Bitcoin

[BubbleGum]

A friend of mine invested in bitcoins when they were at 120$... he has made a few hundred Dollars in a very short period but he also has already lost a lot of money. I don’t know if he still earns/looses money by trading with bitcoins, but I would never do it. I don’t know enough about it and can be a very risky thing to do (like equity trading – wouldn’t do this either)

[Watson]

How would anyone make any educated buy/sell decisions? The buy/sell coin is more of a break even investment, so keeping your money seems a better investment. If your friend is not sharing excitement about winnings, ??, they are likely down a few bucks.

[SciameriKen]

Bitcoin is surging:
https://www.coinbase.com/charts
Now crossing $1400 a coin!

What is even more bizarre is the number of cryptocurrencies emerging.
https://poloniex.com/exchange#usdt_btc

Not bizarre really I guess - anyone with a programmer could create one of these currencies and they jump to millions of dollars of valuation pretty quickly lol

[zetreque]

1599 looks like a good place to sell

[SciameriKen]

Bitcoin just broke $11,000 a piece! Crazy Crypto Currency :D

[BioWizard]

This is driving me nuts!

[BadgerJelly]

I was going to pump a few thousand dollars into it, but have chosen to visit UK instead. Guess I'll have to go for etherium of bitcash instead if Bitcoin slows.

I bet the banks are shatting themselves!! haha!

[Watson]

If this was real money, this would be hyper-inflation, would it not? It could easily go to ZERO value in quicker that a word can spread? There is absolutely no reason to justify this valuation. The word ponzi comes to mind. And what do ya know, I ask google and others agree.

[BioWizard]

If this was real money, this would be hyper-inflation, would it not? It could easily go to ZERO value in quicker that a word can spread? There is absolutely no reason to justify this valuation. The word ponzi comes to mind. And what do ya know, I ask google and others agree.

It definitely rings of modern day tulip mania. Though we could've still made a few cool mil's on several hundred dollars had we been paying closer attention... I wanted to go in early this year and exit by end of the year, which wouldn't have been as impactful but still ROIs beyond anything I'll ever see in any of my investments. I just didn't have extra (gambling) money.

[someguy1]

If this was real money, this would be hyper-inflation, would it not?

No. BTC is a deflationary currency. During inflation, the value of the currency goes down, and the value of the goods the money can buy goes up. Things get more expensive because too many dollars are chasing too few goods.

BTC is designed to be a deflationary currency. The maximum number of bitcoins is fixed and can't be increased. And millions of bitcoins have been lost already in the early years.

With the current price shooting up, why would anyone buy anything with it? When a currency is deflationary, you can buy one flat screen tv today or two flat screen tv's tomorrow. So you wait till tomorrow ... or the day after. Why would you start a business when you can just make money doing nothing? So everyone hoards the currency and the economy collapses. This is actually one of the long term flaws in the bitcoin design.

In fact the massive printing of dollars by the Fed over the past few years has indeed resulted in prices of stocks and real estate shooting upward. And if you view bitcoin as a commodity (which the IRS does) its rapidly increasing price reflects the lack of confidence in the inflated dollars.

[BioWizard]

So everyone hoards the currency and the economy collapses. This is actually one of the long term flaws in the bitcoin design.

Yeah, it has been said repeatedly that BTC is much more likely to become a collectible than a real currency.

[Watson]

Thank you SG1, I stand corrected. But it is hyper-[something]
This whole thing is fishy. For instance how is this $11,000 valuation arrived at? Are the criminals in cahoots trading these coins for ever increasing values? Suppose we did buy in at the opening price of $0.10 or whatever it was, do you really think we could redeem it for $11,000? And where? I think it would be an $11,000 token that we keep regardless, or trade it at a huge discount. I think it is a value set by those that have the bitcoin. The value would be set by those showing up to buy them. I'm thinking that banks are not accepting them.

Yes in hind sight this would have been a great investment months or years back, but the question remains, where do you redeem them, and for how much.

[BioWizard]

Watson, I suspect what you meant to say is hyper-inflated price, as in over-valued and due for a large correction and/or burst.

[someguy1]

If you had gone to the local bitbank yesterday and got a coin for $513, you would be pleased no doubt to see it is now $570 in your e-wallet. Just a cool almost 10% appreciation in just 24 hours. Could easily go the other way in equally dramatic fashion.

I think it's going to zero. However it may get there by way of $100k or more. I have no idea. I can imagine a stock market crash where millions of investors move their money to bitcoin. I can really see this happening.

On the other hand Bitcoin has serious scaling problems. The blockchain keeps getting longer and the electricity usage is ridiculous. Each bitcoin transaction consumes as much electricity as 7 American households for one day. This is not sustainable.

Also, its crypto-security depends on the miners being decentralized so that they can't collude to game the network. [They do that by validating their own bogus transactions and rejecting the real ones]. But the top five miners now control 70% of the processing capacity of the network. The integrity of bitcoin is basically in the hands of a few mega-miners in China. This also is not sustainable.

Some other cryptocurrency that addresses these issues will win long term. Bitcoin will be remembered like pets.com or America Online.

But before it does that ... I really don't think there is any upward limit. The public hasn't even shown up yet. When they do, it could go to a million. And when this thing crashes ... it may pull down the entire world economy.

[Watson]

Yes, that is it exactly, and if there is such a correction I may have to invest a few bucks, and maybe start a drugs habit of some sort so I'll know where to redeem them.

