Bitcoin

Yaaawn.

I made a modest investment -- won't hurt to lose, won't make me rich. But I am happy with my investment doubling in just a couple of months. That said, it's all on paper, this is a hold for me, I'm going to bet that there's a few hundred more percent to go. That said, my investment is modest enough that I won't cry if it retreats (I bought at around $13k). This is clearly a high risk, high reward investment. If you are a "believer" or "hater", you're fucking retarded. It's an investment, size up the risk and rewards for yourself, see if you have enough wealth to have built up some "high risk high reward" investment money, and go from there. Faith or hate is stupid.

Subraman, you would do well to study some economics and finance..... and history! There are quite a few very well-educated people--economists, historians, extremely successful hedge fund investors--who believe in Bitcoin because of macro-economic and political reasons. And it's playing out exactly as they predicted.

In other words, don't you dare call me retarded, asshole.

I didn't call you retarded. I just described retarded people. If you saw yourself in that description, not my doing 🤣

In any case, there are lots of well-educated people -- economists, etc -- who don't believe in Bitcoin also. I don't make my investment by cherry-picking people who say what I believe on faith. Like I said, though, I think bitcoin is high risk high reward, and I'm in a position to have some high risk high reward investments, and some of those investments are in bitcoin.

I have a buddy has decided bitcoin is a bad investment for political reasons, and the last thing he said to me before I invested at $13k is, "okay I'll watch and laugh as you lose all your money". He might see himself in my description of retarded people also lol...

I just started investing in cryptocurrency. I hope the trend continues. Investment has grown 36% in 30 days. We shall see.

If I am gambling and up a lot of chips I can turn it from a "paper profit", into cash, which last I heard, was accepted everywhere. Same deal with owning stocks. Until I do, the profit isn't worth the paper on which my investment account is written. I can of course sell them and and get cash, as with chips. Right now bitcoin millionaires remind me of my Buddy who got a sing on bonus of 15,000 shares of MCI/Worldcom. He too was rich .......he ended up with ........ As far as the people the OP cites as seeing this as a great investment? Very cool; some people think Trump won in a landslide.

I cashed out this morning I doubled my double originally brought 5K sold half when that doubled, the 5K I had left doubled this morning so as I had already arranged I cashed out, I’m going to be giving my kids a nice cash gift this month

skibum: exactly the right, and only, attitude to have. As I said in my original post, "That said, it's all on paper, this is a hold for me,", it's meaningless until I cash it in. ESPECIALLY with something so volatile with so much risk. That said, I'm holding because I think it has the potential to have a few hundred percent to go -- but I'm pretty much bragging to no one about where things stand, because I recognize it's basically nothing.

No, Subraman, you did not describe retarded people.

A lot of those well-educated people who didn't believe in Bitcoin are now buying. Remember when Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a fraud? JP Morgan Chase is now predicting 300k bitcoin. One of Bitcoin's harshest critics, Nouriel Roubini, recently admitted that Bitcoin may be a store of value. How about Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock - the world's largest asset manager, with over $7 trillion under management - he updated his stance on Bitcoin, and now acknowledges its potential GLOBAL relevance. Former Bitcoin non-believer, Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, now believes in Bitcoin and predicts it will hit 100k. Ray Dalio also recently admitted that Bitcoin may be an alternative to gold. Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy, said in 2013 that Bitcoin is just for gambling, and now he's invested about $1 billion of his company's treasury into Bitcoin.

One by one, they've been converted and are bullish, because Bitcoin is the hardest form of money in existence. They are old boomers, but they are either smart enough, or they are surrounded by enough smart people, to have figured it out and changed their belief.

But, perhaps you're right, perhaps they're all retarded. Perhaps Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Drunkenmiller, Bill Miller, Jim Cramer, Michael Saylor (who graduated from MIT), Larry Fink.... perhaps they're ALL retarded, with IQs less than 70. And yet, they're all billionaires, or close to it.

I wonder what that says about you.

Now I'll forget about the "retarded" comment as mere hyperbole.

