Tag: Investing

Bitcoin vs Gold: Only One Can Be the Future of Money

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, crypto, Digital InnovationLeave a comment

For thousands of years, gold has been the king of value. It built empires, backed currencies, and became the ultimate symbol of wealth. But times have changed. We’re living in a world that runs on Wi-Fi, not warships — and there’s a new challenger in town.

That challenger? Bitcoin.

The digital upstart that doesn’t shine, doesn’t rust, and doesn’t care about borders. It’s fast, global, and immune to the printing presses of central banks. And it’s here to take gold’s throne.

Gold: The Original Heavyweight

Let’s give credit where it’s due — gold has history. It’s rare, it’s beautiful, and it’s been trusted for centuries. But in today’s economy, gold feels a little… slow. You can’t email it, you can’t split it easily, and storing it safely costs money.

Meanwhile, the world has moved online — and digital money needs digital speed.

Bitcoin: The Rebel with a Cause

Bitcoin is what happens when you take gold’s best qualities — scarcity, trust, and independence — and upgrade them for the internet age. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins, and no government can change that.

It’s borderless, permissionless, and unstoppable. You can send millions of dollars in Bitcoin halfway across the world in minutes — no banks, no middlemen, no delays.

In a sense, Bitcoin is gold on turbo mode.

Old Money vs. Smart Money

Sure, gold has stood the test of time — but so did horse-drawn carriages before cars came along. Bitcoin is built for a generation that lives online. It’s programmable, trackable, and transparent. Every transaction sits on a public blockchain, meaning no hidden manipulation, no printing more when times get tough.

As governments keep printing fiat currency like there’s no tomorrow, people are waking up to a simple truth: scarcity equals value. Gold is scarce — but Bitcoin is digitally, verifiably scarce. That’s a game-changer.

“But Bitcoin is Too Volatile!”

So what? Every groundbreaking invention starts out bumpy. Remember the early internet? Dial-up modems and 10-minute page loads didn’t stop it from changing everything.

Bitcoin’s price swings aren’t a flaw — they’re growing pains. Each crash weeds out the weak hands, and each recovery brings in stronger believers.

The Future Has Logged On

Gold had a legendary run — it was money for the physical world. But Bitcoin is money for the digital world, and the digital world isn’t going anywhere.

In the end, this isn’t just about price — it’s about freedom, technology, and the future of value. Gold will always sparkle, but Bitcoin? It shines where gold can’t — in the digital economy that runs the modern world.

So if you’re betting on the future, remember this:
Gold was the past. Bitcoin is the future.

$10 a Month in Bitcoin Could Change Your 2030

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, Blockchain, cryptoLeave a comment

The Power of Small, Steady Investments

When most people think about investing in Bitcoin, they imagine big, risky bets — lump sums, wild swings, and sleepless nights. But the truth is, you don’t need to gamble your life savings to benefit from Bitcoin’s long-term potential.

In fact, you could start with as little as $10 a month — and by 2030, that small, steady habit could have a life-changing impact.

1. The Power of Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA)

Dollar-cost averaging is a time-tested investment approach where you invest a fixed amount at regular intervals, regardless of the asset’s price.
This method removes emotion from investing — you buy through the highs and the lows, letting time and compounding work in your favor.

In Bitcoin’s case, DCA has historically been a powerful strategy because it turns volatility from a fear into an advantage. You’re not trying to “time the market”; you’re simply showing up, month after month.

2. Why $10 Matters More Than You Think

At $10 per month, you’re committing $120 a year. Over a decade, that’s $1,200 total invested — less than the cost of a daily coffee habit.

But Bitcoin’s historical performance changes the equation. While no future returns are guaranteed, Bitcoin’s compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since inception has been extraordinary, even accounting for deep drawdowns.

Let’s take a conservative example:
If Bitcoin grows at 20% CAGR from now until 2030 (much lower than its past average), your $1,200 total contributions could grow to several multiples of your original investment — without you ever making a large commitment.

3. Bitcoin’s Scarcity Advantage

Unlike fiat currency, Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million coins. This scarcity is hardcoded into its protocol. As adoption increases and demand rises, supply cannot be inflated to meet it. That’s why long-term holders — whether they own thousands of dollars or just a few satoshis — share the same benefit of scarcity.

With micro-investing, you are essentially stacking small amounts of a finite asset before the rest of the world realizes its true value.

4. Benefits of Starting Small

  • Low Risk Entry — You’re not overexposed; small amounts keep your risk manageable.
  • Habit Formation — Regular investing builds discipline, which pays off in other financial areas.
  • Upside Exposure — Even small positions in high-growth assets can become meaningful over time.
  • Accessible to All — You don’t need to be wealthy to participate in the Bitcoin network.

5. The Bigger Picture: 2030 and Beyond

Bitcoin adoption is still in its early stages, with growing interest from institutional investors, nation-states, and global payment platforms. By 2030, it could play a central role in global finance.

If that happens, the price could reflect not just speculation, but deep, fundamental demand for a digital, borderless, inflation-resistant store of value.

