728: Why Bitcoin is the Smart Alternative to Property Investment in the 2020s
07-08-2025
PropertyInvesting.net team
If you’re visiting this site, chances are you’re a property investor — or at the very least, someone who understands the value of real assets in a world of ever-depreciating fiat currency. You probably think property is one of the safest long-term investments you can make. But in 2025 and beyond, this assumption deserves serious scrutiny.
Let’s lay out a few uncomfortable truths. First, inflation is here to stay. No matter what central banks say, the systemic forces of monetary expansion, energy price volatility, and supply chain shifts are driving long-term price increases. That means the cost of maintaining property — materials, labour, insurance — will continue to skyrocket. And because inflation is entrenched, interest rates will also stay high. This isn’t a temporary blip; high interest rates mean less borrowing and weaker asset price growth. For many markets, that could mean a protracted downturn or even a full-blown crash.
Second, governments are becoming desperate. As public debt balloons and tax revenues struggle to keep up, property is an easy target. Council tax, capital gains, stamp duty, wealth taxes — expect all of them to increase. Property owners will shoulder an ever-greater fiscal burden.
Third, red tape is strangling the private landlord. Regulation is tightening every year, with new laws favouring tenants, bureaucratic oversight expanding, and compliance costs rising. Planning permissions, environmental standards, HMO rules, licensing, safety checks — it’s a never-ending headache. Meanwhile, legal fees, professional fees, and service charges are spiraling out of control.
Fourth, generational attitudes are shifting. Millennials and Gen Z are less interested in being tied down by a mortgage and more inclined to rent or travel. The very people you hope to rent or sell your property to are now questioning the value of long-term ownership in a rapidly changing world.
Finally, UK-specific risks compound the global picture. A socialist Labour government looks increasingly likely, and with it will come higher taxes and tighter regulation. Meanwhile, de-industrialisation, AI-induced unemployment, and surging energy prices are sapping the foundations of the UK economy. The result? An increasingly fragile and illiquid property market.
In contrast, an entirely new form of investment is rapidly capturing the attention of forward-thinking investors — Bitcoin.
Why Property Investors Are Pivoting to Bitcoin
Bitcoin is not just a speculative asset. It’s becoming the cornerstone of a new financial architecture, offering advantages that property — for all its historical prestige — simply cannot match.
1. Liquidity and Portability: Bitcoin is liquid gold. It can be sold instantly, 24/7, in any country on Earth. You don’t need estate agents, solicitors, or six-month delays. You can store your life savings on a smartphone or in your head (via a seed phrase), and travel across borders freely. Try doing that with a buy-to-let in Croydon.
2. Sovereignty and Security: Bitcoin cannot be repossessed. It cannot be seized by a rogue council, a desperate government, or an overzealous legal system. It is the only form of property that exists outside of the state’s reach. Your Bitcoin is truly yours — if you hold your private keys, no one else can touch it.
3. Taxation Efficiency: Bitcoin is not taxed unless sold. No stamp duty. No council tax. No rental income tax. No maintenance fees. Just capital gains tax — and only if and when you sell. That gives you breathing space to think long-term and build wealth.
4. Freedom from Bureaucracy: There are no planning permissions, no tenancy laws, no building regulations, and no meddling local councils. Bitcoin is a pure asset — not wrapped in red tape or political interference.
5. Asymmetric Upside: Bitcoin’s current market cap is ~$1.8 trillion — a tenth of gold’s $18 trillion. Yet Bitcoin is superior to gold in almost every way: it’s more portable, divisible, secure, and harder to confiscate. A tenfold rise in price just to match gold’s market share is rational, not radical. But the real prize is bigger: the global property market is worth $100 trillion, and the global bond market ~$200 trillion. If Bitcoin captures just a fraction of these markets as a store of value, a 100x price increase over the next 5–15 years is plausible. We are entering the steep slope of the S-curve — Bitcoin adoption is accelerating even faster than the internet did in the 1990s.
What Bitcoin Is – And Why It Matters
Bitcoin is more than a financial instrument. It’s a revolution in monetary architecture. It is:
1 Liquid gold: Scarce, secure, and sellable.
2 An immutable, unhackable protocol: Protected by the world’s largest computing network.
3 Digital energy: A stored unit of time and work, transformed into value.
4 Freedom and hope: Especially for billions in countries plagued by inflation, capital controls, and corrupt governments.
5 A peaceful protest: Against fiat debasement and coercive financial systems.
6 Global and decentralised: No single point of failure, no central bank interference.
7 An insurance policy: Against currency collapse, economic mismanagement, and global instability.
8 A Veblen good: It becomes more desirable as its price increases.
9 A new form of property: Tax-efficient, mobile, indestructible.
10 A pristine savings vehicle: For families, businesses, and sovereign entities.
11 The best-performing asset of the last 15 years: And still in its early innings.
Bitcoin is all of these things and more. It changes the investor. It forces long-term thinking, lowers time preference, and restores faith in the future.
The Case for a Strategic Pivot
In a world where governments print recklessly, tax aggressively, and regulate vindictively, Bitcoin offers a form of escape. It’s a life raft from the failing fiat system — a digital Manhattan before the skyscrapers. A piece of cyberspace that cannot be inflated, diluted, or expropriated.
You don’t have to sell all your property. But ask yourself: what percentage of your portfolio is ready for the world of 2030? The world where AI eats jobs, taxes rise to fund bloated states, property becomes a burden, and freedom of capital is under siege? In that world, Bitcoin may not just be an opportunity — it may be your only lifeline.
Conclusion
The 2020s are not the 1990s. The old rules of investing are breaking down. Property, once the safe bet, is becoming riskier by the year. Bitcoin, once the outsider, is becoming the new default. It is time to stop thinking of it as a fringe asset — and start thinking of it as a core pillar of wealth preservation.
Bitcoin gives you mobility. It gives you control. It gives you peace of mind. Most of all, it gives you time.
And time — not bricks and mortar — is the scarcest asset of all.