Thursday, December 17, 2020

Why Bitcoin is destined to become a niche asset - A cryptocurrency reality check [PDF]

This document, made by the Dutch bank ING, describes why exactly Bitcoin will never be adopted by the masses. I thought it would be great to share, it could be interesting to say what banks have to say.

Some highlights from the document:

The only justification for investing in Bitcoin today is the assumption that others are willing to buy Bitcoin at higher prices in the future.

If bitcoin is “digital gold”, then forking and copy-pasting are successful forms of “digital alchemy”.

A negative event, such as a Bitcoin price crash followed by public outcry, could trigger a regulatory crackdown.

While much work is being done to improve Bitcoin scalability, a successful solution will involve painful trade-offs, and has yet to be implemented.

If however you believe the – in our view quite unlikely – scenario that Bitcoin will in the end replace all narrow money in circulation, then one Bitcoin would in the end buy as much as does US$1.7m today.

Current level of transaction fees makes Bitcoin very unattractive for small payments.

Scalability and volatility are practical impediments that could be overcome. However, Bitcoin governance (or rather, lack thereof) make implementing the needed changes a slow and painful process.


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