After much laughter and derision, followed by years of vicious state pushback, bitcoin seems to have won the day, if not the century (if not the future). It’s no longer speculative or risky. It is currently in the process of being crowned the world’s newest safe asset from the US to Bhutan.
Listen to this article 7 min Listen to this article 7 min It was with some surprise that I read a column written last week by a colleague and co-columnist on these pages, in which he commented: “Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are long into bubble territory … as with all bubbles, eventually it will burst.” Nothing could be further from the truth; bitcoin’s ascendancy has only just begun.
I will explain, but first an aside.
The “bitcoin-as-bubble” idea has been around for about 14 years but, in fact, bitcoin has been the best-performing asset during that same period. It has made every other asset — stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities and collectables — appear positively flaccid by comparison. Not a bubble, by any definition. My colleague, an economist by trade, is a clear thinker (as well as a fine writer) so I take his opinion seriously. I suspect he may have been talking about the recent run-up in the bitcoin price rather than making a general statement about its (startling) long-term resilience and buoyancy.
It seems redundant to restate the original bitcoin proposition after so much has been written about it, both in the popular press and various techno-covens,…
