Is it Armageddon for the cryptocurrency market? Recent headlines have shouted that more than $2trillion (yes, trillion!) has been wiped off the value of the overall crypto market following a crash since its high of November last year.
Remember, these things are not regulated. That means there are no enforceable rules or protections and as we have highlighted many times, there is still ‘nothing’ behind them if things go wrong.
We very much hope you have not been sucked into this. ‘Crypto currency’ has been perhaps the most successful marketing exercise of all time, a pyramid scheme reliant only really upon collective human emotion and enthusiasm, which demand greater confidence in the concept ‘tomorrow’ to propel the price of these things ever upwards.
Yes, they can have a purpose (sometimes too often shady and illicit ones – hence the ‘appeal’ to certain inappropriate quarters).
There is nothing ‘now’ or in the future that cannot be provided by the good ol’ Dollar, Euro, Sterling, Yen, which are real and backed by governments that have tax-raising powers to bail them out of trouble, even if on the never-never.
What is worse, of investors up to 45, an alarming number has also borrowed money to buy cryptocurrency, their first ever ‘investment’ foray – how sad. If that happens to be some of the below, it’s all gone and you still have the debt to repay and service – please don’t.
So, there has been another rout and so many of the promoted promises of ‘currency’, ‘stable’, ‘inflation hedge’ or whatever have been crumbling, tearing off billions with it.
Binance’s founder Changpeng Zhao (you may have seen a film about his ‘successes’ and how he was ‘going to convert’ Thailand into the crypto centre of the world). His fortune was estimated to be $96billion on January 9 and it is now suggested that is $4.5billion – let’s hope it’s not all in cryptocurrency…
Celsius Network, a popular cryptocurrency lender has frozen customer accounts and some fear that insolvency is unavoidable.
Terra’s Luna, a ‘stable coin’ backed by a US Dollar for everyone, collapsed, wiping off $55billion in one week. Where have all those ‘dollars’ gone…?
As for ‘stable’, that horse had bolted long before confidence drained away. Please don’t be duped and avoid them all, Bitcoin included. It is not an ‘investment’, it is not an ‘asset’.
There is nothing there at the end of the day and nothing you need in speculation or investment terms that cannot be provided by regulated alternatives which have existed for a very long time.