misnamed

Agree re:CAPE. Meanwhile, people are ignoring the relatively attractive valuations of small, value, plus developed and emerging ex-US markets. While retail investors pile onto overvalued US stocks, these are now slowly catching back up and starting to get ahead. Funny thing about all of this to me is that people are always fighting the last proverbial war. Ten years ago, US stocks and tech in particular were in the doghouse - no one was buying them then.

TL;DR A lot of investors buy high and sell low. We're seeing that now with crypto as well as US stocks.

My main issue is conflating the potential for an approach to technology with something like, say, Bitcoin specifically. Yes, many blockchain applications exist, but that doesn't translate into profits from investing in cryptocurrencies.

I've always liked the saying 'sell pickaxes to the miners' - rather than investing in the virtual gold, why not sell things to those who want to go find it? The real winners will likely be the companies who facilitate things (much like active trading platforms make money while the options traders on them often lose money overall).

I know what it means but have no idea how profitable it is or whether those profits are guaranteed or fleeting. Best I can tell it's like any service (business, not investment): depending on demand and competition, you can make money for a time, then stop at some point. So far that has never been an issue for people investing in the global stock market (i.e. the global stock market persists even as individual stocks, sectors, industries, even whole countries have crashed in the past).

Statistically, everyone trading across all different asset classes evens out, so ... sure, if you're consistently good at finding needles, power to you. Most people aren't. Many people however think they are. I prefer not to worry about it either way.

It's a little trickier than that, but yes, that's why I mentioned 50 years. Before that gold was a different animal.

I won't get into the 'is the CPI accurate?' debate, but will just say I haven't seen a better metric. So I'll stick with: inflation is low.

As for the portability of Bitcoin ... OK, but then Bitcoin > Bitcoin ETF, if your goal is to transport and spend it outside of online brokerages.

Rates have been declining for years (decades, really), but so has inflation. The spread hasn't actually changed that much.

> Imagine a society not based on consumerism and quarterly report increases. Gasp!

I have literally no idea what that would look like or how Bitcoin would play a role. I guess hodlers who bought early would be rich and normal people poor?

A good way to get high returns is to simply use a low-cost, tax-efficient combination of stock and bond index funds. After taxes and fees, the results compound in your favor. I have no interest in gambling on even higher returns - those are plenty for me. If you want to maximize your chances of getting rich as well as getting poor, yes, you can put it all on Bitcoin, or Tesla, or 32 at the roulette wheel, but I'm more interested in growing a nest egg than taking those risks.

I guess I just don't see the value from either side, then. The best supposed features of Bitcoin are lost in ETF form.

We have fairly little data on gold as a freely available modern asset class (around 50 years), but yes, in small amounts it can limit volatility and potentially even increase returns (or at least: risk-adjusted returns). That said, over the long haul, independently, it has tended to roughly track inflation. I'm not against it, just see it as something of limited utility to an ordinary investor.

I mean if you're literally talking about the difference between 'buying physical servers' and 'buying Bitcoin' ... well, it seems to me you're missing out on a range of other options, like: investing in companies developing new hardware, for starters. Personally, I just lease what I need at going rates, which get ever cheaper. And by cheaper I mean: in dollar terms - so to keep up with that, I don't see the need to hold highly volatile Bitcoins when I can just hold inflation-adjusted Treasury bonds.

The thing I don't get (and I have the same skepticism about gold ETFs) is that if one is trying to hedge extreme scenarios (e.g. high inflation or even monetary collapse) ETFs being 'protected' could easily fall through. I sort of understand holding one's own gold or Bitcoin, but through and ETF just seems like all the speculation with none of the crisis portability.

If you want to hedge against inflation, I suggest TIPS and maybe a bit of gold.

I would also point out that the market expectation clearly isn't aligned with currencies being 'in trouble' - very low inflation in general right now.