We’ve all heard that Bitcoin is ‘digital gold’, ‘a store of value’ and ‘a money printing hedge’ - is it?!
Looking at historical trading over the last 12 moths (which is the period when BTC has been most stable / reasonable), BTC has more in common with Nasdaq (blue) than gold - i.e. it trades as a high-beta tech stock.
While one can make money mining BTC, it’s actually not that convenient / cheap as a method of payment and it doesn’t have an inherent cash flow (though you can generate yield on it - to be covered in future editions). Hence its utility as a 'store of value' is only based on the market's perception and the belief of its participants that this asset will act in a certain way in a certain scenario - much like gold.
Once you account for some inherent structural challenges, this really doesn't look like a solid foundation for a new global monetary system and it simply feels like a niche asset class for small-scale speculators and 'true believers' in a fundamental global financial revolution. Luckily for us (or not), there's $160bn+ of value in other coins, some of which have a fundamentally different profile.