On some level all markets are a bit of a gamble, but with the right education and a basic understanding of how the markets work you can level it out and even make some money, I mean when you come right down to it all of life is a gamble, you just gotta play whatever hand you’re dealt, to the best of your ability.
Now with that being said it brings me to my favorite expression
“I’d rather be lucky than talented”

Sitting on my BTC for the last 3 years to go big or go home. No plans to sell until well in the future.

I actually view it as a kind of a hedge to my stock portfolio. It could also be viewed as sort of a catostrophic claims insurance for the fiat $.

Bitcoin’s value holds as long as it doesn’t get banned in too many countries. The US government can’t block transactions from occurring, but for now they seem satisfied knowing that the vast majority of transactions are easily traceable. All that said, I own some BTC and I’m going to continue holding.

FTS: yes I did. Both the faith-based "believers" and the irrational haters are retarded. One can dispassionately look at bitcoin as just another interesting investment instrument and decide to jump in or stay out, without having to become a true believer or irrational hater ("retarded" is just my shorthand for both those things). I can recognize the believers by the irrational exhuberant posts they used to make before the first bitcoin crash; faith crushed, they mercifully mostly kept quiet since then; and now coming back to crow.

Uprightcitizen: What finally got me to jump in is exactly thinking of it as a hedge!

Subraman, no you didn't, you're using the word "retarded" incorrectly. I suggest a dictionary. Also, you seem to have a misconception of the word "belief." Not all beliefs are based on nothing but blind faith. Beliefs can be based on very strong evidence and logic. Perhaps you should take a course on epistemology.

retarded
[ ri-tahr-did ]
verb - simple past tense of retard.
adjective - Older Use: Usually Offensive. characterized by a slowness or limitation in intellectual understanding and awareness, emotional development, academic progress, etc.


I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you purposely used those words incorrectly.

While you're in the dictionary, looking up pedantic and obtuse might be useful! And also getting a general feel for how actual people just sometimes throw "retarded" around to fuck with each other... this requires social interaction to observe

My name is Elmer J. Fudd, Millionaire; I own a mansion and a yacht.

Subraman, I'm familiar, it's a lot like calling somebody an asshole. And, I wasn't the one who used any words incorrectly, so I'm not sure why you're suggesting I look up anything in a dictionary (sarcasm, I know exactly why, asshole). I just enjoy correcting people when they're wrong.

You wanted to fuck around so you used the word "retarded" incorrectly. Let's move on.

In Bostonese retard can be anything and everything between an insult and a compliment. as in : " you are fucking wicked awesome you tahd." Retirement seems like a good time to enjoy skiing, golf, gambling and hiking .... all the things I do too much now, so i will keep working thanks.

We might all be slightly retarded for being on this forum

I'm glad bitcoins rising up some of the comedy godl I've read on r/bitcoin is hilarious.

I feel bad for everyone who has been hurt by such a shitty invention though.

Let’s see we’re all talking about retards and investments and Juice is nowhere to be found...

I got da shit coinz for days and you boyz made fun of me. Who da dumaas now?

If y'all gonna talk about Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are any of you smart guys going to buy in on Coinbase when it makes it IPO announcement, they've initiated the paperwork with the SEC, it could be a smart way to own crypto.

Funny story: Many years ago I had a socially inept, computer nerd type as an acquaintance.

This 'nerd" and his family lived close to poverty because he invested all his money in buying equipment to mine bitcoin.

Of course back then I scoffed at anyone dumb enough to invest in any of this currency voodoo.

Yea, dude is wealthy now and I'm no longer scoffing.

"Let’s see we’re all talking about retards and investments and Juice is nowhere to be found..."

That's a good point. Of the all the things juice pretends to do, you'd think pretending to be into crypto would be high on the list

@Sub...Its too hard to spell stuff like Crypto or Satoshi

@Lone Wolf. Replace "bitcoin" with "beanie babies" and your sentence would still make sense.

Bitcoin and crypto is shit invention with the way it functions. It is a decentralized ponzi scheme. If someone gained fiat on it its because someone else lost fiat

@BitCoinHodler. Have fun being poor.

