Episode Details

Bitcoin is off on one its runs, it seems. Congratulations to all who bought and held.

It is now trading at all-time highs in 30 different currencies around the world, currencies representing more than 60% of the world’s population. How about that for a thought?

From China and India to Congo and Sudan, it’s like a Noel Coward song.

In US dollars, we are flirting with $60,000, still roughly 15% from the peak of US$69,000, the all-time high back in late 2021.

In British pounds, the all-time high was around £48,000. We are touching that now.

Meanwhile, Microstrategy (NDX.MSTR), which we suggested as a means to play bitcoin via a traditional broker, and avoid the FCA-created headaches of buying and investing bitcoin in the UK, is going great guns. $960 now. It was $350 when we first recommended it in the summer.

Is it too late to buy?

No.

I haven’t been asked on TV to talk about it yet. See me on the box, then you can start getting concerned that the top is near.

(Here’s one from BBC Daily Politics towards the end of a previous cycle. Chief Economist Dr Savvas Savouri. LOL)

There is no doubt that the market is hot, hot, hot at the moment, and when markets get this hot, that usually means it’s time to back off. Cripes, the amount of excitement on social media is screaming run away. But bitcoin is like one of those metals - tungsten or tantalum - which can withstand abnormally high levels of heat. The evidence of previous bull markets is that bitcoin gets overbought and stays overbought.

It’s usually better to buy when the markets are quiet, when nobody cares. But that is not where we now are.

I have repeatedly argued that the risk with bitcoin is not owning it; it is not owning it. That hopefully makes sense in print. The potential of this thing is so abnormally huge, why would you not want to have a position?

We are talking about the most technologically brilliant system of money ever invented. Own a piece of the pie.

Why bitcoin will supercede other monies

Remember the old rhyme:

Money is a matter of functions four:A medium, a measure, a standard and a store.

National currencies are a good-ish medium of exchange - within national borders. But even then, they have their shortcomings. They are useless for micropayments. The smallest amount you can pay in the UK is 1p. Most banks and credit card companies won’t even process amounts that small. Even medium-sized transactions can be problematic. I wasted about an hour of my life this morning on the phone to Lloyds Bank as their security blocked a transfer of £3,950 that I was trying to make. In the grand context of things, that is not a huge sum, but Lloyds’ alarms went off and that was it. One hour gone. (During my peak productive time too. That’s one of the reasons this missive is late).

But for cross-border transactions, national currencies are crap. Forex fees, paperwork, slow transaction speeds. If I want to send a payment to someone who operates with a different currency of, say, £1, via a bank, the costs are prohibitive. Revolut is about my only option - and that has issues. If I want to send a micropayment of, say, one-tenth of a cent, it is just impossible. But industries based around micropayments are a huge area of potential growth, especially in a world of artificial intelligence and the internet of things: streaming, apps, games, in-app and in-game purchases, rewards, likes, donations, tipping, credit card verification, identity verificati