When I was a kid, I had no interest in watching golf on TV.
Were those players even athletes? Give me a break. I can walk around a course for a few hours.
Then something happened that changed my thoughts on this. Looking back, I realize that event affected my outlook on investments — and many other components of my life too.
What happened? I started playing golf. And it became more real.
I learned how difficult it was. How fun it was. And how many of my body parts were sore after I played — parts I didn’t even know I had.
I developed an appreciation for the game … and the skills of those who played it on TV.
Through my struggles on the course, I better understood the true mastery of mind and body the sport requires. (Of course, I have yet to master either of them.)
But it wasn’t just golf. Anything that I had once only observed and later did became more real.
Have you found that to be the case?
This is a solid analogy for how to think of cryptocurrencies.
Few people have mined cryptos on their own. And to this day, most still don’t own them.
Plus, humans are naturally skeptical. Who can they trust with respect to these instruments?
They just don’t make sense. And how can you understand something you’ve never experienced?
But we’re coming around…
People Are Coming Around to Cryptos
Today, there are more than 61 million wallets on Blockchain.com. That’s up more than 20-fold from just five years ago.
This type of wallet is a digital account. It holds some of its user’s personal information.
When the user sends a payment, it’s in the form of a token. The token is for security. It includes just enough information to confirm the account.
People are gaining comfort with this.
More than 35 million people in more than 100 countries have Coinbase accounts. The crypto exchange just started in 2012.
There are more than 9,000 bitcoin ATMs in the U.S. as of November 1. That’s quadruple where we were just two years ago.
Demand is growing.
But it’s not just individuals.
Cryptos Can Be Quite Lucrative
The poster child for management teams that believe in bitcoin is software maker MicroStrategy Inc. (Nasdaq: MSTR).
The firm has bought $475 million of bitcoin since August. That’s just over 40,000 bitcoins. At more than $20,000 a coin now, it’s made more than $300 million … so far.
It’s not done, though. The company just raised $650 million of debt, and it’s going to invest all of the proceeds into bitcoin.
That will increase its cost basis in the asset to more than $1 billion. Before it bought any bitcoin, that was the company’s market cap! Its stock price has doubled since its first buy.
MicroStrategy isn’t alone. Payment firm Square Inc. (NYSE: SQ) bought $50 million of bitcoin in October.
More recently, 169-year-old insurer MassMutual bought $100 million of bitcoin. Cryptos aren’t just for the kids these days.
But as important as these investments are, I can’t emphasize enough PayPal’s decision to allow its users to use crypto to pay its merchants:
(Source: Newsroom.PayPal-Corp.com.)
In order for bitcoin to go mainstream — i.e., in order for most people to care about it — you have to accept it.
Institutions are creating products — options, futures, etc. — to allow the trading of bitcoin and other cryptos.
You may not care about that.
But you likely care about PayPal, Venmo, Square and other payment options. All of these apps that you already use are making it possible to transact in bitcoin.
That’s a big deal. You see, we can only mine a total of 21 million bitcoins. We’ve already produced 18.5 million. We’re nearly 90% done.
I assure you the closer we get, the less incentive people will have to sell. Float will dry up. At that point, if you still haven’t acted, you’ll remember this article.
That reason alone is why you owe it to yourself — and to your family — to learn more about cryptos.
Like me and golf, it’ll give you a better appreciation for them.
Unlike me and golf, it can be quite lucrative.
That’s why my colleague Ian King is presenting a special event called Next Wave Crypto Fortunes on Thursday.
In it, he will tell you where we are with cryptos … and where we’re headed in the next 12 months.
I strongly encourage you to check it out.
Good Investing,
Editor, Profit Line
