Investing in Stocks vs. Cryptocurrencies

Traditional, widely accepted investment vehicles like stocks — how are they different from new digital assets like cryptocurrencies? Are there more or less compelling reasons to invest in stocks versus crypto as a retail investor?

Hello, I'm Crypto Casey, and in this video we are going to explore how investing in stocks actually shapes up against investing in cryptocurrencies — from a valuation and utility standpoint.

This video was inspired by a tweet thread by my favorite cryptoeconomist at Tasha Labs — be sure to follow her on Twitter for some great crypto content.

Awesome. Let's explore the underlying value of stocks versus cryptocurrencies so we can make better investment decisions for our futures.

What Is an Asset?

Before we get started, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about a few different concepts.

One: What is an asset? An asset is a fancy finance term that just means something useful or valuable that can be transferred between people or entities.

It can be:

• something physical like gold,

• shares of companies like stocks,

• something digital like Bitcoin,

• something abstract like expertise,

• a financial instrument like a retirement plan,

• or anything that helps you generate income — like a car, computer, or cell phone.

3 Qualities of Assets

Let’s explore three characteristics of assets that make them more or less valuable over time:

1. Limited Supply

Assets with a limited supply are more valuable than those with an unlimited supply.

Think about real estate — at least in the physical world, it’s very limited and increasingly price-prohibitive for most retail investors. Bitcoin is another example: it has a hard cap of 21 million coins.

Both are considered better stores of value than fiat money (cash), whose supply can increase into oblivion — as we’ve seen in recent years. As goods and services rise in price due to shortages and increased demand, the money used to buy them loses purchasing power due to its unlimited supply.

Stocks are different — the number of shares a company issues or buys back causes the supply to fluctuate over time.

2. Durability

Durability refers to an asset’s ability to:

• retain value over time,

• be transported across space,

• and be exchanged between buyers, sellers, or inheritors.

Diamonds, for instance, are physically durable — they’re chemically stable and strong. They’re also desirable in the jewelry market, giving them abstract durability.

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are durable digitally — thanks to their immutable and transparent existence on a decentralized blockchain. They’re hard to destroy and easy to transport or exchange.

Stocks, on the other hand, depend on the continued success of the issuing company. Plus, you don’t physically possess them — you just have price exposure through apps like Robinhood or Fidelity. You can't send them to friends or family — you can only buy and sell them within your brokerage account.

3. Social Agreement

Social agreement means a substantial number of people agree that something has value.

Diamonds have high social agreement because of their durability and desirability. Gold has stood the test of time as a store of value, jewelry material, and even technology component.

Stocks have modern-day social agreement.

With cryptocurrencies, forming social agreement is harder — it requires a near-perfect storm:laws, regulations, institutional and retail adoption, psychological trends, and solid technological infrastructure.

But Bitcoin has managed it. Over the past decade, it's created a path for other digital assets to gain social agreement too.

Meme Culture as a Form of Social Agreement

Social agreement isn't always based on real utility.

Think about GameStop and AMC — meme culture dramatically inflated their value. The same happened in crypto with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu — meme tokens driven by community sentiment, not fundamentals.

Memes are now a legitimate (if unpredictable) form of social agreement — in both the stock and crypto world.

Social Agreement: Stocks vs. Crypto

One traditional valuation method for stocks: Stock price × Total number of shares = Market value of the company.

But that’s just as arbitrary as:Token price × Total supply = Market cap of the crypto project.

The first is based on old-school agreement. The second — on new, decentralized social networks and perspectives.

Both are valid. Both are arbitrary.

Owning Stocks vs. Owning Crypto

Back in the day, stocks paid dividends. If the company did well, shareholders got paid.

But since the 1950s, dividend payout ratios have dropped drastically. Some of the most successful companies — like Amazon — have never paid dividends.

So if you own Amazon stock, you get:

• No dividends

• No share in profits

• No direct benefit, even if the company does well

You only benefit if the price goes up and someone else buys your stock.

Now compare that to crypto like Bitcoin or Dogecoin. They don’t pay dividends either — but if you store them in your own wallet, you actually own and control the asset.

With stocks, you don’t have real custody — just a representation of ownership on your brokerage app.

What You Can Do with Crypto That You Can’t with Stocks

With crypto, you can:

• Hold it in your own wallet

• Borrow against it

• Lend it for interest

• Stake it for rewards

• Qualify for airdrops

• Transfer it globally 24/7, for a low fee

With stocks — you can’t do any of that.

Valuation: Arbitrary or Logical?

Amazon’s profits don’t go to shareholders. So when stock prices go up, it’s only because other investors are willing to pay more — based on social agreement.

Same with many crypto tokens: they offer no utility, no yield… yet their prices rise. Why? Because people apply the same valuation logic:Token price × Total supply = Market cap

Adopt Better Investment Strategies

Many investors in crypto are just gambling, because they don’t know how to tell a quality project from a meme. Any gains they make come from others in the market behaving the same way.

So — what’s the takeaway?

We need to develop better frameworks to assess crypto projects — based not on hype, but on economic output.

I've created a beginner guide on how to assess Layer 1 and Layer 2 crypto projects using this framework. You can apply the same method to any token or blockchain.

Instead of trusting influencers or token price × supply calculations —let’s assess projects based on real indicators:

• Economic output

• Profit-sharing with token holders (like dividends)

• Total network usage

• Transaction volume

• Velocity

• On-chain activity

This gives us a better, more accurate way to evaluate future value.

Outro

Thanks so much for taking the time to watch this video!

If you enjoyed it, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel for more crypto content.

So — what do you think about the comparison of stocks vs. crypto? Are you going to check out the evaluation guide? Which cryptos are you researching next?

Let me know in the comments.

Be safe out there.