Like a stock, you can buy and hold Bitcoin as an investment. You can even now do so in special retirement accounts called Bitcoin IRAs. No matter where you choose to hold your Bitcoin, people’s philosophies on how to invest it vary: Some buy and hold long term, some buy and aim to sell after a price rally, and others bet on its price decreasing. Bitcoin’s price over time has experienced big price swings, going as low as $5,165 and as high as $28,990 in 2020 alone. “I think in some places, people might be using Bitcoin to pay for things, but the truth is that it’s an asset that looks like it’s going to be increasing in value relatively quickly for some time,” Marquez says. “So why would you sell something that’s going to be worth so much more next year than it is today? The majority of people that hold it are long-term investors.”
Mr. Durov launched Telegram in late 2013 with his brother, Nikolai, just months before he was pushed out of VK, the Russian social-media platform he founded. Mr. Durov pitched his new app—funded with the proceeds from the VK sale—less as a business than as a way for people to send messages while avoiding government surveillance and censorship.
