets in flight

FOMO, or “fear of missing out,” is what happens.

Individual investors, large institutions and, as we covered last week, nation-states alike, are now locked in competition with known producers of bitcoin (or, “bitcoin mining” outfits) to contract for their newly minted bitcoin in advance — before their new bitcoin are even created or can be released to the market.

President-elect Donald Trump’s (endearingly well-meaning but literally impossible) expressed desire to see “all the remaining Bitcoin to be made in the USA,” as he posted on Truth Social this June and said when campaigning in Nashville in July, has only added jet fuel to this rocket launch. The United States is going to mine, baby, mine.

So friends, I’ve been on this path longer than most of my readers, yet I will freely admit that we are now in brand-new territory. The State (including Trump, as we’ve also covered here) has fought the rise of bitcoin for so long, we’re not sure what to think of a friendly administration. Or whether we can trust it.

“All your models are destroyed,” we have learned to love to say, and, ironically, now all of ours are as well. And if you continue to come sail away with me down the bitcoin rabbit hole, I can perhaps guide you somewhat, but I cannot promise a safe arrival to your intended destination, wherever that may be.

Even the most die-hard 15-year bitcoiner veterans are “new to bitcoin” now, except for our near-religious conviction that the face-melting race to $1 million bitcoin is on. What’s crazy is that this time people are starting to believe us. We can’t promise that the journey will be that much less volatile than the first 100k, however, but going through the process does indeed build character, we’ve discovered.

As detailed in last Sunday’s column, bitcoiners who have been expecting these price moves are in no hurry to sell their asset. We have, in fact, been making concrete plans and conscious efforts to usher in a world which we see as faring much better using a scarce form of currency, with a capped supply, opposed to what unbacked fiat currency and rampant inflation, caused by unchecked money printing, has produced for our times.

Bitcoiners not only believe in our bright orange future. We have 100% accepted responsibility for using our time, gifts and resources to bring it about.

Or, as “down under” X user, @rationalaussie, shared,

“As the inevitable climb towards $1m btc begins, it will be contrasted against a world that, for the most part, is in rapid decline (particularly in the West).

“It is the duty of all Bitcoiners to not just get rich off it, but to do something with your wealth.

“Use the safety net you now have to rebuild the world better than you found it, and better than the last generation left it.

“Celebrate today, but build tomorrow.

“Fix the money, fix the world.”

Guy Malone, a certified bitcoin professional, holds three certifications in digital currencies and has written and edited for publications such as Bitcoin Magazine and Cointelegraph. Reader input for future columns is welcome. Contact Malone via [email protected] and/or @RichNFrenz on X. The views expressed in this column are those of the author.