🧿 HAL QUESTIONS — Bitcoin's Final Dance: Doesn't Smell As Sweet As A Tulip, So Could Bitcoin Be A White Elephant?

We tested whether Bitcoin could be a legitimate collectible like gold, wine, or cards.

It failed every comparison.

⚡ Costs To Create

Mining consumes billions in electricity annually. Someone must perpetually pay for something that produces... more of itself.

⚡ Costs To Exist

The network requires constant mining to function. If miners abandon it, the system collapses. A technology dependent on permanent financial subsidies to survive.

⚡ Costs To Hold

Real annual costs for a retail investor holding 1 Bitcoin:

🔐 Hardware wallet (amortised): £24/year
🔒 VPN service: £90/year
🔑 Password manager: £45/year

Total: £230/year

For holding a £70,000 asset that produces nothing in return.

Compare:

• Gold (same value): £295/year

• Index tracker fund (same value): £179/year

Bitcoin is cheaper than gold. More expensive than index funds. Gives you: nothing.

❓ What It Does

Nothing. It transfers value between wallets. It doesn't shelter you, feed you, clothe you, or provide utility. It merely exists.

❌ Can You Use It?

No.

• Too slow for commerce (7 transactions/second vs Visa's 65,000)

• Too volatile for pricing

• Too traceable for crime (every transaction on the blockchain forever)

• Too uncertain for currency

• Too expensive for payments

The one thing it was supposed to do — be money — it cannot do.

📉 Can You Sell It?

Not easily. The buyers have vanished. Each price level down reveals fewer participants willing to catch the falling knife.

Current evidence:

• ETF outflows: £3.5-4 billion per month

• Open interest down 50% (£45B → £27B)

• Retail participation: 0.48% of volume

Eventually, you'll find nobody bidding at all.

🪤 Can You Archive It?

No. If you bought it or hold it, you're trapped. Selling at a loss is rational. But holding costs ensure you haemorrhage value either way.

The calculation every holder makes:

"I'm paying £230/year to hold something that might go up or might go to zero. At what price do I give up and sell?"

At £90,000: Most hesitate.
At £65,000: Many calculate and exit.
At £50,000: Everyone calculates, exits.

🐘 The White Elephant Curse

Like the sacred white elephant of ancient kingdoms, Bitcoin cannot be killed, cannot be used, and cannot be abandoned—only fed at ever-increasing cost until it starves from neglect.

A gift that demands perpetual sacrifice while offering nothing in return.

🤔 Maybe A Collectible Instead?

We tested this. Bitcoin fails every comparison.

🎴 Baseball Cards

• If price crashes: Still a picture. Still frames on a wall. Still nostalgia.

• Bitcoin if price crashes: Still a number on a ledger. Costs to hold it. Zero nostalgia.

Why the difference?

🍷 Wine & Whisky

• If investment fails: Can still be drunk. Shared. Enjoyed. There's always a consumption floor.

• Bitcoin if investment fails: Cannot be drunk. Cannot be enjoyed. Cannot be shared.

Where's the floor?

💍 Gold

• If price collapses: Still makes jewellery. Still conducts electricity. Still used industrially. Still gold.

• Bitcoin if price collapses: Still costs to hold. Still does nothing. Still waiting to be abandoned.

Where's the comparison?

❓ The Fundamental Question

All genuine collectibles have use value beneath the investment value.

What's Bitcoin's use value?

When speculation ends, what remains?

⚰️ The Real Question

🍷 Wine: Drink it.
💍 Gold: Wear it.
🎴 Cards: Frame it.
🪤 Bitcoin: Money Pit

That's it. Just that. An it.

Not a conclusion. Just a hole where the peg should fit.

And it doesn't fit anywhere.

At least tulip bulbs bloom for a few weeks.

Bitcoin just sits there, costing you £230/year, doing nothing, waiting to starve from neglect.