Why Is Bitcoin So Volatile, Anyway? Fidelity Digital Assets Explains

Let Fidelity take the wheel and drive you through the wonderful world of volatility. Bitcoin critics wield one of the asset’s main characteristics as an unsolvable failure, but, is it? According to Fidelity, “bitcoin is fundamentally volatile.” That doesn’t deter it from fulfilling “its ultimate investment objective of preserving wealth over long time periods.” Related Reading | Fidelity Says What We’ve Been Thinking: Countries & Central Banks Will Buy BTC The company said all that in Fidelity ‘s latest edition of “The Research Round-Up.” In their longer explanation, they use oil and gold as examples to explain the whole volatility process. We’re in the summarizing business, though. Here at NewsBTC, we will distill their article, state the main points, and briefly comment on them. Fidelity Explains Bitcoin’s Fixed Supply “Bitcoin is unique in that it is a good whose supply is completely inelastic to changes in price. In other words, supply does not (and cannot) change in response to price.” There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin and that’s that. With other goods, there’s a cycle. “Going back to economic principles, we know that when demand increases for a good, in the short-term the price will rise. However, the higher price then incentivizes suppliers to produce more. More supply will then bring down the price.” This doesn’t happen in bitcoin. “With bitcoin, supply cannot change regardless of what price doe...