How risky is Bitcoin really?
This really depends on the perspective of the individual making the assessment.
Personally I like to gauge risk from the vantage point of the four year cycle.
Then again most no-coiners don't even know that this cycle exists.
- Bull market year (2013, 2017, 2021, 2025)
- Bear market year (2014, 2018, 2022, 2026)
- Maximalist year (2015, 2019, 2023, 2027)
- New Narrative year (2016, 2020, 2024, 2028)
So it depends on time preference.
Anyone willing to hold for at least 4 years is going to earn a return no matter when they decide to ape into the market. Bought at $20k in 2017? No problem. Four years later it's worth $60k. Even in the worst case scenario the investor is greatly outperforming mutual funds and most stocks. However as we all know this is an absolutely brutal four years and comes with extreme emotional labor.
Most no-coiners will buy in the bull market year, but the rest of us degenerates are super smart and will wait for a 30% dip first in the bear market year. Don't worry about it, fam. This time is different I'm sure of it. Then over the course of that year that price dips 30% three more times for a total loss of 75%+ from the peak (0.7 ^ 4 = 24% remaining). This is also extremely not fun but at least we got that 30% discount from the top amirite?
Best year to buy BTC is obviously the maximalist year which is where dominance goes up and Bitcoin is only up for the entire year. Look at any maxi year. If you bought during that year you are very happy and at worst only have to wait like 6 months for huge gains.
The year of the new narrative is also a safe time to buy, but we are buying into a pump so the pain of the impending dip hits hard. This is where we are right now. What was the narrative this cycle? Memes... if you can believe it. It seemed like social media had momentum but every one of those projects failed hard (NOSTR, Bluesky, Stars Arena, Friend.Tech, etc.). It also seemed like AI had momentum as well, and it kinda did, but it was blown out of the water by Solana memes. I'm personally still holding out hope that gaming will peak its head out soon but we'll just have to wait and see what AVAX comes up with. Although I will say that Off The Grid is gaining a huge amount of hype over the last few days. I bought a couple AVAX today just in case I want to play something and need money for on-chain fees.
Even Blackrock is shilling BTC as the ultimate hedge.
It's funny because we know Blackrock is totally full of shit and not to be trusted but also the statements they make on Bitcoin are extremely based from what I can tell. Bitcoin is only risk-on given short timeframes... and those timeframes are known in advance to anyone looking at the four-year cycle created by halving events. It can't really be considered risk-off either because the shear exponential magnitude of gains and volatility over time is simply too high. It's a fantastic hedge, and these are hedge-funds after all.
Buying BTC today at $60k is safer than $600 in 2016.
A lot of people will say "I wish I bought at $600 or $60 or $6" or whatever. Yeah, that's a lie. These are greedy people just looking at the chart with absolutely no knowledge of the emotional sentiment of that epoch. There's a reason Bitcoin traded at these absurdly low valuations in the past, and it's because everyone knew it could crash to zero for literally any reason. The current environment is a lot different than that now. Bitcoin can not be so easily uprooted and has begun streaming into mainstream consciousness.
There really isn't a lot of time left to be buying into BTC.
Once we are spiking up into ATH and above $100k that puts us firmly into the bull-market-year danger zone. Luckily alts have been heavily suppressed with this consolidation, which was pretty unexpected. There's a good chance they rip even higher because of it. Charts like ETH, RUNE, AVAX, and even HIVE are looking very bottomed out on all metrics. Wen alt market?
15% HBD is Better than a Mutual Fund
Speaking of risk the yield on our own stablecoin is still pretty much the best deal around even after cutting rates by 5% recently. @dalz recently did some analysis on this reduction and thus far the on-chain metrics conclude that most people are still hanging onto to their HBD even though the yield is less, which is very good to see. Makes sense considering all the competition up and died and there really aren't any better places to put a stable store of value.
Microstrategy is ripping faces off.
Michael Saylor's company has been doing so well lately due to their Bitcoin Standard operation that it's caused some serious division among the maximalists. Most people seem to believe that it's just fine to hold MSTR because holding MSTR is like holding Bitcoin by proxy. Because MSTR is currently outperforming Bitcoin many are very excited about this prospect. The better it performs the more irrational the market gets.
Of course there are the purists who realize that MSTR is nothing but a glorified shitcoin and all this hype is extremely toxic. It will not end well for them. Every cycle Bitcoiners like to virtue signal to one another and act like they are Bitcoin only. They always find a way to pull some nonsense and dump a wholly irresponsible amount of money into something risky like this. Then when it blows up in their faces they play the victim. Classic 4-year cycle.
MSTR will likely continue to outperform BTC for the entire bull market year and make a lot of people very rich. Of course when the bear market rolls around and the music stops they're all going to get wrecked just like all the other absurdly over-valuated networks. This becomes even more obvious when Saylor pitches nonsensical ideas like earning "risk free yield" when lending Bitcoin to banks. Dude wants to risk everything for another 5%. You can't get any more greedy than that, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that crypto punishes the greedy without mercy when the bear market year comes into play. This time is not different.
Conclusion
Layer one on-chain self-custodian Bitcoin is the world's best asset to own from a risk adjustment perspective. No other asset in the world will offer higher rewards for the least amount of risk. Yes, other things will outperform it in 2025... in fact MOST things will probably outperform it in 2025 if we are talking about crypto tokens. That's just how the overflow of the 4-year cycle operates. Watch what happens at $100k+. Regardless of all that Bitcoin will still have the best Risk:Reward ratio possible even as everything outperforms it. When degens forget this fact and go full GREED is when they get wrecked. And they deserve what they get.
Easy come easy go.