Recently my friends have been asking me about Bitcoin. The truth is that I don’t know anything about it, but I can tell you one thing, it does look like a bubble.
Thinking about Bitcoin made me think about the South Sea Bubble of 1720.
The South Sea Bubble of 1720
In 1711 the South Sea Company was founded. Due to its political connections, the company won a monopoly to trade with the Spanish colonies in South America.
The promoters of the company told the investors that South Americans were waiting in its shores with pots of gold to be exchanged for British textiles. After a few exploratory trips the imagination of the investors went wild, even the promoters of the stock started believing their own story.
On January 1720 the stock was worth 128£. In August it was worth 1,050£. That’s a rise of 750% in just a few months, in December it had collapsed back to 124£ and shortly after the company was closed.
Bitcoin
In 2008 the cryptocurrency Bitcoin was created. It is supposed to be a peer-to-peer network where people can accept payments from this form of currency.
I am not going to argue for or against the merits of the currency, all I want to point out is that most people are buying Bitcoin, not as a currency, they are buying it because other people are buying it and the end goal is to sell it to someone else. In short, the business plan is to buy it with the hope of finding another sucker who will buy it at a higher price. None of the current buyers are buying Bitcoin in order to pay for their groceries at the supermarket.
So far, since the creation, Bitcoin has grown more the 300% per year. To put it in perspective. Think of Warren Buffet, the richest investor in the world. He made his fortune by growing his investments at a rate of 20% per year. If we believe in the Bitcoin speculation craze, we all will be richer than Warren Buffett in less than 5 years. At a given moment we have to put our imagination in check and come back to reality.
Here are some amazing facts:
April 2010. 1 bitcoin = $0.003 US
July 2017. 1 bitcoin = $2,500 US
As you can see, it is possible to earn interest on your bitcoin. In fact, you can earn a whole lot of interest in your Bitcoin if you do things the right way.
Five Steps of a Bubble
Economist Hyman Minsky says that a bubble has five stages: displacement, boom, euphoria, profit-taking, and panic.
- Displacement. Investors discover a new way of doing something, a new technology, a new paradigm.
- Boom. Prices start creeping upwards but quickly gain momentum as people start spreading the news.
- Euphoria. People jump into the investment out of fear of missing out. Buy now and do due diligence later.
- Profit-taking. At this time, some people realize that prices will not continue going up forever and start cashing out their investments.
- Panic. As more and more people start cashing out, the rest of the people realize that current prices or growth rate is unsustainable and everyone tries to get out before the next person creating a sudden drop in prices.
It is my belief that Bitcoin has all the characteristics of a bubble.
- Displacement. Bitcoin is a new way to transfer wealth from one person to the other. Its blockchain technology is a revolution in the way people do transactions. There is a permanent record of a transaction without the help of attorneys, notaries, nor bankers.
- Boom. Prices started creeping up slowly and accelerated as the news spread.
- Euphoria. Now, everywhere I go, people ask me about Bitcoin, everyone wants in. They don’t really understand it but hell, if everyone is making money, why not?
- Profit-taking. Eventually, some players will say to themselves: “Hey I am happy with 100% or 200% return on my money, I will take these dollars home. As some smart players take their profit other will follow.
- Panic. Some people will see the smart money leaving and they too will try to cash out at the peak. People will be in a hurry to sell to the next idiot, but the supply of idiots will run out.
Time will tell. The only thing that I can tell you for sure is that the past growth rate is impossible to sustain.
Here are some thoughts of Warren Buffett on Bitcoin
“There are two kinds of items that people buy and think they’re investing,” he says. “One really is investing and the other isn’t.” Bitcoin, he says, isn’t.
“If you buy something like a farm, an apartment house, or an interest in a business… You can do that on a private basis… And it’s a perfectly satisfactory investment. You look at the investment itself to deliver the return to you. Now, if you buy something like bitcoin or some cryptocurrency, you don’t really have anything that has produced anything. You’re just hoping the next guy pays more.”
When you buy cryptocurrency, Buffett continues, “You aren’t investing when you do that. You’re speculating. There’s nothing wrong with it. If you wanna gamble somebody else will come along and pay more money tomorrow, that’s one kind of game. That is not investing.”
Update March 29, 2020
On July 2017, when this article was written. Bitcoin reached about $20,000 US. Today, March 29, 2020, Bitcoin hovers around $6,000. That’s is a considerable drop.
My prediction. Eventually, Bitcoin will die. It will go down in history as one more fad. The reason for my prediction is that that it’s not a productive asset. The only way to make any kind of gain is to find someone else who is willing to pay more money for it than you did. Eventually, people will move on to the next new thing. 
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