You only get screwed if your loan to asset ratio is too high, OR, if you don't have enough assets.
If you've got 20 bitcoin, and you take out a loan for 2 bitcoin, you are NEVER losing your bitcoin.
If you have 2 bitcoin, and you take out a loan with the 2 bitcoin, yes, you're playing with fire.
Plus, what you're also missing is that bitcoin is more volatile today. It won't be like that in 10 years. With each cycle it actually gets more stable.
The 2013 high was $1240.
2017: $17249
2021: $69000
That's a 14x from 2013 to 2017 and a 4x from 2017 to 2021.
Drops from 2013 was around 85%
2017 was about 82%
2021 was 77%
The other things to notice is:
post-2013 lows was jan 2015 to oct 2015. Peak was 5 minutes. lol.
2017 peak was similarly quick, but the low was only 25 nov 2018 to feb 5 2019. really 2.5 months.
2021 peak was VERY LONG.
It was basically Feb 2021 to Nov 2021, and it only dropped to $35k-$45k and held for until April 2022.
There was a mid bull drop to $29k but it went back up even higher and that was more of a black swan event caused by covid, regulations and other major news. The fact it recovered after this showed how what's really happened with it.
Then the 2021 dip was a minute. So we've reversed from the peaks being a minute, and the dips being LONG, to the peaks being LONG and the dips being a minute.
You had 6 weeks to get bitcoin sub $20k.
Even the $20k-$25k was only 6 months, including the 6 weeks of sub $20k. There was really not much time to get it low.
It was $30k in June 2022 and wasback at $30k by March 2023.
That's VERY strong. That means it maintained almost 50% of its peak other than a 9 month period, and without the FTX fiasco we wouldn't have seen a $15k bitcoin, or a drop for so long.
By 2035 you're not going to see more than 30-40% drops between peaks, and 30-40% in 2035 would be very short lived with people eating it up.
So it'll be an incredibly secure asset to take loans against.
Even now, it's FINE as long as you don't take a bitcoin loan during a bull like an idiot, or you don't take a loan with ALL your bitcoin.
From last bull to lowest was only a 4.3x drop, so if you took a loan with 1 of your bitcoin at the PEAK of the bull, with a loan to asset ratio of 0.4 then when it dropped to $27600 you'd get margin called and need to supply more bitcoin. With a 0.4 ratio at the lowest of $16k you'd need to put up 1.725 bitcoin. So even if you had only TWO bitcoin, and were a complete idiot taking your loan at $69k, then you'd still survive with room to spare.
And if you did somehow manage to lose it? Well, you got $27600 cash. What did you do with the cash? I hope you made a good ROI from it.
If not, and you still had it, then you'd be able to buy 1.725 bitcoin at $16k.
So worst case, you are not going to lose that much. If it drops so hard you do get margin called and can't supply more collateral, then great, because bitcoin is so low now you can buy a ton.
Realistically, you take loans in bear markets where it's already low. So you'd have taken a bitcoin loan when it was $20k-$30k you're ultra safe.