Financial bubbles today do not "pop" like they used to. They fade gradually over time. There are a lot more warning signals today when capital starts to shift from one place to another. The bottom is not just going to suddenly fall out like how it did with the subprime crash or the various financial "event" crashes before it. This is especially true with these digital assets that move at the speed of light. Even the most casual retail investor is a lot more connected to the financial world than how it was in the early 90s and early 2000s. I know this because I was there. I remember every crash from the dot com to 2008 housing crash. You are mimicking the exact behavior of the old school popular CNBC bears that would give the same types of analysis with the U.S. dollar, stocks, and bonds. We're in a bubble! Stocks are in a bubble, bonds are in a bubble. Everything is in a bubble.. and not only was everything in a huge bubble, but that bubble was on the verge of popping! Now everyone needs to buy precious metals like gold so that they could hedge themselves from the imminent collapse that was always just around the corner.. every passing year, no matter how many years that growth would just keep trucking along and prove them wrong. Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, Jim Rodgers.. They used to call these guys the horsemen of the apocalypse. lol. All the gold bugs warning everyone that the bond yield curves were flattening(which they are), U.S. government debt was going to imminently default, and that there would be this massive exodus from stocks and bonds into the only thing that had "true" value.. Gold. I listened to these people for years and put tens of thousands of dollars into silver and gold bullion. You know what? Nothing happened. The apocalypse did not come. My investment actually depreciated. Jim Rodgers today is starting to evangelize Bitcoin now. At least he admitted that he was wrong. I'm still waiting on Schiff ;).. The reality is that people slowly shifted money away from the things that were depreciating in value and into the things that were appreciating. Nothing "crashed". It just faded from one place and into another. It's hilarious when you see financial news on TV, the DOW goes down a couple of points and everyone calls it a "crash". People move their money in a timely manner. Maybe it's bonds one week, maybe it's stocks. Then there is Bitcoin. Everyone saw that this was actually storing their value most effectively and went there. People trusted it.
Did they go to gold? Why not? Because this would have been the obvious, clear and safest choice seeing that it was historically THE established hedge, right? I mean it's just the most logical choice. Why did Bitcoin win out over gold? Why would people flood to an entirely new and unproven asset? Because this is what the market decided and they reacted to it. I was a huge metals stacker in the early 2000s and when Bitcoin came into the scene, was highly skeptical of it. I told myself that there is no way that the US Dollar price of 1 BTC would be higher than the spot price of a single gold bullion. Boy was I wrong. Social proof is a very powerful influencer.. and the people decided.
Those doom and gloomers did not foresee so many things in terms of rapid technological and financial development. Bitcoin made way more sense than gold as a viable medium of exchange in hyper-inflated countries like Argentina than gold did. It was fast and efficient.
Now I'm hearing the same kinds of gold purists talk this way about Bitcoin. That eventually, people will tire of the altcoins and go to the one true place where there is real value. Bitcoin. It all just sounds so familiar to me. :) Just replace "gold" with what you are saying is Bitcoin. The one true coin! You see what I'm getting at here? It didn't matter how much further established Bitcoin is, this doesn't mean everyone will default to this.
All those doomsayer financial prophets are pessimistic by nature, which greatly affects their outlook, especially when they see a lot of green, but after a couple of years, it become more of a desire to realize a self-fulfilling prophecy than to look at the contrarian evidence that proves them wrong. The VIX is at an all time low right now. There has never been more investor confidence. We're in uncharted growth territory right now and there is no way to accurately call a bubble at this moment. Just because there's a lot of green on that board, doesn't mean it's all speculative frenzy buying driven solely by those catalysts you mention.
I think you will be waiting along with Schiffs dad.... I remember my first introduction to bitcoin when all the YouTube stackers we making fun of it by presenting an empty coin slab and calling it rare. One guy recognized its potential and hit the mining hard, think his name was davincij15. It's sad to see Jim Richards waste his tweets on bitcoin bashing but I guess he has nothing better to do. It just goes to show you that the people that have the ability, whether gifted or learned, to recognize shifts like these, are properly rewarded. I can't stand it when people point at early adopters and complain about their winnings and call it unfair.... Not only was money put on the line, but so was reputation and to some that has more value.
It's very common behavior with these older financial gurus. They can be very stubborn and set in their ways. I respect a lot of these people, including Richards, but it takes some humility to admit that you were wrong, especially after being a believer in something for decades. Got to put ego aside and fame makes it tough for a lot of them.
I heavily disagree with this assessment, but I respect the time you put into it and I know this is something you've thought a great deal about over time. My issue with it is that bubbles aren't due to information disconnects - Most people know that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are a bubble, even many ardent believers like Andreas Antonopoulos. The reasons bubble form is due to human nature and I don't think ANY technological innovation will change that, not even the internet. In fact, I think it magnifies it. Most people are lemmings. They buy into the hype and they sell into the dump. It'll happen, that I have zero doubt of. But unlike many other gold bugs and other naysayers, I'll dabble for two reasons:
So many new people know about Bitcoin because of its price. Even when it pops, we will have thousands of developers in blockchain just because of it and they won't want to leave.