Passive investors spent a decade refusing to touch bitcoin because it moved too much. They built entire identities around not chasing speculative garbage. They gave interviews about discipline. They slept well at night knowing their money sat in boring index funds that tracked boring companies doing boring things like selling soap and processing payments.
Now those same funds are about to own SpaceX. A company that builds rockets. A company run by a man who tweets poll questions about whether he should quit his job. A company valued at whatever number Elon felt like writing down that morning. A company three times more volatile than the magic internet coins they were too sophisticated to own.
The justification was always risk-adjusted returns. Volatility mattered. Drawdowns mattered. Sleep mattered. Bitcoin moved 10% on a Tuesday because someone in El Salvador sneezed, so the responsible thing was to avoid it entirely. But SpaceX can lose a rocket full of satellites and gain $20 billion in valuation because Elon said Mars looks pretty this time of year, and suddenly volatility is just part of the growth story.
Index funds exist to remove choice. You buy the market. You own everything. You accept whatever garbage floats into the index because that is the deal. Except the deal was supposed to protect you from having to own the circus. It was supposed to keep the knife-throwers and fire-breathers in a separate tent where the gamblers could watch them alone.
Passive investing meant you did not have to explain why you owned a company that might explode on the launchpad. Now you do. Now every financial advisor who built a practice around avoiding speculation gets to tell clients they own a rocket company that is three times more volatile than the thing they specifically avoided for being too volatile.
Congratulations on your discipline.
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