Disclaimer: I am not a financial professional; I am just sharing some of my understandings based on my investment experience. There are as many perspectives as there are people, and the same applies to other matters.
Before discussing financial markets, I think it's necessary to talk about my understanding of society.
The Nature of Wealth
We all know that the essence of wealth comes from human labor. Since it's labor, it must involve accumulation over time. Even the most unfair distribution systems, through exploitation, cannot create vast wealth in a short period. So, for an individual or an organization, the only way to rapidly accumulate wealth in a short time is wealth transfer. Wealth transfer usually happens in three ways: stealing, robbing, and deceiving. The first two are typically exclusive to the state’s violent apparatus. This is the essence of power—maximizing individual benefit through control over resource allocation. Only those with power can steal or rob, such as printing money to dilute the wealth of ordinary people or certain influential figures in politics. However, deception is different. Everyone has the ability to deceive. Anyone can create a scam, and if there are enough followers, your influence can rival or even surpass that of a nation's leader, like the Pope. Therefore, as the Earth's population continues to grow, according to the theory of entropy, the entropy of society is increasing, which means the level of chaos is rising. The essence of this is the increasing number of scams. A scam, at its core, is a situation created by humans through their agency to exploit informational asymmetry. Among the many types of scams, we cannot overlook the Ponzi scheme.
The essence of a Ponzi scheme can be summed up in one sentence: first come, first served. It uses the advantage of being an early mover in a particular field to create a local asymmetric advantage, thus achieving long-term profits. A typical example is debt. It seems like a financial product that exchanges time for space, but its essence is Ponzi: through the accumulation of initial capital and control over production means, one can continue to harvest profits. Of course, humans cannot escape their animal nature; self-interest is an instinct and also the driving force behind societal development. The most equitable aspect of society is the time dimension, as we all must leave this world after several decades of life. Therefore, the way to maximize individual benefit is to use the experience accumulated in a certain field to exploit and squeeze the benefits of newcomers. Thus, we can say that Ponzi schemes are fundamental components of human society. Whether it's a scam or not depends only on the degree and interpretation.
If you agree with most of my points above, then based on this background knowledge, let me share my thoughts on financial markets, such as the stock market.
The Stock Market
In my view, the stock market, as mentioned above, is also a form of Ponzi scheme. First, the essence of a company is to maximize the interests of a few people by building an organization that acts as a producer in society. Thus, the sole purpose of a company is profit. The initial goal of the stock market was to reduce a company's financing costs by issuing some of its securities and allow investors to benefit from the company's development. At its core, it is still a financial product that exchanges time for space. However, as I mentioned earlier, with the increasing entropy of human society and the proliferation of Ponzi schemes, the role of the stock market has increasingly changed, becoming a casino where a few people implement Ponzi schemes. Especially in markets like A-shares, which lack regulation and are rife with fraud, it has become a paradise for "scalpers." Many companies view going public as their only goal because they have already been hijacked by capital, and cashing out through the secondary market is the most convenient, quickest, and lowest-risk way. Moreover, I strongly agree with a point made by a program I saw on the Youtube channel Old Wang Is Here, which says that the stock market is a more advanced form of a casino. It is a great invention by humanity because, unlike traditional casinos, in the stock market, you don’t know who your opponent is, whether you win or lose. This greatly reduces the risk after profiting, which is why it's called the scalper's paradise.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin has some unique aspects.
First, human nature tends toward freedom. As human society develops, the space humans can explore will gradually expand with the continuous upgrading of transportation tools, and physical space will constrain humans less and less. At this point, removing the constraints imposed on individuals by organizations arising from national ideologies becomes more urgent. For example, today I live in China, but tomorrow, for various reasons, I might want to immigrate to the US, and I would certainly want my assets to move with me. However, the current system doesn't allow for this. So, the emergence of Bitcoin provides us with this possibility. If everyone can reach a consensus on this matter, then there would be less need for nation-states to regulate this process.
We all want to use a globally recognized currency to anchor our assets, without having our labor wealth diluted by governments through excessive currency issuance. This currency should not be controlled by any single country, which is what is known as decentralization. Bitcoin achieves these goals very effectively.
Additionally, large countries like China and the US oppose or heavily regulate Bitcoin because its existence prevents the state from using coinage to regulate the economy, exploit its people, and assert financial hegemony over other nations. On a deeper level, the issue is that people see Bitcoin as a tool to resist government control.
Of course, I understand that many things need to be viewed dialectically. For example, Bitcoin can provide convenient money laundering channels for illegal industries, and its value as a currency is not stable. However, we cannot deny something just because of these negative aspects. Every creation solves some problems while simultaneously creating others. For example, concerning Bitcoin as a world unified currency, the problem of its unstable value. I believe the problem actually lies in the need for a change in people's mindset. We all naturally think that a currency, as a general equivalent, must have stable value. But have we ever considered that exchange rates between different countries' currencies are constantly changing? Why must Bitcoin's value remain stable? The price stability of a commodity depends on its supply and demand relationship and the reference point to which it is anchored. If Bitcoin appreciates relative to the US dollar, can we interpret it as an increasing demand for Bitcoin and a decreasing value of the dollar?
Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, many things in human society depend on one crucial factor: consensus. When more and more people reach a consensus on something, a Ponzi scheme is born. At that point, what choice will you make?