Thank you FTS, will do.

I'd like to make sure you(or anyone in your downline/whatever your pyramid scheme calls whoever you recruit in) do not lose their pedo pesos.

https://nypost.com/2018/05/26/i-accident…
^Here is an article of someone who lost their passcode or threw away their cold storage and lost their pedo pesos forever. I am glad my fiat institution(bank) doesn't have that problem. When I was younger I would routinely forget my password and yet I could still access my account by calling them and answering some basic questions.

With the passing of Jeffrey Epstein there is no longer a bitcoin customer service to call to assist in recovering your pedo pesos/bitcoin.

I may be poor, but I am confidant the measly amount of money I have is secure and safe.

Haters continue your unreasonable hate...

Maybe you can give Janet Yellen some love. Dont get your hopes up, I hear she like sticking her fingers into dikes.

I'm an open fervent hater of bitcoin. I hate it for the technology that it is, I will hate it at 47k, I will hate it at 47 cents.

Its a shit technology and reading literature from crypto cultists makes me chuckle.

Notice none of my genuine criticisms ever get answered, these guys just point to the price. Its a decentralized pyramid scheme where people are convinced to buy in at a higher price, eventually it'll come crashing down.

Revel in your misplaced hate.

I have no love for whats been going on at the Fed. But fiat has increased +25% baseline since pandenic and projected +40% post pandemic. These are horrifying increases by any interpretation. Commodities are a no brainer...

Hey securities will do fine if thats your thing...pent up demand and stimulus will mean inflation and stocks are also a great bet in that environment.

The market is in another upswing and fundamentals are out of kilter

How are you going to call my hate misplaced?

I hate it because it can't be controlled by a central authority which is the number one selling point of bitcoin, lol. This means that people can pseudoanonymously buy content like animal torture videos on the dark web without a central authority like the US govt stopping it. I also don't like it cause its deflationary, inflation is good for the economy a deflationary currency is not good at all.

Also yes the money supply has increased but you're missing the context of a pandemic and public health crisis where a central authority can just print money to keep people afloat where the other option would be to have people working as normal and inundating our hospitals and alot of people dying. The American people clearly like the printing money option more than that one. No "fiat lovers" thinks the increased money supply is good, but we understand its preferable to nothing and having people on their own during a pandemic.

Imagine if bitcoin were our currency for this, there'd be chaos. This isn't misplaced hate, its genuine criticism of bitcoin that just gets dismissed as a salty nocoiner spewing garbage.

@BitcoinHodler I’m writing this with the most respect that I can possibly muster...

... you’re an idiot.

I understand, but it really adds nothing to the debate or the points I've made in my precious posts.

**previous posts. The preciousness of my posts is up for debate...

It’s possible to prove any investment is a home run, or failure, by selecting the starting and endpoint for the comparison. Occasionally, an investment will outperform over some period of time, allowing the investor ( or someone who pretends to be an investor ) to go on a strip club forum and proclaim their brilliance. Oddly, they never go public a month, or year, later when that same investment underperforms. Such is the nature of man.

What’s the Sharpe ratio of Bitcoin compared to S&P 500, bonds, and gold? How do they compare? These are rhetorical questions for the reader to answer for himself or herself, I already know the answer.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees.

For those uninitiated in the Sharpe Ratio -

The Sharpe Ratio is a financial metric often used by investors when assessing the performance of investment management products and professionals. It consists of taking the excess return of the portfolio, relative to the risk-free rate, and dividing it by the standard deviation of the portfolio's excess returns.

Essentially FTS is saying bitcoin goes up so its a good investment. This is a fallacy.
(For those uninitiated fallacy is a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.)

He makes no comments challenging my criticism of bitcoin and the technology. This is pretty similar to how a pyramid scheme inductee might react when they're scheme gets called out.

