⌛ Too Late for Bitcoin? Or Just the Right Time? ⚡ Finally Taking the First Step into Bitcoin?

[frugal]

Dear PP fellows,

After all these years…
I never managed to invest in Bitcoin.
Yes, I watched, I read, I hesitated… and then did nothing. Now I look back and honestly think:
We probably should’ve allocated at least 5% of our portfolio. Just that. Not all-in, not speculative. Just a small, steady position in something that’s clearly changing the financial landscape.

The tech has matured.
The use cases are evolving.
Institutions are coming in.
It’s no longer a fringe idea — it’s a growing asset class.

So now I’m wondering…

Have you felt the same hesitation?

Do you have a strategy in place to slowly add Bitcoin to your portfolio?

Or are you still watching from the sidelines like I did?

Let’s be honest — no shame, just sharing. We’ve all missed some trains before. But maybe this one hasn’t fully left the station yet.

How to Buy for the Long Term:
And consider setting up a DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) plan — buy small amounts regularly, regardless of price.

Would love to hear from you:
Do you already have a strategy?
Are you still unsure?
Let’s learn from each other.

[boglerdude]

painful debate. FOMO. but the apps/off-ramps seem tightly controlled by American companies. As long as they can tax it, its not a currency. Id buy a big dip, but the Little Guy might not have much time to buy assets after a bust. eg 2009 vs 2020 instant printing

[mathjak107]

kind of reminds me of all those going in to ark funds after the rise already happened

[boglerdude]

Dumped all my PFIX near its 52 week high. Decided it's not logical to hold 10k EDV and 5k PFIX since they offset. Just hold 5k EDV if I want to reduce my risk and put that 5k of PFIX in something else. For now its cash, while I hand-wring some more

Thanks for directing me to the fund MJ.

Unrelated: Surreal seeing Vinay with the FDA seal behind him. Nearly lost his career and medical license for questioning mandates. Trump's a fat retard and likely controlled opposition to some extent, but he has my support with appointments like this and ill bring this up occasionally as people scream about tariffs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbRGlEsbKQ4

Commies in shambles https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comme ... _division/

[frugal]

• The total gold market cap is around $13 trillion.

• If Bitcoin captures just 10% of that market, that implies a BTC price of $600,000 to $1M.

[seajay]

• The total gold market cap is around $13 trillion.

• If Bitcoin captures just 10% of that market, that implies a BTC price of $600,000 to $1M.

I suspect that some who swapped out gold for bitcoin may have revised that 'bitcoin is like gold' comparison, as it acts more like a leveraged tech stock holding, or at least that is how the collective wisdom of the market has been pricing it since it became more mainstream (2021). It's not private, isn't in-hand even if you think you have it stored offline, isn't secure from confiscation.

I recently sold all my bitcoin at what later transpired to be near the recent peaks. The taxes and costs make it less cost/tax efficient than alternatives. I think I heard that MSTR are moving away from being largely bitcoin backed to instead include bonds however others are jumping in to follow how MSTR progressed down the bitcoin path, so I suspect that it will continue to be reflected in leveraged tech stocks type progressions.

Long term buy/hold ?? It has to evolve, technologically, offline holdings that you might store in a safe might simply just not work when x years down the line you try to access that. Technology and regulation may also evolve to where some other crypto/method becomes the more preferred choice and bitcoin becomes a has-been. Regulation is certainly a risk, if the state depicts that exchanges will no longer support x then overnight holders of x may no longer be able to trade or sell x. At least with physical gold you might bury that away even if outlawed, to return at a later date when it again had become permissible. I'm in the UK and if gold were outlawed there - well then there's a short sea journey trip that could even be made on a jet ski into a different jurisdiction.

DCA is always the way to go, average in over years, average out over years, average down (rebalance to cost average down the average cost of holdings) ... and your outcome is more inclined to align with the broader average. Lumping in and out and your results might be great, bought at lows, sold at peaks, but could equally be lousy, bought at highs, sold at lows. The former is what most people do naturally anyway, save/accumulate over years, spend over hopefully many years of retirement, periodically rebalance to 'trade' down the average cost.

[dualstow]

I’d rather own coinbase stock.
I’m holding what Marc de Mesel gave me, though.

[Smith1776]

It's not too late to invest in Bitcoin.

It's too late to not invest in Bitcoin.

[frugal]

It's not too late to invest in Bitcoin.

It's too late to not invest in Bitcoin.

Please explain

[whatchamacallit]

At this point I am happy enough making sure my stock fund contains MicroStrategy. That gets me enough exposure to Bitcoin since they hold so much Bitcoin.

Think of Bitcoin as a single stock like NVIDIA or Amazon that has done really well. Sure I wish I would have gone all in on those stocks before they did so well but I wouldn't have been so concentrated in one stock.

Is Bitcoin really worth more than JP Morgan Chase, Visa and MasterCard combined? I am still skeptical. It is just a decentralized payment and savings network/database that is currently the most popular. It could keep being the most popular or something else could come along and start taking its place.

[boglerdude]

> Please explain

hyperinflation

[dualstow]

It could keep being the most popular or something else could come along and start taking its place.

That’s what I always say.
I don’t mind missing out.

[Smith1776]

Well, I understand people's contention that they have missed the boat on Bitcoin. The return path does seem to be decelerating over time. This is sensible as the market is probably in the latter stages of the price discovery process now. However, if it's true that Bitcoin's growth is slowing, it's all the more reason to invest in it before it reaches a terminal level of growth.

It's kind of like elder people asking, "Am I too old to workout?"

