When I came across Bitcoin 8 years ago, my interest in it was more technical than financial. I used to remember the days when I had a ‘miner’ with 3 graphics cards sticking out of my PC tower churning out about 1BTC per day.
After liquidating my holdings prior to doing my MBA, I have no regrets of loosing out on a few hundred thousand pounds of profit, even at today’s prices.
Why? Because in that time I went on a journey of discovery, with my education, family etc.
Also, when I liquidated my positions, those were sold at market price, hence in that time frame those mystical coins are just worth what they were then.
Consider this screenshot of a confirmation e-mail in March 2011.
At today’s prices, this would be outrageously cheap, but only because value is determined by a vote of confidence in the system. 8 years down the line, it is arguable that the market is much more mature, with many more controls against illegal activity, but at the same time financial companies have bolted on derivatives to amplify the volatility of Bitcoin.
With that said, it might be possible that in the next 2 months there will be another spike, just like 2 years ago. Either way, I do not consider bitcoin as an investment, but rather a global roller coaster of volatility.
In efficient markets, you would think that all exchanges would move towards the equilibrium price, but in my experience, the transaction costs of converting fiat currency into coin is much higher than a fiat to fiat transaction i.e. the spread.