Bitcoin is a bearer instrument. You likely know that term as "bearer bonds" and know "bearer bonds" because Hans Gruber seized Nakatomi Plaza exclusively so he could steal them.

A "bearer instrument" is a document or object that says "whoever is holding this document or instrument is also holding 100 shares of Enron stock" or whatever. 1 share of the LA County Public Library renovation bond. 1 share of Big Brother & The Holding Company Inc. When I incorporated the first time my lovely $700 package included 100 shares of common stock. I gave one to a buddy which served to complicate my taxes so I had to ask it back. It was worth negative money. I bought ETH at 50 cents; theoretically, that one share entitles him to 1% of the ETH I'd bought.

It will not surprise you that municipalities and enforcement agencies frown on bearer instruments because they're portable wealth for purposes of tax evasion and smuggling. It will also not surprise you to learn that tax and accounting practice treats crypto of all kinds as an intangible.

Intangibles can have value. You have no problem with this. If I offered you a 1% share in the rights to the Happy Birthday song in 2015 for $1m you would have jumped at the chance. That song made Warner Chappell something like $70m a year. By 2016, however, credible evidence that Warner Chappell never owned it, the song slipped into public domain, and now your ownership would be worthless.

70% of the Bitcoin miners in the world are in China. They store portable value on the black market for Chinese citizens of means. Every dollar's worth of Bitcoin ties up a real dollar, and most of the people who buy it don't sell it. This makes it the opposite of a Ponzi scheme whereby the people who buy in early subsist off of selling product to people who buy in late.

You can be mad at Bitcoin because it doesn't adhere to your morals or your understanding or your chosen worldview but one thing all cryptohaters have in common is a studied, practiced and vehement insistence that their unexamined worldview is the proper model for something they don't want to understand.

Kodak's marketcap is $750m right now. They haven't made anything for a decade. Earlier this year they were going to make vaccines. Last year they were going to be a cryptocurrency company. yet you can buy that shit with your IRA.