Bitcoin is a unique experiment, both technologically and economically, and as such could fail spectacularly at any time. It's also, at least in part, a reaction to the financial crisis of 2008, which saw governments and central bankers bailing out financial institutions while tax payers got screwed. A prime goal of bitcoin has been to establish whether or not it was possible to distribute a public ledger for the purpose of storing and trading value over a global network without central governance.
So, yes, Prince Al-Waleed is exactly correct, bitcoin does not have intrinsic value (whatever that is) like gold, and no military backing nor central bankers like fiat. But that's also the whole point of the bitcoin experiment.
I'm not an anarchist. And many libertarians probably wouldn't claim me. I don't see the state, its fiat, nor its threat of violence at the end of a gun going away anytime soon. So I'm still heavily committed to traditional USD denominated assets. But bitcoin offers a glimpse into the future. The first bitcoin block was mined in January 2009 and new blocks have been added roughly every 10 minutes since then, solely driven by market forces and a consensus algorithm coded in software. It's weathered hacking attempts, thefts, price bubbles, failed exchanges, government censorship, software upgrades, and copycat competitors over the better part of a decade. That's quite an impressive achievement, especially for something with no central governing authority.
I think the underlying blockchain technology is sound and has enormous potential. That particular Pandora's box will not be closed, short of an extinction level event. But it's still uncharted territory and bitcoin could all go to zero tomorrow in favor of a superior technology. As such, any participation in the bitcoin market should be treated as highly speculative. Extremely speculative.
Don't risk what you can't afford to lose forever. I risked very little back in 2012/2013, less than 1% of what I was worth back then. That investment has grown 10,000%, which on paper represents far more of my net worth than I'm really comfortable with long term, so I'm in the process of selling monthly at a rate of about 5% per year and I seriously doubt I will ever risk USD for additional BTC purchases. That's where my comfort level is right now, and I'm OK with waking up tomorrow, or 10 years from now, and finding it's all vaporized into the ether. I suppose many would sell it all right now to avoid losing those gains, but that would have tremendous tax implications, plus the risk of banking scrutiny for money laundering, and so I decided to at least start the process slowly and see how it goes. Plus, all I know is HODLING when it comes to investing, anyways, so this was the middle path I thought would work best for me.
WARNING: Just because I have personal exposure to bitcoin does not mean I'm comfortable with anybody else reading this thread and putting hard earned USD into BTC, which is currently trading between $5-6k, and then waking up tomorrow and finding it's all gone. I'm really not comfortable with that at all. And I think if you read this thread from the beginning you will see that I've been pretty consistent about the speculative nature of investing in this space. You're on your own. I'm on my own. We each are free to suffer the consequences of our own decisions.
