Here is food for thought, concerning returns and the security of a non-USA based broker. Mining companies vs. BTC in the last 10 days: BTC: 48K-->61K 27% MARA: 32-->48 50% MSTR: 585-->750 28% RIOT: 24.5-->28 14% HUT: 8.75-->12.25 40% So it looks like being long of a mining company provides a better return and you don't need to open an account in the Bahamas... Did I mention there are options on these stocks?
Part of the US payment system is still in the middle ages. They still use checks. My children don't even know what that is as we don't use them anymore for decades already. We use almost always (probably around 90% of all our expenses) electronic ways to pay. Fast and cheap. China is more advanced in these things than the US. Check use is declining in all countries - but USA is at least a decade behind others. Finland stopped using checks in 1993, Poland in 2006. The US financial sector is far less innovative than others. The lack of adoption of CHIP'N'PIN is an example. The late adoption of automated payments, which mean people use checks far more.
A lot of people lack knowledge about transfering money anywhere, fast and cheap. Crypto's abuse this lack of knowledge to pretend you need crypto's for fast and cheap payments.
Try https://www.wise.com . You can have multiple currencies (USD, EUR, CNY etc.) in your acct and also convert from/to each other using current market conversion rates. Each currency has its own account number, so people can send to your right currency account. One can use it also as a currency trading account, by doing such currency conversions in your account... ACH transfers to US bank account is relatively cheap, for example $350 from source location Europe to dest loc USA costs only about $0.51. It takes about half to a whole day until the money receives the destination. On the other hand, normal "Wire transfers" are more expensive than "ACH transfers". ACH is avail with US banks.
*BELCH* I like bulls, no matter what form they take. Even the crazy crypto ones. X-Mas is coming. I am starting to feel that 100K pull as we get nearer the EOY.
Ok, confirming that I just bought .0801 BTC @ $62,394 From this point forward, I'll be spreading my wings and venturing beyond BTC to snag up some ETH, MATIC, and SOL. In terms of the overall progress (or lack thereof.... LOL) in the account, I will be summarizing at the end of each month, but I may give progress reports more frequently as well if the need arises.
The mining companies have provided a better return recently but the risk is definitely way higher. Right off the bat, when you buy a mining stock, you're not buying a decentralized secure asset like bitcoin. You're buying a proxy of bitcoin, which in this case is a mining company that represents a single point of failure within the ecosystem of all BTC miners. In other words, you're buying a single puzzle piece instead of the whole completed puzzle. And the mining stock you buy is subject to all the risks of having a real physical business, such as maintaining leases for buildings, finding qualified employees and cheap energy, constantly spending capital to have the latest and greatest mining rigs, and of course you have to factor in the possibility of a physical location with mega-hot servers everywhere burning down to the ground because of an unforeseen circumstance. Yes, it's an extremely profitable business, but there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to mining, and the competition between the miners is fierce. If you want to own miners, go for it. But the purpose of this journal is to focus on accumulating the crypto-assets themselves, not the individual companies that participate in creating those assets.