I have a bit less faith in real estate than you do. My impression is that, from a regulatory point of view, real estate is regarded as a safe investment because

I have a bit less faith in real estate than you do. My impression is that, from a regulatory point of view, real estate is regarded as a safe investment because that results in cheap mortgages, and cheap mortgages are popular among voters. It's not that real estate is safe per se. Index funds usually recover to before-crisis levels in about 5 years, so they're not terribly risky in that sense. The Bitcoin believers were always lunatics. That people will believe in stupid shit is nothing new.