Let me tell you why you should buy bitcoin Canada. For the same reasons everyone else is buying it. It’s decentralized and serves the general public. It’s pseudo-anonymous and out of the hands of the government. It’s a new asset class built on a new technology called the blockchain that keeps transactions secure. In fact, there are so many uses for the blockchain that even big companies like IBM not particularly trying to revolutionize the financial world are using it to track other things.
There is so much talk about how Bitcoin is making inroads among American politicians, and how much it supports Chinese people trying to keep money away from a communist government. It’s time to talk about how it affects The Great White North.
Don’t Just Stand There, Buy Bitcoin Canada
This is far from your first chance to buy Bitcoin. It won’t be the last either. But there is no better time than right now to buy bitcoin. And yet, the Bank of Canada estimates that only 5% of Canadians own bitcoin. In that very same survey, 58% of respondents say they own bitcoin for investment purposes while 12% of people say their friends own it too. 77% of Canadian bitcoiners say they don’t perform any transactions using bitcoin at all, meaning they are only holding it in the hopes it appreciates in value.
Hands down, Canadians view bitcoin as mostly an investment at this stage in the adoption game. It’s hard to argue with that strategy given that bitcoin is outpacing the stock market by over 300% this year.
Who’s in it for the Technology?
Part of the survey mentioned above refers to how Canadians were feeling about cryptocurrencies in 2016. 36% of people said they were investing in it because of the technology. The truth is that most people won’t go deep enough into a decentralized payment system in order to learn about the technology at all. They just see other people investing in it and making money and follow suit. It seems that part of this has to do with the fact that it’s still difficult to walk up to a cashier or point of sales terminal and buy something with bitcoin. When this gets easier, more and more Canadians will acknowledge the technology as a great tool, yet ironically many of them probably still won’t care that Bitcoin is built on a blockchain. All the average person cares about is utility. It’s only the computer nerds and hard-core evangelists that really extol the virtues of the underlying mechanisms of bitcoin.
How to Educate People Who Don’t Care Yet
Given that most Canadians only view bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as investments, the country and its citizens need to be educated on the bitcoin as digital gold philosophy. Most of bitcoin’s detractors say that digital currencies will never replace real money as far as day-to-day use. New entrants into the world of digital assets hear this and assume that there is no point in following up on Bitcoin or making a purchase. Adoption at the moment is still at the point where people cannot envision themselves tapping a credit card or debit card that spends digital currencies rather than Canadian dollars or any other kind of paper money for that matter.
As such the on-ramp toward adoption is not explaining to Canadian consumers how they can use digital currencies every day, but rather why bitcoin is a solid investment. Yes it’s true that many people still believe treating cryptocurrencies like investments is just glorified speculation, but so are many of the cannabis companies stealing many of the headlines in Canada over the last three years. None of them have proven profitable. And yet, people are still investing in them based almost solely on the hope that they will pick the one out of 100 companies to come out of the woodwork as the industry’s top dog.
What Makes Bitcoin a Solid Investment
One of the most popular theories in the crypto industry is that investing in Bitcoin is a great way to hedge against a recession. Typically both the stock market and real estate market come crashing down when the economy plummets, but who’s to say people will choose Bitcoin over simply pulling their money out of investments completely? It hasn’t been proven that people will do that yet. After all, bitcoin launched in 2008 during our world’s last economic crisis and markets for the most part have been trending up since that time. It’s only recently with the election of the Donald Trump Administration in office and signs of the economy slowing down that people are starting to wonder what will happen in the next year or two.
Chances are most people will still choose investing in gold over bitcoin, simply because gold is more understood. It’s a tangible good that people can hold in their hands. Canadians also don’t need to understand technology in order to buy gold. Any retail bank or gold refinery can set people up with a tried, tested and true investment that almost always increases in value whenever the economy slows down.
So what is it that makes Bitcoin a solid investment for Canadians then? Well, the fact is it’s a bet on the future, and any smart investor knows that the money is always in the future. The fact that it isn’t owned by anyone is a big bonus too. Not just to libertarians who philosophically believe in having individuals control their own destiny, but also in light of the unrest going on around the world right now.
Is Political Unrest Good for Bitcoin?
Consider the protests going on between Hong Kong and China right now. Hong Kong is fighting for its right to remain a semiautonomous democracy under an agreement between Britain and China made in 1997. Hong Kong will become fully part of China in 2047 under the terms of the agreement, but the Chinese government doesn’t want to wait that long and is trying to force political pressure onto Hong Kong that is seeing citizens riot and protest. Add to that the fact tensions are growing between China and the United States of America over trade concerns, and we may just see more and more Chinese people in both mainland China and Hong Kong move money into Bitcoin.
