Khane is very right here. This kind of thing isn't like the stock market this is scratch off tickets almost where the more people buy into it the better it goes.
Grandma knowing about it is great for it.
Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies
- Thread starter Tripamang
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Grandma knowing about it is great for it.
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Because they need morons to keep buying. If something drastically changes in the world and BTC becomes a real currency that people actually buy stuff with, maybe it will become a reasonable investment. Right now it's a pyramid scheme and there's a shitload of people betting that morons will keep dumping money at ground level. This can be true in a lot of markets but at least stocks/commodities/etc have something real to keep the bottom from totally falling out.
There's always people that win betting on long shots, but that doesn't make betting on long shots a good idea.
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I think BTC seems strange to us here in the US because we have a relatively stable currency with relatively little govt interference in it. In China and a lot of other places in the world that is not true. I've got clients in Egypt with millions of dollars worth of Egyptian currency that can't move their money out of Egypt due to currency restrictions, their central bank has to approve everything. If they could buy BTC in Egypt (I'm not sure they can, any exchanges?) and then sell it in the US, that would totally bypass any govt control.
Also you could hide your assets in BTC (tumble the coins, move it through a few exchanges, buy an actually anonymous currency and then move that back to BTC) and then pass them down tax-free, etc...
There are lots of uses and most of them have to do with the lack of govt control over bitcoins and other cyptocurrencies. Obviously an alternative currency isn't going to take over for dollars when dollars are perfectly adequate, it's going to fill in the gaps where dollars are not adequate.
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Khane
Got something right about marriage
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BTC is not a pyramid scheme and it is, in fact, real. The ideas and tech behind it are solid and it is now being leveraged by financial institutions worldwide (blockchain). The value has skyrocketed because it has become an asset that people are hoarding and it will likely never be seen as a currency again. It's likely overvalued but that doesn't mean it's worthless, magic, or fake.
It is one of those things that I kick myself over for not really looking into back in 2013 when I first heard about it. I held the same beliefs back then as you do now. When I finally started to research it this year all I could think to myself was "Shit... I definitely would have thrown a grand or two at it back then and probably even built a mining rig if I had read about the tech and realized what mining actually was". I wouldn't have gone ham on it nor would I have expected it to get this out of control but I can definitely see the value of it now that I know what it actually is.
And your first sentence is a bit backwards. If it ever became a true currency it would cease to be an investment. It would have a relatively static value in relation to the goods and services it would be used to purchase.
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Falstaff
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I'm in a relatively similar boat as you Khane. In 2013 I bought like $1500 worth of Facebook stock instead of bitcoin for those exact reasons (it really was between those two things for some reason). Now the Facebook stock hasn't been a bad investment but if I would have put that in Bitcoin...
I did dip my toes in yesterday during the dip and bought a couple hundred worth of the 4 coins on Coinbase. Just going to enjoy the ride... might buy some Ripple based on that article above and other things I've read but again, wishing I would have bought it at 11 cents or whatever the price was a few weeks ago.
I did dip my toes in yesterday during the dip and bought a couple hundred worth of the 4 coins on Coinbase. Just going to enjoy the ride... might buy some Ripple based on that article above and other things I've read but again, wishing I would have bought it at 11 cents or whatever the price was a few weeks ago.
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Being bought and sold by financial institutions doesn't mean it's not bullshit. It has uses as currency as Cad said, but then you gave the counterpoint to that. It's not a currency if people are hoarding it and the price is wildly volatile, at which point it goes back to being a pyramid scheme.
I don't disagree, but 'relatively' is the key word in that sentence. Ask Eliot Spitzer about that 'little' interference.
The entire globe is going down the road of outlawing cash, because when the government can't monitor everybody's transactions, that's super bad and only terrorists want privacy. As we've seen, the public does not defend their privacy and spy agencies all but ignore the constitution. Bitcoin came just in time to save us from a dystopian nightmare. The alternative is megalomaniac authoritarian strong men 'leaders' knowing everything you buy and have the power to make you a non-person by disabling your access to all money. Look at what they are doing to protesters in the 'land of the free' already: they blew a girl's arm off in Dakota and tried to jail j20 protestors for 75 years. Without crypto it's obey or be homeless. Pray bitcoin establishes a large enough foothold before they realize what it is. That's why I love these old white fool economist articles calling it a joke.
