Stock shares are an investment because the stock market is a positive sum game in the long run. Yes there are risks but the returns produced by the market are due to actual value being generated in the form of goods and services.
Investing in Bitcoin is like investing in shares of a company that produces nothing, and which only is able to fund its continued operations by continuing to issue and sell more shares once every ten minutes. Investing in a real compay that worked that way would be considered crazy, but somehow it’s supposed to be different because it’s decentralized. The financial implications are the same though; it’s a negative sum game instead of a positive sum game.
That’s why it’s more like gambling than an investment. The amount of money that comes back out is always going to be less than the amount that goes in, in the end.