Their scheme***

^ what is the best investment to be in right now? I invest in my cock. It makes me a fortune in rick interest

It depends on your risk/moral tolerance plus time window. In general you can't go wrong with a 50% bond etf/50% sp500 etf then just rebalance if the allocation goes beyond your risk tolerance.

I'd be happy to assist if you have more questions.

Bonds are paying shit right now. Why do you recommend them? My dividends on my cock are infinite

50/50 bonds sp500 etfs is the starting point I give to people who don't know their time frame and their risk tolerance. 1 year ago corona was something on the news, so if they just started investing and did 100% stocks only to see it drop in March would panic. If their job is threatened too they might just eat the loses so they have money. In a 50/50 portfolio they have the flexibility to sell only the bond portion, or even sell the bond portion to buy into the stocks. Im at 70% stocks and 30% bonds. During the March crash last year I rebalanced when my bonds were at 50% and bought stocks on the cheap.

The bonds just give alot of flexibility with less downside than people would think.

@BitcoinHodler has never understood how Bitcoin works, and his perspective is very much rooted in the same soil, so to speak, as is Keynesian economics. The differences between Keynesian economics and Austrian economics stem from a a fundamental difference in presuppositions about the world and humanity. BitcoinHodler, and Keynesian economists, choose to elevate themselves by reducing others, while Austrian economists edify themselves by elevating the status of others within their own minds. Keynesian economists consider humanity as a herd of cattle to be controlled, which is why they focus so much on the aggregate demand of the human “herd,” which sometimes requires “stimulation” by the unfair creation of new monetary units. It is a sick and twisted perspective. Austrian economists begin with the fundamental presupposition that our brothers and sisters are rational individuals whose autonomy is, and should be, respected, and that all valuation is subjective. Keynesian economists assume that they, and only they, know what is truly valuable, and the human “herd” is to stupid to decide what is truly valuable.

BitcoinHodler has been educated in a fundamentally flawed theory of economics that is disrespectful to humanity, and I hope, for his sake, that he re-educates himself in humility and truth.

That is all.

I wouldn't say the fed printing money to support people while they try to social distance during a global pandemic buying into a "sick and twisted perspective."

Your entire paragraph reads like a year one undergrad's first assignment.

What would an Austrian economist do for the corona virus?

I was skeptical of crypto even when this thread was first posted. Since then I've checked it out and done a complete 180. It's insane how much control you have with crypto. I can borrow against my own crypto assets for $ like a home equity line of credit or borrowing from my 401k, but without any people involved. I just pay back what I borrowed plus 0.5% interest to unlock my crypto assets again. Great if it appreciates during the loan, not so great if they crash. I can also lend money worldwide for interest rates ranging from 0.5%-600% APR, depending on my risk tolerance. I can buy synthetic financial products. You know what sort of info I had to give? My wallet address. Nobody asked for my name, social, address, etc. I went to dozens of decentralized finance websites and they all had a button in the corner that says 'connect wallet'. One click and I can use their services. I didn't have to open an account with anyone. My money did all the talking for me. Once this shit gets refined more and seniors figure out they can make 6% on a crypto savings account, stocks are going to crash hard.

The Ethereum blockchain is struggling right now. Gas fees are way too high. Solutions are coming, and competitors are innovating as well, but we are not far off. This gives me 1995 early internet vibes all over again. Conventional finance guys are still not convinced. Crypto has skyrocketed the last few years for sure, but I still think people buying today are early, not late.

Here is FTS’ argument in a nutshell:

Bitcoin has outperformed in the past, so it’s guaranteed to outperform in the future.

Does anyone see a flaw in this logic ?

Yes those things are possible Sancho,

Banks do a risk assessment and decide it could be worth it to loan fiat with crypto as collateral, I'm not much into that field to comment if its a smart move or not but people much smarter than me in it have decided the risk/reward is worth it. There are also alot of people who won't. Guess you only need to find one.

As for the no social security thing... that's probably one of my biggest issues with it. Someone who sells illegal content online like animal torture/ underaged children videos can safely store money without it being tracked.
The pros of bitcoin is also its cons that needs to he acknowledged.

