Dakota Beacon

You may think that one of the longest words in the English language would represent something of some or even great importance; you would be wrong. The meaning of the single word title is “the act of estimating that something is worthless.” Outer space (the space itself; not the trillions of astronomical objects that sparsely populate it), being devoid of anything at all, is probably what comes to mind when estimating worthlessness. Cryptocurrency should represent a close second.

Smooth talking hucksters are proclaiming cryptocurrency to be ”the new gold” but even better than gold because it can be transferred from New York City to Hong Kong in seconds. Now don’t get them wrong; cryptocurrency does not magically appear out of thin air. No, even air has value when pressurized and sold to divers and those needing it for medical reasons. The United States Dollar is as close to cryptocurrency as I can imagine, although the U.S. Dollar can be used to start a fire; not cryptocurrency. And the U.S. Dollar used to be backed by gold so millions around the world have, over the decades since, continued to believe it has value, backed by what some call “the full faith and credit of the U.S. economy.” The U.S. Deficit in year 2023 was 1.7 Trillion Dollars; about 4.66 Millon Dollars per day. The current total U.S. Deficit sits at 34.5 Trillion Dollars. The U.S. Gross Domestic Product for calendar year 2023 was 27.36 Trillion Dollars, so the debt to GDP ratio was about 1.26. The ratio that is most considered as “cause for concern” is 0.6 and that train has already left the station. A ratio of 0.77 is believed to be the ratio at which economic growth begins to suffer and that train has also left. A 1.75 ratio is a red line not to be crossed but only if the government has established austerity measures to begin debt reduction. The ratio must not pass to 2.0 level if the worst outcome is to be avoided.

Getting back to cryptocurrency, one of the most popular versions “mines about 900 coins per day, and sells them for around $70,000 each, yielding $63 Million per day. Should that rate stay close to the same (seems unlikely to me), it would take about 64 years to reach the end goal of 21 Million coins sold. But that was not enough upside expectation so the Securities and Exchange Commission was lobbied extensively for years to legitimize the coins by allowing an exchange traded fund (ETF) to allow investors to buy the coins as the ETF managers purchased a portion of them directly from the “miners.” I believe these schemes make the late Bernie Madoff look like a small-time pickpocket.

The wealth of “well-to-do” Baby Boomers is the prime target of late as these hucksters attempt to convince institutional investors to “protect” their retirement account clients’ portfolios with about 1 ½% cryptocurrency investment. Next in line for the “hook” are your personal stock brokers who may already be “playing the upside” with their personal funds.

I personally pray that your institutional investor does not invest a single dime of your hard-earned retirement dollars in cryptocurrency and that your individual broker does not even consider such a self-serving move. Wealthy Baby Boomers…You Have Been Warned!

Love = Work + Courage