I think the "cash" part is the confusing sticking part here. What currency is that in? Cash is also a position? Discounted for inflation, deflation etc. The framing of the valuation model is confined to the context of the monetary system it is within. Ie - assuming with an inflationary monetary system, I have $x cash. Where can I allocate it (at what valuation) such that I can generate a greater yield - all monetary policy implications considered.
Nope, because you can transfer between cash systems. Outsized examples to prove a point.
If Bitcoin’s are worth 1 cent each then cash flows in USD can also turn into large Bitcoin cash flows. But, Bitcoin cash flows could not turn into large USD cash flows.
Further, if Bitcoin’s value is dropping at say 15% per year then loaning them out at 10% per year is losing money vs converting them to USD, and doing nothing.
You have completely not understood anything I have written, and your example makes zero sense. Pointing out the flaws it what I can make of it - you are talking about currency conversion (this is two different monetary systems and cash positions in both). Second, your example is again talking about 2 different systems and by that metric, everybody has been losing money during the equities bull market because Bitcoin has outperformed the S and P every year bar 2, and when looking at raw purchasing power, still has outperformed even after an 85% crash. Obviously this is stupid, because in the context of the monetary system those investments were made, Apple and Tesla have done fine.
Bitcon has on net lost money every year after it was created through mining. People spend money mining, and add money to the system but the only way to extract money is for someone else to buy in. You can do a silly calculation and say if we could find a magical buyer then the net gain is their increase in price, but there is not such magical buyer which is why it's been tanking.
The core problem is Bitcoins are not a productive asset. They can't produce any cash flows.
Does cash produce cashflows? No, it doesn't - yet you would have been better off holding cash than Nvidia this year. (Note - Nvidia has cashflows and pays dividends!)
Without converting to the same currency it’s not obvious. Which is why you are taxed when an asset is sold, until then it’s purely theoretically valuable.
Suppose you sell it in six months or sixty years. Then, you can compare USD to USD and say it was a good or bad investment. Alternatively, you could say you wished you had waited a year to buy the stock.
This is important for bitcoin as you have people that buy in and have yet to sell and can’t yet say if they made a good or bad investment for them. However, with dividend stocks you can hit the point where dividends are greater than total investments thus even if nobody ever sells becase it fails the company was still a positive net investment across all investors even if some lost money.
Long story short it’s possible for companies to a net positive investment, it is not possible for Bitcoin to be. If it’s value hits 0$ then you look at all the investments and people spent X buying it, payed Y keeping the network running, and made X - Y selling it which must be less than X.
TLDR: Individials can make money in the lottery, from perymid schemes, or from Bitcoin, but on net they are all poor investments.