Bitcoin: the star investment of 2018 or a bubble about to explode?
What happened in 2017 and so far this year with the evolution of the Bitcoin quotation forces investors to be cautious. Last year its price went from about US $ 1,000 per unit, in January, to almost US $ 20,000 in mid-December. Then it collapsed to become worth at present some USS 12,000, which denotes a high degree of volatility. It had an increase of 1900% in 2017, the highest since it was quoted and then a fall of almost 50% with respect to its record, the biggest decrease in the history of its quotation.
The truth is that what is most talked about in the international and local financial system is Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that for some analysts will be the financial star this year or a bubble close to being punctured as happened with the calls Puntocom in March 2001 .
At that time, most of those companies that started using Internet technology and launched their stock in the stock markets disappeared as a result of a speculative bubble that collapsed and where around $ 5 trillion dollars disappeared due to the loss of market value. those companies or directly for their bankruptcy.
According to experts consulted by Infobae, there are some similarities between Bitcoin and Puntocom when it comes to analyzing future investments.
1 - The behavior of the investors of the Puntocom is similar to that of those who invest in Bitcoin. This happens because it is not possible to find future neutral investors. There are the fans who bought Bitcoin and those skeptics who missed the opportunity to buy. Why are there very intelligent people convinced that we are facing a technological revolution greater than the internet and there are, on the other hand, very intelligent people who think otherwise? That is perhaps the big question.
2 - With Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies the same thing happens as at the beginning of the frenzy of the Puntocoms in the late 1990s, where new valuation schemes of companies were discussed about variables that had never been used. In the case of Bitcoin, they are based on the creation theory of those virtual currencies known as blockchain.
3 - The biggest supporters of this cryptocurrency species argue that you can argue if Bitcoin is over or undervalued, but point to blockchain is the real revolution, perhaps greater than the Internet at the time. They argue that it will allow the emergence of thousands of new possibilities for business models and public policies, eliminating intermediaries. But even this field began to be questioned, with dozens of essays that ask if blockchain will not also be a bubble similar to that of the Puntocom.
4 - In recent months, as the value of the currency created by Satoshi Nakamoto less than ten years ago was escalating, media coverage and analysis of this thematic field began to lean towards the negative aspect as it began to occur in the middle of the 2000 with the Puntocom.
5 - It has also unleashed a strong discussion, as at that time, on whether it is a creation of real value or is a mere speculative bubble. In those times the armed and the financing of the Puntocom was questioned, however now the whole scheme of the blockchain theory is questioned. Advocates point out that it has a decentralized software architecture, therefore it is not hackable, it is also indelible and every operation of creating a cryptocurrency is validated throughout the system.
6 - There are a lot of young entrepreneurs who have focused on raising funds to invest in the creation of cryptocurrencies, particularly energy, which is very expensive. In the appearance of the Puntocom there was a large number of young entrepreneurs who were looking for funds in international markets to finance the creation of their internet companies.
Most experts in Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies argue that this kind of virtual currency appears as the third major technological disruption after the personal computer and the Internet. The system was devised in 2008 and launched in early 2009 in order not to depend on third parties and allow transactions between peers through the use of open source software, its use as a currency depends in the future on the acceptance of the Bitcoin as currency and reserve of value by different governments.
"The great controversy unleashed on this type of technology, according to different governments and experts in the field, is whether to consider it as a commodity, a currency or as a digital product," Diego Fernández, executive director of Rofex, told Infobae. "It can be understood as a peer-to-peer technology that allows online, secure transfers, directly and without the intervention of any intermediary," explains Fernández. And he adds that the important thing is that there is a finite Bitcoin number that is 21 million and we are still quite far from that number. Fernandez confirmed to Infobae that the company will launch in the next few months a Bitcoin custody system that will function as a sort of safe deposit box to store them there.
Experts point out with respect to their future use in the banking system that the advantage offered by operating with Bitcoin is the speed with which transactions are validated. While a bank deposit can take between 24 to 72 hours to become effective, in the Bitcoin system the transaction is notified to the world immediately and takes up to 60 minutes to be validated and the commissions paid through this system are much lower in comparison to the commissions that must be paid in electronic payment systems or international transfers such as Paypal and Western Union.
The problem is that these new cryptographic systems produce distrust in the international arena. For the moment, banks have closed personal accounts of people related to the Bitcoin world. For example, the Bank of the West of the United States and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia closed the personal accounts of clients who had ventures related to Bitcoin. In Canada, there is no bank that accepts accounts related to the system. In turn, in recent days several warnings have emerged from different countries such as China and South Korea against transactions in Bitcoin.
The People's Bank of China (BPC) has urged local authorities to impose restrictions on Bitcoin miners due to the high energy consumption of their activity. The document, filtered through Twitter and collected by Reuters, asks the government of the Asian country to plan an orderly exit for Bitcoin mining operations in the coming months. While South Korea (which is the third country in the world, after Japan and the United States, in which more exchanges are generated in bitcoins) also wants to stop this trend and the authorities are preparing a bill to prohibit trade of cryptocurrencies through exchanges.
But the voice that the world financial markets heard the most about the future of Bitcoin was that of American tycoon and Wall Street guru Warren Buffett. On January 10 he joined the critical reports of some banks and anticipated that "at some point cryptocurrencies will have a bad end". Buffett, considered the second richest man in the world after Bill Gates, said in an interview that in his portfolio he had no position in Bitcoin. The founder of Berkshire Hathaway clarified, however, that if there was a futures market with a term of five years, he could think about the possibility of participating in it, but "not a penny" in the short term. Buffett's statements are related to the company CME, the most important financial derivatives market in the world, with headquarters in Chicago, which since December 18, has operated with bitcoin futures for a period of one, two, three and six months. .
The funny thing is that Buffett spoke on the subject a day after Jamie Dimon, the top executive of the main banking group in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, returned to refer to Bitcoin, although to correct previous positions. Dimon admitted on Tuesday that it had been a mistake to assure last September that the Bitcoin is a fraud, a position that was repeated on numerous occasions in the financial circles of the United States. "I'm sorry I made that comment," admitted Dimon. JPMorgan CEO Chase acknowledged that the blockchain technology of the cryptocurrencies is real, but insisted that it is an issue that does not interest him "at all." The foundation of the banking institutions worldwide and in particular of the USA. is that virtual currencies are beyond the control of States and agencies responsible for the supervision of financial markets.
The big doubt in financial markets is whether the end of the bubble is near and will involve a catastrophe for unsophisticated savers who bet all their capital in the hope of making fabulous profits or there is still much to be gained with a Bitcoin to US $ 12,000. Some analysts put them at around US $ 100,000 by the end of this year. The truth is that we must be cautious when investing in Bitcoin and review what happened with the Puntocom in 2001, a speculative bubble that caused great losses to the savers and the global financial system.