Prečo Bitcoin Is The Ultimate Wealth Preservation Technology

By Bitcoin Časopis - pred 1 rokom - Čas čítania: 13 minúty
Pia, 16. decembra 2022, 1:12

Prečo Bitcoin Is The Ultimate Wealth Preservation Technology

Bitcoin provides the ultimate form of transferable value because it preserves the encapsulated wealth.

Toto je názorový úvodník od Leona Wankuma, jedného z prvých študentov finančnej ekonómie, o ktorom písali diplomovú prácu Bitcoin v 2015.

Evolutionary psychologists believe that the ability to "preserve wealth" gave modern humans the decisive edge in evolutionary competition with other humans. Nick Szabo wrote an interesting anecdote about how in his essay “Shelling Out: Pôvod peňazí.“ Keď sa homosapiens vysídlili homo neanderthalensis in Europe circa 40,000 to 35,000 B.C., population explosions followed. It's difficult to explain why, because the newcomers, homosapiens, had the same size brain, weaker bones and smaller muscles than the neanderthals. The biggest difference may have been wealth transfers made more effective or even possible by collectibles. Evidence shows homosapiens sapiens took pleasure in collecting shells, making jewelry out of them, showing them off and trading them.

It follows that the capability to preserve wealth is one of the foundations of human civilization. Historically, there have been a variety of wealth preservation technologies that have constantly changed and adapted to the technological possibilities of the time. All wealth preservation technologies serve a specific function: storing value. Chief among the early forms is handmade jewelry. Below I will compare the four most commonly used wealth preservation technologies today (gold, bonds, real estate and equities) to bitcoin to show why they underperform and how efficiently bitcoin can help us save and plan for our future. For equities, I focus specifically on ETFs as equity instruments used as a means of long-term savings.

Čo robí dobrého uchovávateľa hodnoty?

Ako je vysvetlené v Vijay Bojapati, when stores of value compete against each other, it is the unique attributes that make a good store of value that allows one to out-compete another. The characteristics of a good store of value are considered to be durability, portability, fungibility, divisibility and especially scarcity. These properties determine what is used as a store of value. Jewelry, for example, may be scarce, but it's easily destroyed, not divisible, and certainly not fungible. Zlato tieto vlastnosti spĺňa oveľa lepšie. Gold has over time replaced jewelry as humankind's preferred technology for wealth preservation, serving as the most effective store of value for 5,000 years. However, since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009, gold has faced digital disruption. Digitization optimizes almost all value-storing functions. Bitcoin serves not only as a store of value, but also as an inherently digital money, ultimately defeating gold in the digital age.

Bitcoin Versus Gold

trvanlivosť: Zlato je nesporným kráľom odolnosti. Most of the gold that has been mined remains extant today. Bitcoin are digital records. Thus it is not their physical manifestation whose durability should be considered, but the durability of the institution that issues them. Bitcoin, having no issuing authority, may be considered durable so long as the network that secures them remains intact. It is too early to draw conclusions about its durability. However, there are signs that, despite instances of nation-states attempting to regulate Bitcoin and years of attacks, the network has continued to function, displaying a remarkable degree of “anti-krehkosť“. V skutočnosti je to jedna z najspoľahlivejších počítačových sietí vôbec, s takmer 99.99% dostupnosť.

prenosnosť: Bitcoin's portability is far superior to that of gold, as information can move at the speed of light (thanks to telecommunication). Gold has lost its appeal in the digital age. You can't send gold over the internet. Online gold portability simply doesn't exist. For decades, the inability to digitise gold created problems in our monetary system, historically based on gold. With the digitization of money, over time it was no longer comprehensible whether national currencies were actually backed by gold or not. Also, it is difficult to transport gold across borders because of its weight, which has created problems for globalised trade. Due to gold's weakness in terms of portability, our current fiat-based monetary system exists. Bitcoin is a solution to this problem as it is a native digital scarce commodity that is easily transportable.

Storing Gold Versus Storing Bitcoin

Deliteľnosť: Bitcoin is purely digital, so its divisibility is much better compared to gold. Information can be subdivided and recombined almost infinitely at almost zero cost (like numbers). A bitcoin can be divided into 100,000,000 units called satoshi. Gold on the other hand is difficult to divide. It requires special tools and carries the risk of losing gold in the process, even if it's just dust.

