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The Bitcoin awakens heavenly beautiful dreams in a world of pandemic gloom.
Without doing much of your own or even hard effort, it attracts with an almost miraculous increase in value.
You can cheer euphorically as the price rises and rises.
On Wednesday, a Bitcoin cost around 28,113 euros or 34,460 dollars.
A month ago it was still available for around half, a year ago for around a quarter.
Borders don't seem in sight.
Some predict rates of $ 50,000, $ 150,000, or even $ 570,000.
Even price drops like in the past few days are only classified as quickly temporary rest periods before the next increase.
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Of course, the Bitcoin price can climb any height.
But an increase in the value of Bitcoin can in no way be explained or even predicted by real economic developments.
It only shows that the scale of human stupidity apparently knows just as few limits as the Bitcoin rate.
Because, to put it in a nutshell: Bitcoin is and remains nothing more than an artificially created, gigantic pyramid scheme inflated with lots of hot air.
In order to get (er) rich with Bitcoins, you always have to find someone who buys Bitcoins and is willing to pay more than the cost price.
But what provokes the willingness to enter with higher prices?
Bitcoin is a toy for gamblers
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Unlike stocks, which are based on companies that produce goods or services that can be sold, and unlike real estate that generates rental income, there is no valuable hedging with Bitcoin.
All that matters is what you expect from others.
The Bitcoin is a toy for gamers who just don't want to have anything in common with reality.
Its value is nothing other than the result of an economically completely senseless bet.
Nothing, but nothing at all, about actual political, economic or social developments and changes speaks for or against rising or falling price developments.
It is just as easy (or bad) to speculate on the price development of Pablo Picasso's paintings in the art market.
Or, for those who would like to have it a little more risky, since the authenticity is still a bit controversial, on Leonardo da Vinci's “Salvator Mundi”.
In order to enable small investors to gamble too, many people in the art market could also get together to buy works of art together and then subscribe to percentages.
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In the same way, bets can be made on anything and everything on the currency and commodity markets or with bookmakers and in online casinos.
Here, too, much resembles a pyramid scheme with winners (those who bought cheaply and sold more expensively) and losers (those who bought when prices were high and sold when prices were low).
In contrast to Bitcoin, however, raw materials - such as gold in particular - have a utility value and a specific use that at least partially contributes to real anchoring of value development.
And in the art market there are still those who can bask in the pride of ownership or enjoy the concrete sight of a work of art.
Many fans enthusiastically point out that Bitcoin makes payment processing easier.
What a mistake!
The enormous daily fluctuations in the value of the Bitcoin exchange rate reveal too clearly how almost pervertedly misleading the argument is.
BTC - Not a good means of payment
With so much volatility, how should everyday purchases and sales, rental and credit agreements be reliably planned and calculated?
Expensive exchange rate hedging - as was customary in DM days for business with southern Europe - make each individual market transaction more expensive.
Who can want something like that and even rate it as effective?
Cashless payment certainly got a fundamental kick during the corona pandemic.
While "no credit card, please" was the widespread standard, especially in Germany, "no cash, please" is now gaining ground in terms of area.
Contactless payment of the purchase invoice with a smartphone or a cash card, instant or credit card transfers and internet payment methods - such as PayPal - are becoming increasingly important in online trading.
Bitcoin, however, does not bring anything new that old methods cannot do much better.
At most, it is superior to conventional technologies when it comes to money laundering and covering up traces of illegal transactions.
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Therefore, the Bitcoin should at most achieve a tiny practical relevance if one or the other everyday payment process is actually made with it.
However, whether he will really be able to prevail against much simpler and cheaper payment processing methods at PayPal remains more than questionable.
Bitcoin supporters never tire of promoting the cryptocurrency as a protection against inflation.
In times of zero and negative interest rates, sprawling national debts, massively swelling flows of money from the central banks and the constant fear of sharply rising prices, it is sensible to invest your assets in valuables that cannot be increased at will - or even better, not at all.
It is then pointed out with proud fervor that the Bitcoin offer should be limited to 21 million units.
So what?
The number of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci or Pablo Picasso cannot be increased either.
What does Bitcoin offer in terms of additional, more exclusive securities?
Who guarantees that the limit on Bitcoin mining will actually be adhered to, who has what access to the source programs and the coin-mining computers and where?
In the case of cryptocurrencies, anonymity and opacity prevail.
Nobody knows the people behind it.
Neither equity nor other securities need to be backed when creating money.
What if the rising Bitcoin prices call for alternative cryptocurrencies that are competing for customers looking for supposedly secure store of value?
Then digital money can no longer be increased and there is a risk of devaluation.
But who then enforces the lawsuits of the gullible against the money miners of the digitization age - especially if they should be in lawless areas far away from Western Europe?
Of course, there are strong arguments in favor of privatizing the money economy - one of Bitcoin's intentions.
Too often, state currencies have been devalued more or less insidiously by inflation or overnight by currency reforms - even completely.
But experiments with private money systems have just as crashingly failed.
They only brought bubbles then the crash.
This is precisely why the money monopoly of state central banks has prevailed worldwide.
Why should “private” bitcoins enjoy more trust than central banks?
The latter are safeguarded by the rule of law in all western states, controlled by politics and must be available to answer questions in public.
Does anyone really seriously believe that the supposedly secure "blockchain technology" must be protected against cybercrime by private activists - who of the private Bitcoin manufacturers would be willing to take on the costs for more security?
The success of Bitcoin in particular makes it all the more attractive for criminals to hack, manipulate and abuse the system for the interests of individuals.
The fact remains: Cryptocurrencies are something for speculators, but not for security-oriented investors.
Nor can they be used as a medium for everyday transactions - the daily rates are too fluctuating.
Thus, there are no reasonable arguments as to why private crypto currencies should effectively supplement or even replace state currencies.
They neither guarantee more stability and transparency, lower risks, less volatility nor less loss of value than state central banks.
As a new technology, cryptocurrencies have a future.
But they will only be able to use their possibilities and opportunities if they come along as state and not as private money.