You don’t have to believe the hype repeated by crypto-enthusiasts to realize that Bitcoin has made an indelible mark on the investment world. Institutional investors have been salivating over the opportunity to invest in a Bitcoin ETF, which would allow them to buy shares in a fund that bought the cryptocurrency.
There’s a hunger out there to regulate cryptocurrency as an asset and see the kinds of returns early Bitcoin buyers saw in late 2017 once again.
Where Does BTC Fit into Your Portfolio?
In a typical investment portfolio, Bitcoin competes for the space allocated to alternative asset classes such as gold and silver, real estate, fine art, vintage bottles of wine, and collectibles.
The “alternative asset” description covers a broad range of investments – pretty much everything outside of equities and bonds, and it can be like comparing apples and oranges. But if you stick to comparing Bitcoin with more common alternative assets like gold and real estate, you start to see how cryptocurrency has, and still could, disrupt the investment world.
Is BTC Disrupting Other Alternatives Assets?
Bitcoin’s first natural target was gold. There have been many comparisons drawn b
etween Bitcoin and gold, particularly due to Bitcoin’s branding as a means of exchange and its early susceptibility to the kind of extreme bull/bear markets that define gold trading.
In fact, Bitcoin has outpaced gold trading volume since Q2 2017. Bitcoin is on track to process $1.1 trillion in transactions in 2018, far outpacing $0.4 trillion in gold transactions. Some even believe that this newfound interest in Bitcoin has sapped a lot of activity from gold. They are commonly compared assets, as many investors want to see a digital alternative to the equities market.
Bitcoin has some distinct advantages over gold, particularly the low cost of storage and trading fees.
Could Bitcoin Disrupt Real Estate?
Real estate and Bitcoin have a lot less in common than BTC and gold, but investment watchers have discovered that male Millennials have a marked preference for investing in Bitcoin over real estate.
While Bitcoin isn’t about to replace real estate in the mainstream, many believe that Bitcoin will soon become part of the real estate market. The security of the blockchain ledger and the low processing fees of cryptocurrency make it an appealing solution for an industry where paperwork is essential.
One way that the blockchain could completely transform the real estate industry is in natural disaster-prone areas, where paper documents are extremely vulnerable. If home ownership records are all on the blockchain, they won’t be nearly as vulnerable to increasingly common natural disasters.
There are a lot of compelling reasons to make Bitcoin part of your investment portfolio. You can start trading today at Bitbuy, a cryptocurrency exchange that simplifies buying and selling Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with Interac and e-transfers. Spend less time waiting and spend less on deposit and withdrawal fees. Cryptocurrency exchanges like Bitbuy have made crypto more accessible to the average investor. You don’t need to wait for crypto ETFs to be approved to simply and securely invest in cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin has earned its place among other alternative asset classes. Consider making Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies part of your investment portfolio.