Urbandreamer wrote:I see that this thread has been moved to the right board.
I had decided to ignore posts upon it, while it was on the wrong board.
Ok dealing with them.
Crypto/bitcoin has no intrinsic value, but then neither does ANY fiat currency. You could make arguments that fiat has value because it is trusted as a medium of exchange etc, but NOT while you use unsound arguments about intrinsic value. Doing so you inherently argue that fiat, as in the £, lacking intrinsic value, is worthless.
Banks don't like it because they might be forced to compensate account holders for their own actions. Come on! We regularly hear of people NOT being compensated for push payment fraud that doesn't involve crypto. There is almost certainly a different reason. I personally suspect that they are under pressure from the FCA, who are not happy that Mr Sunak wanted to encourage crypto firms to the UK while a chancellor. (try a web search)
Banks don't like it because they can't trace it.
NO. Banks have for a long time offered services to people of dubious morals. An entire off shore banking industry use to exist to cater for such. It still exists, provided by banks, using shell corporations. What you meant is that governments seek to censor transactions. In your example, money laundering. In other examples, attempts by governments to enforce their wishes without needing that pesky business of their actions being legal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Pointand other companies that, while operating legally, were said to be at a high risk for fraud and money laundering.
This operation, disclosed in an August 2013 Wall Street Journal story,[2] was officially ended in August 2017,[3] and the FDIC settled multiple lawsuits by promising to Congress additional training for its examiners and to cease issuing "informal" and "unwritten suggestions" to banks.
In Canada the government froze the bank accounts of people on strike. I'm sure that had everything to do with "money laundering". Oh it was quite "legal", because they made it so. They are still trying to justify the hardship done to the children of such people. Apparently that wasn't their intent!
bank account of a single mom with a minimum wage job has been frozenStrahl shared Brianne's story as concerns grow that scores of ordinary people will no longer be able to pay for food and basics after their accounts were frozen for donating to a group of protesters.
Major Canadian bank apologizes to trucker convoy for freezing accounts“Please accept our sincere apologies for the frustration and inconvenience this situation may have caused and .....
However nobody is forcing anyone to buy or use crypto/bitcoin. Use it or ignore it. Up to you.
'Deposit' money into a bank savings account - and that's really just a loan, you lending to the bank often at a low interest rate, becomes the banks money along with a IOU record on their books.
Buy shares and more often that's a case of where the broker will take your money and buy the shares you named, in THEIR (brokers) own name. Again more a form of loan.
Show me your wealth ... if you can't physically touch and move it, its not yours, its just a loan, subject to terms and conditions that others set, and that may varied at any time. Even your own home/land could be 'compulsory purchased' at a rate that someone else sets.
The 'trick' is to diversify, not have all your eggs in one basket only to see that basket being crushed. Crypto could be part of that, but the more sensible choice would be to have only a relatively light loading into that, perhaps 10% or less. If for instance the Pound lost 90% of its value then Crypto in Pounds might rise 10 fold in price. That might not help much against buying foreign stuff/goods, but in relative terms you'll be much better off than another who solely held Pounds. .... OR alternatively holding another currency such as Dollars could serve just as equally as well under such conditions. So fundamentally it boils down to whether you might prefer something like Dollars, perhaps invested in US stocks, where the Dollar is backed by the US state, or a Crypto currency - a virtual thing that isn't backed by anything.
The only real reason to hold Crypto is to in part diversify to be partially 'outside' of other regulated systems, such as the Pound, Dollar, bank deposits, brokers ...etc., but in turn Crypto also has its own equivalent counter parties risks (miners, platforms ...etc.).
All-told, a little Crypto wont hurt too much if it goes belly up, and adds to diversification. Personally I hold none, but if I did I'd likely not risk any more than a 5% weighting. Must admit that I am a little tempted - just to have the accounts already up and running, that might serve as a element of insurance, already geared up to say convert large amounts of £££'s to Crypto and have that dispatched elsewhere, overseas, and converted into something else there ... more quickly than if the accounts had to be freshly opened. On that basis and even 5% would be excessive for me, I'd likely be down at 1% or less weighting.