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Please invest responsibly — an important message from the Coinbase team.
No! I disagree.
?
I disagree with "invest" and "responsibly"...Well, I'll tell you why...yes, I am nuts...Do NOT use financial terms like "invest" in reference to bitcoin. When you insist on using financial terms with Bitcoin, you are not only getting it wrong, you are separating process and outcome, which Bitcoin collapsed, you are degrading what Bitcoin is. Nobody can make a rational case for Bitcoin as an investment vehicle. Can NOT. Stop it. Bitcoiners, Bitcoin critics, just stop it. Instead, I entirely agree with the person who answered this question:
That is a very simple question...just buy, hold what you buy and just smile and then go to the beach...enjoy your life...unless you are referring to bitcoin trading then...[buy low sell high]
You see? There is a humongous difference between "investing"/"trading," and "buying." You buy because you WANT the thing. You invest because you want the thing to do something for you. What we know about Bitcoin, what it is, what it is not, how much it's worth, we know only through the behavior of Bitcoiners. We know that a significant portion of them are "hodlers" who buy, hold, enjoy their lives. The hodlers bought Bitcoin because they wanted a Bitcoin. They wanted a Bitcoin because it gave them satisfaction, pleasure. Not because they wanted Bitcoin to do anything for them.
One of the academics interviewed for the story yesterday in Ars Technica made the analogy (CAUTION: remember the Prophet Muhammad) to the guy who pays $47 million for a painting. That is not financial decision making based upon reason. The art collector would agree. He's spending his money on something based upon his his feelings. Just to have it. Not to decorate his wall, not as an "investment" (he does not mind if it increases in value, he rather thinks it will but that is not his motivation), because it gives him a pleasure, he may not be able to put into words fully why it gives him pleasure, it just does; it just makes him "smile, go to the beach, enjoy life." He does not ask the painting to do anything for him. Coinbase is pleading with people to use their reason. The art collector and the Bitcoin hodlers are telling Coinbase "It's not all about reason, man, it's about emotions too."
The art collector analogy seems to explain the psychology of the hodlers but it is...an...imperfect...analogy. Bitcoin is not a collectible. Like, you can't even look at it. "Ah, look at that thing," can't do that. You cannot "hold" Bitcoin, like buy-and-hold, you cannot like "hold" a Bitcoin on accounta it doesn't exist. It's a fucking string of code. "Ah, look at that string of code."
Bitcoin is a virtual...thing...that gives hodlers virtual pleasure. If that's your thing, buy it. Do not invest in it; do not trade it. Process and outcome are one. We are all Epicureans.