Zastupiteľnosť: Gold can be distinguished for example by an engraved logo, but can be melted down and is then fully fungible. With bitcoin, fungibility is “tricky”. Bitcoin is digital information, which je najobjektívnejšie rozoznateľná látka vo vesmíre (ako písané slovo). However, since all bitcoin transactions are transparent, governments could ban the use of bitcoin that has been used for activities deemed illegal. Which would negatively impact bitcoin's fungibility and its use as a medium of exchange, because when money is not fungible, each unit of the money has a different value and the money has lost its medium of exchange property. This does not affect bitcoin's store-of-value function, but rather its acceptance as money, which can negatively impact its price. Gold's fungibility is superior to bitcoins, but gold's portability disadvantages make it useless as a medium of exchange or a digital store of value.

nedostatok: Zlata je relatívne vzácne, s ročnou mierou inflácie 1.5%. Zásoba však nie je obmedzená. Stále sa objavujú nové objavy zlata a existuje možnosť, že vo vesmíre narazíme na veľké ložiská. Gold's price is not perfectly inelastic. When gold prices rise, there is an incentive to mine gold more intensively, which can increase supply. In addition, ​​physical gold can be diluted with less precious metals, which is difficult to check. Furthermore, gold held in online accounts via ETCs or other products often has multiple uses, which is also difficult to control and negatively impacts the price by artificially increasing supply. The supply of bitcoin, on the other hand, is hard-capped, there will never be more than 21,000,000. It is designed to be disinflationary, meaning there will be less of it over time.

Bitcoin's annual inflation rate is currently 1.75% and will continue to decrease. Bitcoin mining rewards are halved roughly every 4 years, according to the protocol’s code. In 10 years, its inflation rate will be negligible. The last bitcoin will be mined in 2140. After that, the annual inflation rate of bitcoin bude nula.

Kontrolovateľnosť: Toto nie je jedinečný predajný návrh pre uchovávateľa hodnoty, ale je stále dôležitý, pretože poskytuje informácie o tom, či je uchovávateľ hodnoty vhodný pre spravodlivý a transparentný finančný systém.

Bitcoin is perfectly audible to the smallest unit. No one knows how much gold exists in the world and no one knows how much US dollars exist in the world. As pointed out to me by Sam Abbassi, bitcoin is the first perfectly, publicly, globally, auditable asset. This prevents rehypothecation risk, a practice whereby banks and brokers use assets posted as collateral by their clients for their own purposes. This takes an enormous amount of risk out of the financial system. It allows for proof of reserves, where a financial institution must provide their bitcoin address or transaction history in order to show their reserves.

Bitcoin Versus Bonds

In 1949 Benjamin Graham, a British-born American economist, professor and investor, published „The Intelligent Investor“, which is considered one of the founding books of value investing and a classic of financial literature. One of his tenets is that a "balanced portfolio" should consist of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, as he believed bonds protect investors from significant risk in the stock markets.

Hoci mnohé z toho, čo vtedy Graham opísal, dáva zmysel aj dnes, tvrdím, že dlhopisy, najmä štátne, stratili svoje miesto ako zaistenie v portfóliu. Výnosy dlhopisov nedokážu držať krok s menovou infláciou a náš menový systém, ktorého sú dlhopisy súčasťou, je systematicky ohrozený.

Je to preto, že finančné zdravie mnohých vlád, ktoré tvoria srdce nášho menového a finančného systému, je ohrozené. Keď boli vládne súvahy v slušnom stave, implikované riziko zlyhania vlády bolo takmer nulové. Je to z dvoch dôvodov. Po prvé, ich schopnosť zdaňovať. Po druhé, a čo je dôležitejšie, ich schopnosť tlačiť peniaze, aby splatili svoje pôžičky. V minulosti tento argument dával zmysel, ale nakoniec sa z tlače peňazí stal „credit boogie man“, ako to vysvetlil Greg Foss,

Vlády cirkulujú viac peňazí ako kedykoľvek predtým. Údaje z Federálneho rezervného systému, centrálneho bankového systému USA, ukazujú, že široká miera zásob dolárov, známych ako M2, vzrástol z 15.4 bilióna dolárov at the start of 2020 to $21.18 trillion by the end of December 2021. The increase of $5.78 trillion equates to 37.53% of the total supply of dollars. This means that the dollar's monetary inflation rate has averaged well over 10% per year over the last 3 years. Americké štátne dlhopisy prinášajú menej výnosov.

Výnos, ktorý by človek mohol zarobiť na svojich peniazoch zajtra, rozlúčka s týmito peniazmi by dnes mala byť teoreticky pozitívna, aby kompenzovala riziko a náklady príležitosti. Avšak, dlhopisy sa stali zmluvným záväzkom stratiť peniaze, keď dôjde k inflácii. Okrem toho existuje riziko systematického zlyhania. Globálny finančný systém je nenávratne rozbitý a dlhopisy ako jej základ sú vystavené vysokému riziku.

