By CCN Markets: The Italian government is reportedly trying to be lenient on some forms of hard-to-tax savings, such as that held in safe deposit boxes. Bitcoin could be a viable investment for these retail investors.
The reality is that no government can track every dollar – unless they have something like a blockchain to help them. This reality is part of the reason people believe the dawn of cryptocurrency may come at the hands of certain governments, intent on having a traceable monetary supply. For now, governments mostly benefit from there being an unknown amount of counterfeit fiat currency floating around.
Did the Bulls Run or Just Stir in Their Cages?
Now the big bull “run” is mostly over, but people seem to be adjusting and buying nonetheless. People in certain countries have more interest than ever.
Italian retail deposits have hit an all-time high as people are trying to avoid taxation. The government is reportedly trying to be lenient. Should these people look into Bitcoin?
Interest everywhere has increased, as it usually does with price movements.
As the market fluctuates, people become interested in whether or not they can make a fast buck on Bitcoin. Long-term investors ride the wave, as is the trend in Bitcoin investment. This means that an increasing number of people speculate and purchase a smaller and smaller number of coins, although the regular inflation of mining adds coins to the supply.
Trading Minority Making The Call
Mining coins are generally added to the trading supply relatively soon, but these are also picked up by long-term investors. In total, a minority of the overall BTC supply is traded and speculated on. This, of course, brings into question the actual liquidity of the marketplace. Could it handle an onslaught? It’s unclear if there would ever be enough real money.
Then there is the scenario of both fake and “wash” trading, which are produced in scenarios where exchanges or users are incentivized to show volume. In the latter case, some exchanges provide an incentive to do transactions; therefore, people make meaningless trades which contribute to the “reported” volume of the exchange.
There’s no way to judge the real volume on such an exchange, which is of course just the sort of thing that gives the SEC pause when considering how it should regulate cryptocurrencies. Exchanges are mostly reporting outright fraudulent volume. For example, if you say over a half a trillion dollars, do you have that sort of liquidity lying around?
Either way, Italians are becoming increasingly interested in Bitcoin. People around the world have had an increase, but the bull case for Bitcoin is that when things go sour, as some expect they will, then Bitcoin and gold will both see a massive rise. People now may be merely investing out of genuine interest, or they may be hedging against expected bad times to come. In either case, Bitcoin gains when people buy and hold, as the available supply to trade gets smaller each time this happens.