Things are complicated, you say US dollar but there is no such thing anymore, it's Federal Reserve dollar that US was tricked into accepting to use. Crypto is very heavily manipulated by biggest financial players, Bitcoin is not a currency replacement to use for goods and services payments, at least not for many years yet and I doubt it ever will.
But reality is BTC can be used to build great wealth now and if one chooses to ignore this opportunity is their choice, just like a person who's physically capable to do oil changes may want to choose not to, not willing to learn, get hands dirty or not interested in saving money. In Canada we pay tax on capital gain on 50% of gain amount which is already a tax reduction. If one invested in BTC ETFs inside TFSA account then there is no tax. Last year max TFSA contribution was C$95k, BTC price went up about 4 times since Sept of 2023. Math doesn't lie.
Cryptocurrency is being regulated to death especially through the Internal Revenue Code and falsely categorized as a form of real property so that it can be taxed in the most obnoxious way possible to discourage people from using it, The only way to avoid punitive taxes is to make sure you don't accidentally dispose of any that you haven't held for at least a year, then disposing of them creates another entry in the Form 8949 for Schedule D for that tax year, otherwise you end up owing them taxed as ordinary income on the gains. Since crypto is volatile, this screws up short term plays if you were planning to ride one of those waves of sentiment and then dump it.
Sometimes your tax forms required for figuring out your cost basis will be missing the cost basis, or you'll get a 1099-K, and then you have to figure out what to do then, and pray it doesn't get audited. I saw people getting their tax forms from some of those exchanges in March when they had all their other forms in January, then to find out the form was incomplete, or had errors, and the only thing to contact was a chatbot. There were other people that got their money frozen and were accused of fraud, or had it all drained out with no warning.
Which is not something that tends to happen in bank accounts, and legitimate investment platforms for stocks, bonds, and other real securities.
However that's all just as well since it's pretty much a zero sum game.
New tokens enter the market, but how? Well with Bitcoin they get harder and harder until there aren't any. People waste power (and a lot of it) "mining" a thing that's not real. Actual harm ensues.
With Dogecoin, the tokens were a joke in that the process is very inflationary, like they just come pouring in and it makes no sense at all whatsoever, whereas Bitcoin is too deflationary.
As to the Fed, I would like to see the Federal Reserve be torn down and remodeled in the sense of the Bank of North Dakota, personally.
The Bank of North Dakota is an asset to the State's finances because it remits all of the profits from its operation to the State's General Fund. I think the first step in balancing the federal books should be to mandate remittances to the Treasury instead of working to make profit for the member banks. In a public banking model, the Central Bank could be a depository for the Federal Government's cash flow and manage investment activities. It could take on the functions of an investment bank, putting out loans to the private sector and absorb the daily activities of the Export-Import Bank.
Having a Central Bank that is owned by private banks and regulated by people who have spent their lives at those banks is just a recipe for corruption, frankly speaking.
As to Exchange Traded Funds, I like them. The regulatory framework in the US is fairly robust and fraud, while it happens, is scarce as these things go. Ups and downs can happen. You diversify so you're not exposed to too much risk from any particular thing.
I'm kind of horrified that Indiana is considering "investing" State employee pensions into Bitcoin ETFs. This is clearly considered by some people who have no idea what they're up to, and there's the potential for destabilizing the pensions and having them taken over by the Social Security Administration, who sends them a bill.
