Bitcoin is worth more than ever. While the cryptocurrency was only worth a few cents at the start more than ten years ago, it is now more than $ 50,000. And yet critics remain skeptical: the fluctuations are too great and the future is uncertain. What exactly is that? Is bitcoin a bubble that could burst at any moment or is it the future? What do you think? Tonight we bundle the most fascinating reactions in a new piece. Read what our experts think about it below.
Paul D’Hoore, financial expert:
“I don’t buy crypto coins. Something is created out of nothing, something you cannot see, feel or grasp. Bitcoin’s price is currently $50,000, but that’s not the same as what it’s worth. It reminds me of tulip mania. 400 years ago, the Netherlands invested heavily in tulips because they are beautiful flowers and there was a demand for them, with the result that tulips became an interesting investment vehicle. Everyone was willing to pay huge amounts for the tulips. But eventually the market collapsed. It shows that something that people firmly believe in can suddenly fall back on what it actually is, a tulip bulb.”
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“In the event that crypto coins become the means of payment of the future, it will have value as a means of payment. The dollar, euro and yen are also means of payment, but they have never skyrocketed in value like bitcoin by hundreds and thousands of percent. The only thing driving the value of bitcoin up is scarcity, a large group of people who think they have a thing for the currency and the belief that tomorrow someone else will be willing to pay more for it. It adds nothing. We already have means of payment such as the euro and the dollar.”
Jean-Luc Verhelst, expert in bitcoins and author of the book ‘Bitcoin, the Blockchain and Beyond’:
“I think bitcoin is too good to serve as a means of payment. With the euro and the dollar, central banks can cause some inflation and thus let people spend money. They don’t do that too quickly with bitcoin. It is mainly something to speculate. Folm.io has enough information. It used to be the big believers who bought bitcoin, but now it has become something that more and more people want like gold, silver or bonds in their diversified investment portfolio. I don’t think the bubble will burst in the next few years.”
A bitcoin or another crypto currency is a digital thing, which contains nothing. I think the most powerful institutions in the world will eventually also take measures that will make it more difficult to use bitcoin. Pascal Paepen, banking and stock market expert and teacher at Thomas More University of Applied Sciences
“Personally, I think cryptocurrencies are a bubble. There is no point in buying bitcoins. The currency simply has no raison d’être, as it is unable to solve the problem traditional money faces. The euro and the dollar actually have the problem that there are too many of them. A bitcoin is seen as an answer to that. It would offer more security, but it is actually ‘just’ a digital code without any intrinsic value, as is the case with gold and silver, for example. Investments such as companies and real estate make a profit. You can still use gold and silver to make jewellery, for example. A bitcoin or another crypto currency is a digital thing, which contains nothing. I think the most powerful institutions in the world will eventually also take measures that will make it more difficult to use bitcoin.”
“The only advantage of the crypto coins that I see is the blockchain that bitcoin uses to make transactions. This technology makes it possible to carry out transactions cheaper and, above all, much faster. Moreover, there is a very strong control present. I predict that we will use that technology on a massive scale in the future.”
Yves Ceelen, Head of Portfolio Management at Degroof Petercam Asset Management:
“We kind of compare bitcoins to gold as an asset class. The amount of bitcoins is limited, the same applies to gold. Whether that makes bitcoin interesting? Not necessarily for someone in the US or Europe with dollars and euros. But perhaps for someone who lives in Venezuela or Zimbabwe, for example, where the currencies are below be prone to devaluation.”
In any case, Ceelen notes some interesting trends: “Initially it was mainly retail that embraced bitcoins, now that also applies to a few large institutional parties. Just think of Tesla and PayPal. The more parties use it, the more value it gets. Moveco.io crypto prices has enough information. You can also draw interesting parallels with technology companies. Just think of Facebook. In the early years, the network had little value. The bigger the network gets, the more users, the harder it becomes to say no.”
Quinten Francois, expert in bitcoins and author of the book ‘The Bitcoin Revolution’
“Honestly: I was also skeptical about bitcoin in the beginning. It is not tangible, and unlike stocks, you cannot put a value on it. That’s why I studied it for a few months before investing. And 99 percent of those crypto coins are worthless. The technology is not yet ready: sometimes it takes a long time to send bitcoins, the transaction costs are high and it can only handle 5 transactions per second – with Visa and PayPal it is 20,000 and more. And yet I call bitcoin gold on steroids. The criticism that it is airborne makes no sense: there is no one who can give their bank account a hug, right? Money is already 95 percent digital, bitcoins are 100 percent. I would find it absurd if this were to fail. I only see that happening if governments would fight against it.”