Please note: nothing below is investment advice — you MUST do your own research — the cryptocurrency space is unregulated and high risk to the uninformed and naive.

I was scrolling through Medium doing some morning reading, as I do every day, when I stumbled across this article. [https://hackernoon.com/just-one-more-reason-to-hodl-bitcoin-8874da1adedb]

I read this article and became enraged almost immediately. It rattled me enough that I decided I would write my first ever article! I am no longer just a reader now.

For context, I did a Finance & Computer Science degree in university. I am an iOS developer by day and have been mining & trading in cryptos for a couple of years now. I have read the technical white papers for dozens of ICOs and actively follow the technical roadmap of developer centric blockchain tech such as Ethereum. That being said, I place value on digital assets based on the underlying tech. This makes it very obvious to pinpoint what cryptos are significantly undervalued vs. those that are significantly overvalued. (cough cough Bitcoin.)

Without further adieu, lets look at the 7 reasons to HODL Bitcoin

Its price has surged to about 583,170,000% of its May 2010 value.

This is a fact and NOT a reason to invest. If anything, this should be a reason not to invest, as the massive gains have already been captured by those who were early to the market. If you think you can buy into BTC at $16k+ USD and make anywhere close to those return then you are, in my opinion, insane. If you’re hoping to make thousands of % returns, then you’re better off looking at ICO’s and betting on 10 of them — most will fail, but one might just take off. Call me crazy, but I don’t think a $16 mil BTC is coming any time, ever.

Many earlier HODLers of Bitcoin are now multi-millionaires (HODL = Hold On For Dear Life)

Again, a fact, and not a reason to invest. Early investors in Apple or Netflix who held on for the long haul are sitting back and laughing right now, but that isn’t a reason for someone to sell their house and dump everything into said company’s stocks.

Like they always say in finance, if your shoe shine boy or the people at the cocktail party are talking about it — then you’re too late to the game. This is becoming the case for BTC. Every time you hear of your great aunt Carol or uncle Randy starting to get interested in the space, that is a pretty good sign that the number of people who will keep pumping this bubble is starting to diminish.

Bitcoin itself has never been hacked

Bitcoin itself hasn’t been hacked. Nor has Ethereum, Litecoin, [Pick any other major crypto], etc. This is just misleading to the ill-informed person.

In almost every case you read about a large sum of crypto being stolen or lost, it is never a hack on the crypto blockchain itself. These issues come when you allow your private key to be managed by another party (online exchange, DAO, etc.), and then a vulnerability is exposed — typically through human error. If you can trust one thing, it is the protocols that the blockchain tech relies on, which just happens to be written by some of the smartest people out there. Another reason to DO YOUR RESEARCH and invest in tech that has a strong, cohesive team behind it that is following a realistic roadmap.

In the U.S., Bitcoin holders have an incentive to hold for at least a year

The capital gains incentive to hold is not just specific to Bitcoin. This applies to any investment, crypto or traditional stock market. Plus, we do not know what regulations and rules the tax man will impose around the crypto space over the next couple of years anyways!

Transactions are fast and fees are low

Bitcoin transaction are not fast and fees are not low in comparison to other cryptocurrencies in the space. It is cheaper than a Western Union transfer, which outlines a terrific use case for any crypto, but there are so many better/cheaper options than Bitcoin. In fact, Bitcoin has one of the slowest and most expensive blockchains. The tech is surely not a reason to invest.

To put it into context, here are the transaction cost and block times for Bitcoin vs Ethereum. (2nd highest market cap in the crypto space)