@Mark94 that’s a nice straw man, did you make it yourself?

I don't mind if they track it. I just liked the utility. My wallet was like a universal account. I'm sick of creating a new account for every damn company. Then, they get hacked and my info is leaked. Repeat 100X over. I also think public blockchain records are good for the financial industry. Assigning a stock share to a private/public key, for example, can help allay some fears about short shares failing to be delivered and counterfeit stock shares. Clearing houses being lax in the name of efficiency stuff like that.

If you're confident you can keep your bitcoin safe and secure plus enjoy using it more power to you.

I'd hate the stress of losing my keys/cold storage. I don't think modern banking is perfect but the added work of needing to manage my own bitcoin storage is just not worth it for me. Either way, that part of it is pretty low on my cons list.

@FTS Marks not too far off on the biggest pro of bitcoin you've listed so far.

Any strong case for alternative cryptos and why ether or lite coin can progress?

The only strong case for an altcoin, IMO, is Ethereum. Bitcoin is a store of value while Ethereum is a virtual decentralized supercomputer. It is the backbone of most decentralized apps, and ETH is the currency of that new decentralized internet. It's becoming a victim of its own success lately with extremely high fees. They are trying to solve some of these issues with several rollouts coming in the next year or so. If they can;t solve these issues and have to rely on a bunch of L2 solutions, ETH will be obsolete faster than Kmart in the 90s.

Download Metamask for your phone, buy some ETH and fuck with some of these decentralized apps. You can find out quickly it's more than a store of value. It has crazy utility among all the ETH-based apps. Might take a few decades, but this is a 100k coin easy if they fix the issues and remain nimble and responsive to competing technologies.

Other projects, like Cardano, seek to address some of the issues with the Ethereum blockchain and taking their own crack at it. I have some money in these coins as pure speculation but I expect 9/10 of them to lose 70-80% value in the next year or two. I'm holding for 30+ more years though.

Litecoin is just a faster version of Bitcoin with lower fees. It will probably always hold some sort of value just because it was an early coin, but Bitcoin was first and being first is better than being right a lot of times.

Going forward, how may the government affect (positively or negatively) these cryptos?

Can't the gov perhaps/ultimately create its own digital-currency and basically make these cryptos obsolete or just a niche?

The gov can absolutely ruin the party. They can’t stop it but they can make it a pain in the ass. India is going that route while planning on creating a state sponsored crypto currency pegged to the rupee or whatever

^ isn't China doing the same thing?

I imagine it would be as simple as outlawing exchanging bitcoin for dollars, renminbi, etc. How likely that is to happen is a different question.

Yeah they usually get great results outlawing the exchange of something for fiat

/s

@Papi

Absolutely governments can create their own crypto. In our case the US Fed is already going down this road. But thats not the point. They will create an inflatable currency that can produced at will be The Fed. It would work the same way as they are doing right now with fiat $. Pump it up at will!

The special characteristic of Bitcoin is that it has a limited supply (like a physical asset such as gold). Thats really an important distinction and why Yellen is attempting to demonize it often "being used by "criminals". Her statement is fundamentally not supported by the evidence and she draws no comparisons of the massive criminal activity using untraceable physical currency. She says this because the general public is frankly pretty dumb to understand what's going on and this is an easier story for the GP to digest vs The Fed just wants its use to be minimized. Loss of control by Treasury is the real point of opposition (because they want to be able to adjust fiat numbers at will).

Digital currency is not a passing fad or just some kind of smoke and mirrors pump scheme on some Reddit board. The real ones serve a valuable market function and the market is responding.

There is an interesting article by the St. Louis Fed on Etherium if anyone is interested.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/publicat…

Damn I wish I could edit. I write too fast...

The whole there's a finite number of bitcoin argument is hilarious to me, it can be broken down that its lowest value is at 2,100,000,000,000,000 Satoshi.

Also yeah bitcoin is used for criminal activity in buying animal torture videos and underage children videos. I don't really care about the drugs.

I also love for a central authority to be in charge of monetary policy. How would the US survive if bitcoin were the main currency during corona?