SG1, you are digging back a ways, 2014? Yes I did think that was a ridiculously unjustified value back then, and the fact that it appears to be so much higher doesn't change that thought. There seems to be no logical reason to expect there is that/any value there, or any measurable, predictable or accessible how the value might change. It could be something as unpredictable as a group of well connected criminal at a poker game. One guy has a bad hand and says he is to cash out of bitcoin, then the instability shakes up the room and the next day the value amongst rest of is in a sharp decline. The point being, there is no one standing up to say there is value here in this bit of coin.

That said, I'd like to buy $20 worth of Bitcoin?

[someguy1]

SG1, you are digging back a ways, 2014? Yes I did think that was a ridiculously unjustified value back then, and the fact that it appears to be so much higher doesn't change that thought. There seems to be no logical reason to expect there is that/any value there, or any measurable, predictable or accessible how the value might change. It could be something as unpredictable as a group of well connected criminal at a poker game. One guy has a bad hand and says he is to cash out of bitcoin, then the instability shakes up the room and the next day the value amongst rest of is in a sharp decline. The point being, there is no one standing up to say there is value here in this bit of coin.

Yes that is the argument, there is really no value to it. But the counterargument (which I don't necessarily buy, but this is the argument) is that the dollar is just a confidence game too. It's not backed by anything and they've recently been creating lot of new dollars out of thin air. The only difference is that the government is behind the dollar. But with the amount of printing going on, confidence in the dollar may collapse before confidence in bitcoin does. That's the argument, anyway. When the dollar collapses, everyone flees to bitcoin and it goes to a $1M.

Nobody has any idea. But the massive quantitative easing the past few years not only by the US but also by the European Central Bank and by China is a genuine concern. If global confidence in paper money collapses, there will be a depression the likes of which the world's never seen. With or without bitcoin this is a genuine concern. It's the printing that's papered over the 2008 financial crisis, which never really ended and which actually guaranteed that the next crash will be a lot worse. And there will be nobody to bail us out. This is an alt-economic theory floating around that I happen to agree with.

[BadgerJelly]

$16,000

[garryben]

Now a days Bitcoin is often used to send and receive money.

[Watson]

Yes to facilitate the drug and other nefarious activities that don't take Charge-X. As long as there is this false confidence in the value, it will maintain and continue to grow. Like any ponzi scheme, it will reach a point that is not sustainable, and suddenly it is worth many cents or a few bucks. Then I'm going all in and spending the whole 10 bucks.

[garryben]

Bitcoin is much more popular now a days. People are using bitcoin instead of cash money.

[zetreque]

Bitcoin is often used now a days. People are using bitcoin rather than their cash.

Hello garryben,

Would you like to add more content to that statement? For example, What people? I certainly don't and never plan to unless forced by some future economic system shift.

[BadgerJelly]

Bitcoin is often used now a days. People are using bitcoin rather than their cash.

Hello garryben,

Would you like to add more content to that statement? For example, What people? I certainly don't and never plan to unless forced by some future economic system shift.

Its better than credit cards. No charge. Once cryptocurrencies stabilize cash will become mostly redundant and so will banks.

[zetreque]

I side with Watson on this topic. It has flaws just like our regular system. I'll sit by the sidelines on this one. I've watched videos of some cryptocurrency founders and they are...

[Watson]

Yes I see it is more popular lately and becoming more widely recognized and may be even used, but none of this serves to justify such an extreme value. Other than a popular demand which could change as quick as one rich guy cashing out. Supply is up, demand slides, the value gets soft and price declines. And the big problem is, there is no reason that can't easily happen, over night.

[SciameriKen]

I am happy to report I just sold my 50 dollar litecoin for 350 bucks :D It will probably keep flying though as investors may see the price of the litecoin relative to the bitcoin and continue to buy. Still, one would have to think there will be a profit taking event in the near future.

Cryptocurrencies are insane - there are over 1,300 of these things out there - quite frankly I'm surprised there aren't more considering how much founders make off this stuff.

Looking through the thread, I'd say the financial equivalent of cryptocurrencies would be precious metals or stones. Why is any of this worth anything? Simply because one person has something others want -- although something like a diamond may have true purpose, generally speaking, it is just a shiny rock. What is nice, or not nice depending, about these digital currencies is that you don't physically have to be holding something, which might be inconvenient if you have to store a literal ton of Silver.

I think another peculiar aspect to bitcoin is that it is a worldwide phenomenon. The markets are open 24-hrs a day and I notice lots of activity in the middle of the night as China wakes up. Overall there is a lot of uncertainty for the future of these currencies but there is certainly a lot of people with a lot of money with nothing better to invest/gamble on... :D

[Watson]

Well the stones and metals have been around a while and are somewhat stable, and they serve a purpose that is likely to hold a demand. Metals demands in electronics isn't going to disappear over night. But value of BC could disappear if the big players all decided to switch over to one of the other currencies. Value of silver could go to zero, but it would be a slow gradual decline. Bitcoin could spark out.

[BioWizard]

If you had gone to the local bitbank yesterday and got a coin for $513, you would be pleased no doubt to see it is now $570 in your e-wallet. Just a cool almost 10% appreciation in just 24 hours. Could easily go the other way in equally dramatic fashion.

And now how would you feel?

[Watson]

On the one hand it would have been a hell of an investment. On the other hand, you could still lose the $513 investment if it was held to long. Time will tell, while hind sight grins.

[zetreque]

Blockchain for your DNA

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/08/harvard ... rency.html

[Latrice]

Hey, It seems to be established only in countries that have computers and internet. But it does have a uniform presence based on the USD (now at $793) , in Canada, Britain and Europe. And other counties, but these are the ones I'm following at the moment.