by
Ramin Mazaheri
Part
2 - Bitcoin has minted billionaires since May
I’m late
to the bitcoin party – I imagine that everyone except the inventor
feels that way – but it is mind-blowing to see the spectacular
growth rate charts this year of not just Bitcoin, but all the
cryptocurrencies.
If you have
even heard about Bitcoin, you might have only heard the word
“volatility”. However, take a medium-term view, and you’ll find
that Bitcoin itself (capital B, and the industry leader) has gained
more some $50 billion in market capitalization since March. That is a
gain bigger than the size of Ford Motor Company…in less than 7
months. Besides Bitcoin, a hundred others are booming as well.
People like
to rank bank size by balance sheet – its assets. But banks
generally hold $10 in assets for every $1 in capital. This means that
market capitalization – the total market value of a company’s
outstanding shares of stock – is a more accurate assessment of its
worth. Add up the market capitalization of all the bitcoins and you
get $135 billion – that would make them the 9thth-largest bank in
the world.
Again…this
has happened in just seven months. Are you interested yet?
Yes, there
is drastic short-term volatility – I had to postpone publishing
this article to write this one, which explained China’s correct ban
on IPOs (which can be “pump and dump” scams to con investors),
and their freeze on exchanging bitcoin for yuan to make sure there
wasn’t an exodus of much-needed capital (and which is not a “ban
on bitcoins”).
But the
long-term pattern is clear for all bitcoins: not much beyond novelty
interest for five or so years, and then WHAM – straight up since
May.
The reason
for this is actually the rise of the #2 bitcoin, Ethereum, which
offered a technological adaptation which has created tremendous ease,
flexibility and more potential uses for bitcoins.
Why the heck
haven’t you heard about this?
Here’s
Bloomberg getting excited about it in July; here’s less
forward-thinking Fox News Business getting on board in August,
complete with a financial analyst boasting how her father was a mob
enforcer (an excellent soil to grow a fervent
capitalist/anti-socialist).
The
mainstream media is just starting to get clued in about bitcoins, but
not really. That’s because they are terrible when it comes to
crypto-currencies.
They are
terrible because they are attached to the current
neoliberal/austerity dogma; they accept the Western worldview without
thinking.
And one
really needs to break with that dogma to see two things clearly: 1)
the current Western financial system rests upon never-arrived
trickle-down Reaganomics, nothing-backed Quantitative Easing,
formerly-illegal stock buybacks, and near-recession growth in the
“real economy” since the 2008 Great Recession began. 2)
Mainstream media cannot see that those are the reasons why bitcoin
was deemed necessary to create, why it is fervently supported, and
why there has been a flood of scores of billions into the safe(r)
haven of bitcoins.
But those in
the non-mainstream media and those who aren’t in the 1% (and I am
in both categories) have every reason to question the current order.
Question that order, and you will despise it, despise it and you will
invest and use bitcoins…even if it all crashes.
I’m aware
that’s a bold statement, but they talk of bitcoin “evangelists”
because it really is a faith-based movement: They are on jihad –
war against (high finance) sin. LOL, it’s too bad that many of them
think they’ll be Raptured Up when not just capitalism dies but all
governments as well – I’m on board with only the former….
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