Lol you do realize its easier to trace a bitcoin transaction than trace the movement of a $100 bill?!?! Its not untraceable at all and was never claimed to be? How do you think Silk Road was closed down?

You have some serious bias against BTC and its clouding your judgment. Your arguments are weak and biased.

As of earlier today, 1 Satoshi = $0.00046455. You know how many Satoshis it would take to make up the 9 trillion USD printed in 2020? 19,373,587,342,589,602. How much is the Fed going to print next year? Year after? Fiscal responsibility is gone at the government level. The Republicans spent too much, now the Dems want their turn. It's going to be tit for tat as the power pendulum swings and our currency is going to pay the price.

It's not a place to claim victory with a position in BTC. Its a place to salvage victory from defeat.

@uprightcitizen bitcoin addresses are very difficult to link to a person. There's also something called bitcoin mixers which mix people's bitcoins together so they can anonymously buy horrible content online.

The printing is get people through a pandemic. Imagine if bitcoin were the primary currency. A central authority couldn't support people socially distancing by controlling monetary policy. We'd all be fucked. The decentralized currency should actually be debunked from the 2020 fed policy not being emboldened by it

Dude you are fixated on BTC. If you were real you would hate on Monero but no you are just a fake crypto hater. Fuck off on your childish ill informed troll.

I don't understand why you can't just address my concerns regarding fed policy during the pandemic and bitcoin mixers being used to buy animal torture videos and underage children videos.

My goal also isn't to convince bitcoin cultists that they should stop, its actually so people who are indifferent or curious about can research on their own and decide they don't want to be part of something so terrible.

Notice none of these cultists have addressed my concerns. They're so far into the kool-aid they've convinced themselves they're smarter than everyone else.

You win BTH. Enjoy your victory!

At the end of the day, money talks. He might be right, but I don’t think so. I sure as fuck am not going to stop investing cause I give a shit about the Fed being able to help poor people or animal torture videos. If the US gov wants my crypto, assuming I even own any, they are welcome to come take it but I won’t roll over and give it to them. At best they can try to make moral arguments to shame me, but I have no shame.

I can hide my crypto in cold storage long enough for regime change to make it acceptable again, whichever future administration that is.

I'll just peek in to repeat my view from earlier: at this point, people might pretend to know what bitcoin will or won't do, but it's mostly semi-educated guessing. No reason to think it's either the devil or the savior of civilization, it's just a very high risk investment instrument. I invested a little in it this past summer, and if I were to cash out now, I'd have done very nicely (about tripled my modest investment). I'm not going to cash out just yet though so not counting my chips at all. I did not invest enough to really have it affect my portfolio in any noticeable way (although in retrospect, I would have invested more), and it's not my best-performing investment of the year.

Sancho- that's your individual right. My goal is to educate people on the depravity of bitcoin. Hell, me telling people it can be used to buy terrible things online might have even caused people to go into it. I have faith however that as I educate more people they'll write to their congressman and senators to get bitcoin outlawed in the US.

Crazy thing is even if you discounted how terribly immoral it is, bitcoin also functions bad currency.

Upright- I understand it can be frustrating to have your beliefs challenged. Even if you don't answer my concerns I hope you come to terms with bitcoins major faults on your own for your own personal development.

You know what else is used as medium of exchange to do terrible, terrible things?

The US dollar.

Using USD to purchase depraved content online has shortcomings (to the criminal) that bitcoin doesn't. If someone wanted to buy content online using USD their card could be connected to them somehow, if its a credit card, debit card, or even a gift card because the FBI can look into nowhere the gift card was bought and go from there.
If the criminal decides to buy it with physical cash there's a scaling option where the more content they sell the more face to face interactions they'd have.

With bitcoin however, all a criminal has to do is use a bitcoin mixer to make their purchase from the comfort of their home and the content is downloading while they're safe and sound.

At this point bitcoin really doesn't have an argument that the USD is used for illegal things too. Its important to acknowledge this to anyone who you try to get into the crypto space.