I know I’m supposed to love BTC, the world’s biggest digital currency by market cap.
But I just don’t.
I love the idea of it…
A decentralized currency with no interference from central banks?
I’m in!
Transferring money across the world in seconds instead of days with almost no fees?
I like that, too!
A fixed supply the government can’t print more of to water down its value?
Also great!
But here’s the thing…
There are two big problems that keep me from falling in love with cryptocurrency.
Problem #1
First… BTC is too easy to lose.
My wife has no idea where our investment accounts are. Or how to access them.
But if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, the money would find its way to her.
She is the beneficiary on all of my accounts, so the banks and brokerage firms will make sure she gets the money.
But what if I had our nest egg in BTC?
If she doesn’t know the password and how to access it, it’s gone forever… floating in cyberspace… never to be found again.
How many stories have we heard about people throwing away hard drives with BTC on them that would be worth millions today?
In just one recent example, a man accidentally threw away his hard drive that held 7,500 BTC…
At current prices around $38,600, that hard drive is worth nearly $290 million.
And that was simple carelessness… Plenty of other BTC holders have been scammed out of their digital money over the years.
If you’re going to hold a digital currency, particularly a lot of it, then you have to be ultra-careful not to lose it.
I don’t like the idea of my life savings sitting on a flash drive that could fall down a sewer drain and wipe me out in the process.
So that’s problem #1.
But there’s another problem…
Problem #2
The other big issue is one that has become all too obvious over the last several months.
BTC is NOT a safe haven asset.
Russia and Ukraine are at war… The Russian ruble has plummeted in value…
Financial institutions around the world are cutting off Russia’s access to banking networks…
And inflation is soaring!
This is exactly the situation BTC was supposedly designed for.
So, you might expect that the price of BTC is booming, right?
Well, it’s not.
In fact, it’s plummeting.
The orange line on the chart above is the recent performance of the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq index.
It has fallen by over 20% since late November.
The blue line is BTC, which is down even more… -33.9% and still falling.
So, how is this an inflation hedge?
How is it a safe haven asset?
And how does a “store of value” fall by a third in a few short months?
It’s not… It’s not… And it shouldn’t!
Cryptocurrencies are an exciting development.
And you can make a lot of money trading them.
But until my two big concerns go away, I’ll be keeping my money in US dollars.
Embrace the surge,
Ross Givens
Editor, Stock Surge Daily