The $10 a month you start today isn’t just an investment — it’s a ticket to participate in the future monetary system.

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, but underestimate what we can do in a decade.
Ten dollars a month won’t change your life overnight, but with patience, discipline, and the compounding effects of Bitcoin’s scarcity, it could be one of the smartest financial moves you ever make.

Small steps, big future.
Start stacking.

Investing in Stock Exchanges: a novel idea

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Banks, Business, Economy, FintechLeave a comment

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The world of investing centres on investing in stocks. However, Jon Markman writing at Forbes offers up a new idea: investing in stock exchanges. How does that work, you may ask. Markman points to the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), an operator of commodity and stock exchange, which posted exemplary financial results on 1st August and suggests that as its managers plan to disrupt lucrative markets, such as the new digital ones, it is worth looking at it as a potential investment.

ICE “builds, operates and advances global markets through information, technology and expertise,” according to its website. It’s a relatively new set-up that was only founded in 2000. In 1996, Jeffrey Sprecher, a mechanical engineer from Wisconsin, bought Continental Power Exchange, an Atlanta electronic energy trading company for $1,000. He saw an opportunity to take advantage of a move to electronic trading.

The company launched as ICE in 2000 when Sprecher gave up 80% of the business to investment bankers Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, according. It immediately became a competitor to Enron, one of the biggest electronic trading platforms at the time. However, it wasn’t long before the Enron scandal broke and in a very short time ICE became the market leader.

Sprecher had no experience in financial markets, nor had he ever traded stocks and shares, but he “could see how slow, traditional financial markets were about to be disrupted by fast, low-latency software platforms,” Markman says. Sprecher recounted the story of how flying back from London he spotted a story in the Financial Time about credit default swaps (CDS), and while he had no clue about what they were, he intuited that there might be an opportunity for ICE to leverage its platform to build an electronic marketplace. Today,  ICE currently clears 96% of all CDS.

He also used his creative thinking to engineer the $8.2 billion buyout of the New York Stock Exchange in 2012. In a little over a decade, this small Atlanta company went from obscurity to being in the vanguard of financial markets.  Today ICE currently operates 12 regulated exchanges and six clearing houses. The company logged $6.3 billion in revenue in 2018.

Its success is down to a great strategy based on seeing the transformation of financial markets early on. It has continued to make interesting strategic acquisitions, including the Chicago Stock Exchange last year, and as Markman says, “Getting ahead of the digital transformation of the $11 trillion mortgage market is another multibillion-dollar opportunity for ICE.”

Furthermore, as it is based in regulated financial markets, the company is the logical intermediary for this emergent digital ecosystem. It appears ot be firing on all cylinders, and as Markman says, “Growth investors should consider using broad-market weakness to accumulate shares.”

 

Crypto buyers need to take the long view

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, BlockchainLeave a comment

Are you a crypto investor? Perhaps you bought in during the later part of 2017, or even early 2018, hoping the wave of euphoria around cryptocurrencies would keep carrying on. Unfortunately for those people it didn’t, and even those who bought in earlier will have made some losses.

A number of people thought the downturn in the market was temporary; it would be moving upwards again before Christmas 2018 some market watchers said, with a some of the bulls, like Tom Lee, predicting a bitcoin value of over $20,000. It hasn’t happened, but that doesn’t mean that it is the end of bitcoin or other cryptos. What has happened is that the technology needs to catch up with the enthusiasm for digital assets, but technology is still too new and complicated, most consumers see it as too risky. Plus, there is the not inconsiderable matter of mass adoption being some way down the road.

So, what should crypto investors do, or have done in the past year. Some are holding on, waiting for the return of a bull market, while others are looking for an acceptable moment in which to exit the market.

Crypto investing has been a bit of an education for those people who have never put money into stocks, bonds or securities before. It offered an opportunity for those with a few hundred, or a few thousand, to become involved in a market that up until now has been reserved for approved investors; those with millions and billions in the bank. However, newbie crypto investors didn’t perhaps realise that all markets are a dangerous place to be in unless you do your homework and have certain ‘safety jackets’ in place.

If you look at the established investment markets, they all have a swathe of regulations in place that give the investor specific ownership rights. By contrast, the crypto market is uncharted territory. There have been some moves by regulatory bodies to create a set of regulations and guidelines, but they are still sketchy, and the judicial system has not yet weighed in to give its approval of regulations in a number of jurisdictions.

For that reason, cryptocurrency investors have few, or no, rights until a government and its legislature says so. There are investors who are hoping the price of a crypto can be pumped, which would be a disastrous move, because manipulation will lead regulatory bodies like the SEC to deem a token is a security, and if it is, then the project issuing the token must go through a lengthy and expensive process to register it as a security, at least that is the case in the USA. For many projects that would spell the end.

People buying into crypto need to be patient and think in the long-term, because there are no instant wins now. As Joseph P. DiPasquale writes: “Now more than ever, cryptocurrency purchasers need to support projects with strong fundamentals: competent, capable leadership; a track record of meeting roadmap milestones; unique technical goals and achievements; a broad potential user base; and a relatable vision of the future.”