Na trhu je nezodpovedné množstvo úverov. V posledných desaťročiach mali centrálne banky veľmi uvoľnenú dlhovú politiku a národné štáty narobili veľké množstvo dlhov. Argentína a Venezuela už nesplácali. Existuje možnosť, že viac krajín nesplatí svoj dlh. Toto zlyhanie neznamená, že nemôžu splatiť svoj dlh vytlačením ďalších peňazí. To by však znehodnotilo národnú menu, čo by spôsobilo infláciu a robí väčšinu dlhopisov s ich relatívne nízkymi výnosmi ešte menej atraktívnymi.

For the past 50 years, when equities have sold off, investors fled to the “safety” of bonds which would appreciate in “risk off'' environments. This dynamic built the foundation of the infamous 60/40 portfolio — až do tej reality finally collapsed in March 2020 when central banks decided to flood the market with money. The attempt to stabilize bonds will only lead to an increased demand for bitcoin v priebehu času.

Graham's philosophy was first and foremost, to preserve capital, and then to try to make it grow. With bitcoin it is possible to store wealth in a self sovereign way with absolutely zero counterparty or credit risk.

Bitcoin Versus Real Estate

Vzhľadom na vysokú úroveň peňažnej inflácie v posledných desaťročiach držanie peňazí na sporiacom účte nestačí na zachovanie hodnoty peňazí. Ako výsledok, mnohí držia značnú časť svojho bohatstva v nehnuteľnostiach, ktorý sa stal jedným z preferovaných uchovávateľov hodnoty. In this capacity, bitcoin competes with real estate, the properties associated with bitcoin make it an ideal store of value. The supply is finite, it is easily portable, divisible, durable, fungible, censorship-resistant and noncustodial. Real estate cannot compete with bitcoin ako uchovávateľ hodnoty. Bitcoin is rarer, more liquid, easier to move and harder to confiscate. It can be sent anywhere in the world at almost no cost at the speed of light. Real estate, on the other hand, is easy to confiscate and very difficult to liquidate in times of crisis, as recently illustrated in Ukraine, where many turned to bitcoin to protect their wealth, accept transfers and donations, and meet daily needs.

V nedávnom rozhovore s Nik Bhatia, Michael Saylor podrobne opísal nevýhody nehnuteľností ako uchovávateľa hodnoty. Ako vysvetlil Saylor, nehnuteľnosti vo všeobecnosti potrebujú veľa pozornosti, pokiaľ ide o údržbu. S nehnuteľnosťami vznikajú nájomné, opravy, správa nehnuteľností, vysoké náklady. Komerčné nehnuteľnosti sú napríklad kapitálovo veľmi náročné, a preto pre väčšinu ľudí nezaujímavé. Okrem toho zlyhali aj pokusy sprístupniť aktívum, pričom druhostupňové investície do nehnuteľností, ako sú investičné fondy nehnuteľností (REIT), v skutočnosti aktívum nedržali.

As Bitcoin (digital property) continues its adoption cycle, it may replace real estate (physical property) as the preferred store of value. As a result, the value of physical property may collapse to utility value and no longer carry the monetary premium of being used as a store of value. Going forward, bitcoin's return will be many times greater than real estate, as bitcoin is just at the začiatku jeho prijímacieho cyklu. Navyše sa s najväčšou pravdepodobnosťou nedočkáme rovnakého typu návratnosti investícií do nehnuteľností ako v minulosti. Od roku 1971, ceny domov už zvýšili takmer 70-krát. Okrem toho, ako poukazuje Dylan LeClair vo svojom podcaste, ktorý sa zmenil na článok, „Záver cyklu dlhodobého dlhu“, governments tend to tax citizens at times like this. Real estate is easily taxed and difficult to move outside of one jurisdiction. Bitcoin cannot be arbitrarily taxed. It is seizure and censorship resistant outside of the domain of any one jurisdiction.

Bitcoin Versus ETFs

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) emerged out of index investing, which utilizes a passive investment strategy that requires a manager to only ensure that the fund's holdings match those of a benchmark index. V roku 1976 Jack Bogle, zakladateľ Vanguard Group spustil prvý indexový fond Vanguard 500, ktorý sleduje výnosy S&P 500. Dnes ETF spravujú viac ako 10 biliónov dolárov. Bogle mal zásadu: aktívny výber akcií je zbytočné cvičenie. Spomínam si, ako niekoľkokrát vo svojich rozhovoroch uviedol, že počas životnosti je len 3% šanca, že manažér fondu dokáže trvalo prekonať trh. Dospel k záveru, že pre priemerných investorov bude ťažké alebo nemožné poraziť trh, čo ho viedlo k tomu, že uprednostňoval spôsoby znižovania výdavkov spojených s investovaním a ponúkal efektívne produkty, ktoré investorom umožňujú podieľať sa na ekonomickom raste a šetriť. Indexové fondy vyžadujú na udržanie svojich portfólií menej obchodov ako fondy s aktívnejšou správou systémov, a preto majú tendenciu vytvárať daňovo efektívnejšie priznania. The concept of an ETF is good, but bitcoin je lepšie. You can cover a lot of ground through an ETF, but you still have to limit yourself to one index, industry, or region. However, when you buy bitcoin, you buy a human productivity index. Bitcoin is like an “ETF on steroids”. Let me explain :

