The Weekend Edition is pulled from the daily Stansberry Digest.
Satoshi Nakamoto – whoever he (or she, or they) is – conceived the idea of cryptocurrency during the last market "crisis"...
You might know the story...
Amid the "Too Big to Fail" financial system meltdown and mortgage crisis of 2008 and 2009, and our previous recession and Federal Reserve money-printing frenzy, a mysterious "white paper" about something called bitcoin appeared on the Internet.
The eight-page paper talked about the idea, creation, structure, and implementation of a decentralized, secure global currency – a cryptocurrency. It would have a limited supply, would not be owned by any one entity, and could be created by regular folks who had electricity and operate outside the banking system.
The whole idea was seemingly coming from a fringe corner of the Internet... The name of the inventor and writer of the white paper was a pseudonym. The true identity – or identities – of the creator still isn't known...
But the concept caught on fast among a small group of dedicated, early adopters and a few others who took a flyer when bitcoin traded for nearly nothing in U.S. dollars. By late 2017 – when the price of one bitcoin briefly hit $20,000 – these folks eventually became "bitcoin millionaires," while a bunch of other bubble-chasers wondered what happened.
That's how good the idea of bitcoin and cryptocurrency was – and still is. The appetite was there. People just wanted something... different – something outside the traditional financial system.
Today's hunger for crypto is even bigger than it was 12 years ago...
Currently, bitcoin's market cap is about $350 billion. That's greater than the amount of all the money transferred on PayPal's (PYPL) popular money-sharing platform, Venmo, in a year.
And as Eric Wade, editor of our Crypto Capital service, explained to his subscribers in an update on March 20...
I've said before that we haven't seen the type of economy, the type of market, the type of circumstances that bitcoin was built to solve, but we are at its doorstep.
In fact, a lot has been going on with cryptos lately...
A few weeks ago, at the International Monetary Fund's semiannual meetings, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke to a worldwide audience about digital currencies. And Powell basically said that he thinks there might be a place for them... He just isn't totally sure of the details yet.
This news was bullish for bitcoin...
Then, a couple of days later, we learned that PayPal will incorporate bitcoin into its platform at the start of 2021. You'll be able to buy and spend bitcoin and a handful of other major cryptocurrencies, though there's a catch... You won't be able to transfer your crypto into or out of your PayPal account, at least not yet.
Still, overall, this news was bullish for bitcoin, too.
And PayPal's announcement came on the heels of a big move by another digital-payments company... Square (SQ) – the company that Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey also runs and seems to enjoy much more – said it recently spent $50 million in cash buying bitcoin.
And earlier this month, Square said it made $1 billion on its bitcoin business – highlighted by its Cash App – over the past year.
That turned some heads and was, again, bullish for bitcoin.
Since last month, bitcoin's price has soared...
As I write, it's trading at more than $18,000 and heading higher.
Bitcoin is volatile, of course – on both the upside and the downside... But it has been in a steady uptrend since March. And if you zoom out further, it has been quietly rising off its most recent bottom in December 2018.
Of course, if you've been following us this year, you know our founder Porter Stansberry's long-term bullish thesis for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
We believe everyone should own at least a little bitcoin as a small portion of their overall portfolio. It's the "ultimate asymmetric bet," Porter has said.
You also know that Eric is a believer in bitcoin's long-term place in the world, too... And he's our foremost expert on navigating the cryptocurrency world and how to make sense of it.
A month ago, Eric was calling for new all-time highs... He first expected bitcoin's price to break through the "psychologically important" $14,000 level. And that happened quicker than even he thought it would.
So now that we're beyond that level, we're sure some folks are curious... What will bitcoin's next move be? And maybe you're even tempted to think...
With bitcoin up so much, should you sell now?
Should you just cash out? Well, Eric recently updated his Crypto Capital subscribers on all these questions in an update two Fridays ago...
If you saw Porter, , and me talking about bitcoin just a few months ago and got involved for the first time there, you may have a 50% gain in a couple of months. But I will tell you that what we're here for with bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, is not to make a short-term gain.
Perhaps you own 10 bitcoin today and want to sell just one-third of one bitcoin and try to buy back at a lower price on any pullback. Eric said that's a chance you can take...
But if you're looking at bitcoin as a long-term play – as a bullish bet on an eventual "huge financial reset" like Eric and Porter do – and if you consider the evidence that we talked about above – the Fed considering digital currencies, and companies like PayPal and Square making big bets on bitcoin – you'll see that bitcoin's story is still just getting started.
So instead of worrying about bitcoin's price, Eric suggests thinking about something else today... how bitcoin fits into your portfolio. He summarized his thoughts with a big-picture idea that can apply to bitcoin or any other asset you're trying to make decisions about. As Eric said...
If when you bought bitcoin originally, you bought what was a proper position size for you – let's call it $10,000, maybe it's $100,000 – and that has gone up. Now, today, you should probably be asking yourself, "How do I feel about my position size of bitcoin here, rather than the price of bitcoin itself?"
Because if your position size has gotten to the point where you think you own more bitcoin – or more cryptocurrencies, in general – than you feel comfortable owning, then it's not a factor of timing the market as much as it is right-sizing for yourself – rebalancing.
Wise words from our cryptocurrency guide.
Eric also likes to say that crypto is a "currency and a technology"...
And this is a powerful realization, he says...
I can still remember the very day someone explained to me that bitcoin was like a technology and a currency mixed into one, but it wasn't really owned by any government or any one company.
And I quickly realized that something with those kinds of powers in one place at the same time... probably going to be one of the largest wealth generators for individuals ever invented. And it's really playing out to be that way.
You see, even if bitcoin never becomes a world currency standard, the underlying blockchain technology that powers it will work its way into our financial system "whether people adopt or not," Eric says.
Blockchain technology, in a very basic explanation, is sort of like a public, secure, massively shared Google document. No one seems to dispute that there's a growing market for something like that.
And a guy like Eric – who has been following the space for years and was on the front edge of several other technological breakouts – knows exactly which companies, cryptos, and parts of this world investors like you and I should know about... and invest in. As he says...
To make a fortune, you need to know how blockchain will disrupt our economy.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin
Editor's note: The government has finally "choked itself on greed"... And a slew of events this year could devalue the U.S. dollar. That's why Porter and Eric are once again urging readers to invest in the monetary revolution happening outside of the dollar – in cryptocurrencies – with potential 1,000% upside. Click here to learn more.