That could be a big catalyst for the price of digital assets in general, and were not even talking about what’s happening in Venezuela right now. Nicolas Maduro is the president of the country, but very few people agree with his monetary policies. In short his main policy is to print more and more money to cover federal government debts. This sounds like a simple solution for fixing a struggling economy and paying off debt except for the fact that the printing of all this money is causing inflation to skyrocket. Referring to the inflation rate as skyrocketing is a gross understatement. Just earlier this month, the inflation rate in Venezuala hit over 10 million percent for 2019. As the days go by, more and more citizens are without food, water or shelter.
Greece is in a similar situation albeit for different reasons. But the point is that while political unrest normally causes investors to retreat and take money out of the market, that same political unrest is devaluing national currencies at an alarming rate. Seeing the economy slump in North America and watching the stock market dip is definitely a short-term problem. Over the long term however, the never-ending inflation rates of poor countries around the world is going to leave citizens in those countries no choice but to move to digital assets in order to spark trade. As bad as things may be in the opinion of many with President Trump at the helm in America, things are 10 times worse in Europe, South America and developing nations around the world.
So in the short term, political unrest is not good for bitcoin. However, Canadians and Western society in general needs to understand that bitcoin’s adoption is truly a global movement. As more and more traditional economies collapse, civilians will continue to grow tired and look for alternative solutions where the decision-making process is not centralized in the hands of very few people who may not know what they’re doing or may not be placing the broader interests of society first.
Think Long-Term When You Buy Bitcoin Canada
There is almost no point in thinking about the present value of bitcoin. The asset still fluctuates tremendously on a day-to-day or week to week basis. What helps when thinking about why investors in Canada should buy and hold it is simply to think about the first 11 years of bitcoin’s existence. Thousands of coins could have been had for just pennies back in 2008, and today bitcoin’s price is close to $14,000 Canadian per coin. That price is only going to go up in the next 10 years. Not just because of political unrest, but because the supply of new bitcoin’s being produced slows down every 4 to 5 years and the next time that happens will be in the spring of 2020. That’s thanks to what is known as the halving event.
In short it means that the supply of new bitcoins hitting the market cuts in half every few years as a way to control inflation.
The Best Places for Canadians to Buy Bitcoin
Now that we’ve spent a considerable amount of time preaching about the fact more Canadians should be buying bitcoin let’s talk about how to actually do it. There are many ways to get some.
- Buy bitcoin off of a friend in cash.
- Use cash at a Bitcoin ATM machine.
- Use a credit card at an exchange.
- Connect a bank account to an exchange.
How to Buy Bitcoin Off a Friend
Canadians new to cryptocurrency may not have very many friends that have bitcoin to sell. The hard part here is simply to go and meet people which isn’t hard at all. Sites like Meetup.com make it easy to find people interested in any number of topics that meet in person on a regular basis. A bitcoin meetup is a safe place to learn and a well-meaning enthusiast will be more than happy to send out some bitcoin to show newbies how it all works. Building relationships with other people eventually means being able to buy larger amounts from them. This is probably the purest form of peer-to-peer exchanges of value. True enthusiasts love to watch beginners become active participants.
Use Cash at a Bitcoin ATM Machine
Provide identification, feed money into the machine, and transfer the coin of choice onto a digital wallet. It’s as simple as that. There’s no excuse not to buy bitcoin, Canada! Using an ATM is instant, but the fees are also high. There’s a ying to every yang though. So don’t expect to find the perfect cash for bitcoin solution that doesn’t cost money, aside from asking a friend to for help.
Use a Credit Card at an Exchange
Coinbase.com allows users to buy cryptocurrencies instantly with a credit card. That includes Canadian users. Again, anybody using coinbase.com has to identify themselves, and register their name, address and credit card details on the website. It’s not advisable to keep digital assets on Coinbase because the website has been through several hacks over the years, but it’s an easy way for Canadians to get in on the crypto game.
Connect a Bank Account to an Exchange
Coinbase only allows Americans to connect their bank account to the exchange for a deposit larger than a few hundred or thousand dollars. Fortunately for Canadians, there are many other options including ShakePay.com, Bitbuy.ca and CanadianBitcoins.com. These options don’t allow investors to buy coins instantly. They do however allow investors to buy much larger amounts in one go. Registering a bank account obviously includes providing banking information, but users must also provide their full name and address, and oftentimes also must provide photo identification issued by the government of Canada.
If it wasn’t obvious before why Bitcoin is so valuable, it is now. Stop procrastinating, get out there and buy bitcoin Canada!
