[jonnathanson]

The distinction is subtle, but important. Let's say, for example, that I have no real idea what the price of bitcoin should be in five years -- but I am confident that enthusiasm for, and interest in, bitcoin buying and trading will grow dramatically all the while. I'd rather own the company processing the transactions than the bitcoin itself. The bitcoin might soar, and it might tank, and it might do both of those things in a mostly unpredictable, haphazard fashion. (As has been happening.) But the companies trading bitcoin don't necessarily need to buy and hold. They can make money off of transaction volume, or off of leverage against their bitcoin assets, or off of any number of things only tangentially affected by the nominal value of bitcoin.

This is sort of like the old saying about how to make money in a gold rush. You don't mine for gold; you sell picks and shovels.