RE: Woah, Bitcoin Gaining Ground! 🚀 Lesson #1 - never try to time the market!
I think that blockchain / cryptocurrency tech is here to stay - it's already being adopted by everyone from Microsoft to Bank of America. There's an insane amount of money to be saved by adopting blockchains to process and store information for companies like these.
The real question is what will the blockchain / cryptocurrency space look like 5+ years from now?
I'm of the opinion we'll see a major thinning of the cryptocurrency space in that time - think dot com burst and all the subsequent bankruptcies. I would conservatively say at least 50% of the cryptocurrencies available today will be worth $0 in a timeframe of 5 years. (And that's just looking at average rates of failure for traditional business - which aren't in markets as volatile as crypto)
However, I think those that survive are going to win big - to keep in line with the dot com comparison - think Google and Amazon.
I see players like Bitcoin and Ethereum as "safer" bets in the space since they already have such a large portion of the overall market share - and in Bitcoin's case, a relatively high rate of adoption in the real world.
Although, I wouldn't say either of the aforementioned currencies are immune to a potential fate of $0 in a span of 5 years, although it'd be far less likely.
My biggest critique of Bitcoin is that it appears to have little ability to pivot to the changing needs of its users. We can see the very divisive scaling debate and subsequent hard fork as an example of that. Scaling is inherently difficult, scaling a decentralized blockchain is doubly so - and I think it's going to long and hard road for Bitcoin to successfully scale on either chain.
That being said, it does still position itself as a store of value - it will be interesting to see how it competes with other cryptocurrency for that position though. Namely, those that implement PoS.
Although I'll end by saying that Bitcoin is my go-to recommendation for friends and family when it comes to the safest investment in crypto.
TL;DR - Good call investing into Bitcoin - Lambos incoming! (>‿◠)✌
"The real question is what will the blockchain / cryptocurrency space look like 5+ years from now?
I'm of the opinion we'll see a major thinning of the cryptocurrency space in that time - think dot com burst and all the subsequent bankruptcies."
Yep, BItcoin is definitely the giant Jabba the Hutt in the room, rich, fat, popular with everyone...let's just hope it doesn't get the life choked out of it in a similar fashion
That said, it still has SO much momentum as the original cryptocurrency, name recognition and worldwide adoption - I mean seriously, you can use it on Shopify and a bunch of known retailers (https://www.lifewire.com/big-sites-that-accept-bitcoin-payments-3485965)...and I think this number is only going to grow. We gotta survive this fork first though! Speaking of which, it's my opinion Bitcoin will survive in some form or another, like I said it's just too established and there are too many people banking on its success at this point.