Bitcoin is on quite a tear. Although it’s interesting, I don’t own any directly but have a little exposure through other holdings. I’m not completely sold on Bitcoin as a store of value. The ownership is very concentrated and murky which means it might be subject to manipulation. The positive corrleation between Google searches and value which indicates how influenced it is by, well, influencers.

Lastly, there are the technical risks. I’m pretty well versed in how the technology works and it seems fairly bullet-proof logically. But, hidden dangers might abound. Bruce Schneier has an article highligting one of those. The article explains it much better than I can, but the crux of the problem is that the blockchain contains data that can’t be hidden and might be at variance with laws around the world. That poses a risk of causing a rift in the blockchain which would result in a much lower value for each of the networks that is left. I don’t know how real the risk is, but it makes sense to me that national governments might use illegal data in the blockchain as a reason to regulate blockchain.

I don’t know what the future holds for Bitcoin. Nor does anyone else. At a minimum, it’s a interesting social and financial experiment. At the outside, it’s lives up to to they hype and becomes the defacto store of value. Caveat investor.