No, you're too old to not workout!

[Smith1776]

Also, when it comes to the topic of something coming along and replacing Bitcoin, the proposition seems unlikely. You can see the beginning's of Bitcoin's position being set in stone already.

As of 2025, Bitcoin is the only crypto that is officially deemed to be a commodity by the SEC. Why? Because it's the only crypto asset that has no issuer.

Bitcoin has no individual or organization that has undue or unilateral control over it. Satoshi gave it to us and went away. This "immaculate conception" is a key ingredient to Bitcoin being decentralized politically in addition to technically. As such, it's purely a commodity like a bushel of wheat or a barrel of oil. All other cryptos are essentially securities and not commodities because they have a visible and powerful team of engineers who control it.

[seajay]

It could keep being the most popular or something else could come along and start taking its place.

That’s what I always say.
I don’t mind missing out.

For someone that once/year rebalanced to 10/90 bitcoin/physical gold (a somewhat 50/50 stock/gold alternative https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/bac ... ngJYypDZCV), left as-is for the remainder of the year, bitcoin "going away" would be little different to a bad bitcoin year case (most of the value lost). Missing out is more a declaration of you don't mind the counter-party risks that bitcoin/physical gold can otherwise eliminate in return for their own particular risks.

In the present era of the US transitioning to a China like economy, no gains left on the table for investors, all taken by the state (via tariffs on imports, tax levies on taking currency out of the country, withholding taxes ..etc. (OBBB)), alternative off-radar/in-hand assets have the potential to side-step 'confiscations' (albeit likely being declared illegal to do so by those doing the confiscation).

Didn't Harry become relatively rich by being heavily into gold when gold soared i.e. others relatively lost wealth, where he subsequently devised the PP as a means to preserve that wealth, as a alternative to just holding T-Bills. If he was with us today I suspect he would propose holding at least some bitcoin.

[dualstow]

Yes, I believe Harry was rebalancing out of gold, as you say, even if a lot of us found the pp to be an attractive way to get into gold.

[LC475]

As of 2025, Bitcoin is the only crypto that is officially deemed to be a commodity by the SEC. Why? Because it's the only crypto asset that has no issuer.

Not quite. There are other zero-premine blockchains. Not many, it is true. But a few.

Dogecoin for one example, interestingly enough. Also Litecoin and Monero.

I am not necessarily in total agreement with the implicit premise that "no premine" = "there is no issuer". All of these things are issued, according to rules. The rules were made up by someone. That maker-upper would be the issuer, would it not?

[LC475]

Also, when it comes to the topic of something coming along and replacing Bitcoin, the proposition seems unlikely. You can see the beginning's of Bitcoin's position being set in stone already.

This is the more important and broader thing to reply to.

I personally can envision Bitcoin losing #1 status. I think that is a likely scenario, in fact.

I do not think that Bitcoin going away entirely is nearly so likely a scenario.

I put the above as mere bald statements so you can see them very clearly for what they are: bald statements. Just one guy speculating. Like all speculations: likely to be wrong. But now I will explain my reasoning.

Bitcoin actually has major technical problems. Mistakes. As time has gone by, it has become less and less possible that these problems can ever be fixed. Just to pick one that is easy to explain: it is not a very good currency. The current average fee to make a spend on the Bitcoin network is $1.44 ( https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_ ... action_fee ). But the fee varies wildly depending on if you're trying to transact during a busy time (peak hours) or not. Typical wait rule-of-thumb is always given as about 10 minutes. This isn't a realistic clearing time for normal retail transactions. It would need to be 100 times faster, and it can't be.

It is realized even by hard-core Bitcoin maxis that it is not a very good currency (medium of exchange) and that is why the Lightning Network was built as a layer atop Bitcoin, to address this problem.

In addition to the problem side of things, which is negative, let's look at the positive: there are also potential new technologies and innovations that could really help a blockchain to be useful and better. Both innovations to make improvements to what Bitcoin does currently, and innovations making it possible to do entirely new things that Bitcoin cannot do at all. Understand: most such new technologies are very unlikely to be incorporated into Bitcoin. The dynamics and realities mean it's simply not possible.

So, given that A) it has problems which can't (or, to be precise, won't) be solved, and B) it will not be able to incorporate new innovations and improvements, the stage is set for Bitcoin to be out-competed at some time in the future.

All these blockchain things (well, almost all) are entirely digital abstractions, making them totally and trivially-easily exchangeable for each other (so long as you can find a buyer/seller).

And so in a way, you could think of them as all different flavors of the same thing, couldn't you? Yes you could.

With more and better crypto exchanges, the situation more and more will resemble that of a stock market with each cryptocurrency being an individual stock on that market, easily and instantly swappable for any other stock.

There are certain advantages that Bitcoin will continue to have causing people to hodl it, to want it, and to value it.

However, that does not mean that others will not likewise have certain advantages of their own. Bitcoin maximalists like to state that it is inevitable for all other coins to go to zero and for only Bitcoin to be left standing. Since other coins have actual utility, through technical features and superiority which they have and Bitcoin does not, this statement seems to be rather baseless, at least applied to these "utility coins" (such as Monero).

One major and civilizationally-important technology coming available is zero-knowledge proofs. This will make trust-less, verifiable computation-at-a-distance possible. Bitcoin will not be able to be upgraded to be a ZK-centric chain. This is, right now, the most important innovation I see coming that will be instantiated (brought to life) by some other project -- *not* Bitcoin.

Personally I think Nockchain has some good ideas for how to bring ZK technology to life, and so I would like to see it succeed at doing so.