Bitcoin Ownership Made Easy

A Hassle-Free Broker Solution

If you’re looking for a way to own bitcoin via your broker, without having to go down the rabbit hole of exchanges, wallets, cold storage and all the rest of it, then today’s piece is for you.

Everybody should own at least a little bit of bitcoin. That is my long-held view. Its potential remains so enormous, why would you not want exposure?

Let me evangelise for a moment. By owning bitcoin you are effectively owning 'shares in this most brilliant, breakthrough technology, perhaps the most technologically brilliant system of money in history. The tech is already becoming the template for national currencies, CBDCs. But as an supranational money for the borderless medium that is the internet, and with its potential for micropayments, bitcoin’s potential scalability dwarfs national currencies. 

With its finite supply, it has the potential to become a widespread online savings vehicle for both individuals and corporations. With its network advantage - the first and foremost cryptocurrency - with recent advances in Lightning and with bitcoin’s incredibly robust blockchain, in a world of AI and automated payments, it has the potential to become the default cash system for the internet, the standard on which internet monies, from the mPesa to airmiles, are based.

If I look at the combined average IQ of the bitcoin space and compare it to, say, gold mining, there is no comparison. Bitcoin abounds with brain boxes. By owning bitcoin, you are effectively leveraging this extraordinarily high combined IQ. 

You can see why I think everyone should own some. (My guide to buying bitcoin is here).

That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to rush out and buy tomorrow. As I’ve outlined before, bitcoin tends to go through a repeating cycle: 

1. Quiet accumulation.

2. Frenzy and Blow-Off Top. 

3. Monster Correction. 

4. Frustrating Consolidation. 

And, at present, we are somewhere either in phase 4 or phase 1 - there is a lot of crossover between the two - but such phases can go on for a long time.

Bitcoin had a good recent move to $30,000 and then in the last week it suddenly tanked to $25,000, throwing off many bulls with the violence of the move. It may have a bit further to fall, who knows. We may be being given another buying opportunity as well.

But the practicalities of owning bitcoin can be a little problematic, so it is not for everyone. Bitcoin purists will bite my head off for saying this, but wallets and cold storage and keys and seed phrases and all the rest of it are tricky for some people. There is so much to learn and that puts people off. Nobody wants to lose their coins. Nobody wants to get hacked. (It happened to me in 2015 and it still hurts now). There is not the same insurance and protection as in traditional finance, or legacy finance as bitcoiners like to call it, and that makes many people uncomfortable. Sending money to and receiving money from bitcoin exchanges can be also problematic, in a world in which banks treat any transfer as an attempt to launder money. 

In the UK, while Rishi Sunak, when Chancellor, like George Osborne before him, gave it the big one about turning the UK into a “hub” for cryptocurrencies, the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), went the other way and made life very difficult for the UK cryptocurrency investor. It banned the sale of crypto derivatives and exchange traded notes to retail investors. It made sending money from a bank to a crypto exchange so problematic most banks refuse to do it. The plethora of scams don’t exactly help either.

All in all it takes effort and it’s the fag (English use of the term) of buying and storing bitcoin that has lead many not to not get round to it. But how many times have you kicked yourself for not buying bitcoin sooner?

I remain of the view that bitcoin’s potential, even from these levels, is too great not to have some exposure.

Today I am going to show you a simple and effective way by which you can get exposure to bitcoin via your broker. You can buy it in your ISA, your SIPP or your regular brokerage account, FCA or not. It’s not the same as owning bitcoin itself, but it saves you having to go down the rabbit hole of sending money bitcoin exchanges, safely storing your coins, seed phrases and all the rest of it. You can let somebody more competent and experienced than you do all the heavy lifting for you.