Prísľub Bitcoin should at least be on everyone's lips by now. A decentralized computer network (Bitcoin) with its own cryptocurrency (bitcoin), which, as a peer-to-peer network, enables the exchange and, above all, the storage of value. It is the best money we have and the base protocol for the most efficient transaction network there is (Lightning Network). It is very likely that Bitcoin will become the dominant network for transactions and store of value in the not too distant future. At that point, it will act as an index of global productivity. The more productive we are, the more value we create, the more transactions are executed, the more value needs to be stored, the higher the demand for bitcoin, tým vyššia je bitcoin price. I've come to the conclusion that instead of using an ETF to track specific indices, I can use bitcoin to participate in the productivity of all of humanity. As you might expect, bitcoin's returns have outperformed all ETFs since its inception.

Bitcoin Returns Versus ETFs Returns

SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust je najväčší a najstarší ETF na svete. Je určený na sledovanie indexu akciového trhu S&P 500. Výkonnosť za posledné desaťročie (26. októbra 2012 až 25. októbra 2022) bola 168.0 %, čo znamená priemerný ročný výnos 16.68 %. Nie je to zlé, najmä vzhľadom na to, že investor musel iba držať.

However, over the same period, bitcoin‘s performance was: 158,382.362%. More than 200% per annum. We've all heard the phrase that past performance is no indicator of future performance, that may be true. But that is not the case with bitcoin. The higher a stock goes the riskier it becomes, because of the P/E ratio. Not bitcoin. Kedy bitcoin increases in price, it becomes less risky to allocate to, because of liquidity, size and global dominance. The Bitcoin Network has now reached a size where it WILL last (Lindy efekt).

We can therefore conclude that bitcoin is likely to continue to outperform ETFs going forward.

Bitcoin has other advantages over an ETF. First, it has a lower cost structure. Second, the latter is a basket of securities held by a third party. You are not free to dispose of your ETFs. If your bank, for whatever reason, decides to close your account, your ETFs are gone too. Bitcoin, on the other hand, cannot be taken away from you or denied access so easily. Additionally, bitcoin can be moved across the internet at will at the speed of light, making confiscation nearly impossible.

záver

Bitcoin is the best wealth preservation technology for the digital age. An absolutely scarce digital native bearer asset with no counterparty risk that cannot be inflated and is easily transportable. A digital store of value, transferable on the world’s most powerful computer network. Considering that the Bitcoin network could theoretically store all of the world’s wealth (Global wealth reached a record high of $530 trillion in 2021, podľa Boston Consulting Group), it may well be the most efficient way we humans have found to store value ever. By holding bitcoin your wealth is going to be protected, likely increasing it by 10x,100x, maybe 500x, during this early monetization process. Ak vydržíte niekoľko ďalších desaťročí.

In closing, I'd like to revisit Jack Bogle, who was a huge influence on me. As described by Eric Balchunas, Bogle‘s life work is addition by subtraction. Getting rid of the management fees, getting rid of the turnover, getting rid of the brokers, getting rid of the human emotion and the bias. His entire life's work had been in a similar direction, and as such, I think bitcoin fits well with his investment ethos. Bogle’s primary philosophy was “common sense” investing. He told Reuters in 2012. „Predovšetkým musíte byť disciplinovaný a musíte šetriť, aj keď nenávidíte náš súčasný finančný systém. Pretože ak neuložíte, potom zaručene nezostanete na nič." Bitcoin is very similar to what Bogle envisioned with passive mutual funds. A long term savings vehicle for investors to place their disposable income with low cost and little risk. Don't be distracted by bitcoin's volatility or negative press, to quote Jack Bogle: zostať v kurze. We're just getting started, stay humble and stack sats. Your future self will thank you.

This article is the last in a three-part series in which I aim to help you understand some of the benefits of using Bitcoin as a "tool."

In part one, I explained what opportunities bitcoin offers for real estate investors.
In part two I described how bitcoin can help us find optimism for a brighter future.

Toto je príspevok hosťa od Leona Wankuma. Vyjadrené názory sú úplne ich vlastné a nemusia nevyhnutne odrážať názory BTC Inc alebo Bitcoin Magazine.

Originálny zdroj: Bitcoin časopis