Bitcoin volatility will match major fiat currencies by 2019
One of the reasons why futures is a big deal is that they will further reduce volatility. Granted 2017 was a wild year.
Hoarding doesn't seem to stop fiat from working: Richest 1% now owns half the world's wealth
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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It's not a pyramid scheme Brutul. You should read up on the tech and the purpose. You may not agree with it but that doesn't mean it's a scam or scheme. What Cad was referring to is not value as a currency. The people he was referring to aren't using cryptos as currency, they are using them as value stores and to hide their wealth or to invest (or smuggle) it outside of their authoritarian countries. BTC has become something it wasn't originally intended to be but then again you can't really stop people from using it as they see fit.
A pyramid scheme relies on a pyramid of users all feeding money through each other to the top while not actually selling anything real. Bitcoin isn't attempting to sell anything and nobody is funneling money up to some top level initiator.
There will likely be a crash, there will likely be a rebound, and it will likely settle eventually. But it would be very surprising if it went to $0 and disappeared altogether. It has a real, tangible use.
agripa
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I do not see crypto currencies in their current form surviving the next major world conflict. The global internet as we know it is going the be the first thing that gets knocked out during the next major conflict. If anyone follows John McAfee on twitter you can watch snake oil being sold by way of alt coins.
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Heylel
Trakanon Raider
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Got a random refund check I wasn't expecting and figured I'd toss it into a crypto. Trying to get set up to purchase Ripple but goddamn if it isn't impossible to do anything quickly. Tried signing up on GateHub and the SMS verification won't work, so I'm stuck.
Is there a n00b friendly exchange for XRP?
Is there a n00b friendly exchange for XRP?
General Antony
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vGrade
Potato del Grande
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Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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This is still the biggest thing keeping me from even throwing play money into crypto.
When exchanges are getting shut down every single week, and it can take 3+ days to actually process a transaction, my ass is staying away. I mean, the speculative part alone should be enough, but when you can't even do that with any consistency I don't know how so many people are into it.
General Antony
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Gotta have balls of solid rock. I'm in for about 52.5k, portfolio value was up 100k as of last Saturday before the dip. Last week was painful but still in the black a good amount - I think we'll consolidate around current price levels for a bit, BTC will probably trade between 12-16k through New Years before the market can move higher. Lots of weak hands that got in post Thanksgiving that need to be flushed out. In hodl we trust.
Scoresby
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Started last June with ~$3,200....bought 6 BTC and a bit over 27 ETH. A few forks later, sold the other morning to finally take some profit and rebalanced with everything down. Also bought transferred my Bitcoin Gold over to hitBTC and bought some Siacoin and Steem with it to further diversify this a bit.
Has been no doubt the most insane return I've ever had, will be interested to see where things go from here. The two nerve wracking parts for me were sweeping my paper wallet to my phone and then accepting the default transaction fee from Coinami without looking to see how trade volume was affecting costs. That actually cost me ~$10k in the delay to get my BTC from a paper wallet to Kraken so I could sell.
So lesson from me, if you have a decent bit of BTC you need to move quick, just pay for it. $50 transaction fee would have saved me a helluva lot in timing. Still happy where I ended up and glad I didn't fuck up something and lose it all, lol.
edit: bleh, double pic!
Has been no doubt the most insane return I've ever had, will be interested to see where things go from here. The two nerve wracking parts for me were sweeping my paper wallet to my phone and then accepting the default transaction fee from Coinami without looking to see how trade volume was affecting costs. That actually cost me ~$10k in the delay to get my BTC from a paper wallet to Kraken so I could sell.
So lesson from me, if you have a decent bit of BTC you need to move quick, just pay for it. $50 transaction fee would have saved me a helluva lot in timing. Still happy where I ended up and glad I didn't fuck up something and lose it all, lol.
edit: bleh, double pic!