This year's best investment up 5250% ...

brendon

vectistim wrote: »

I'm slightly cynical about Silk Road, I had a look and from the type and volumes of stuff being advertised I would be surprised if any professional criminals were using it (either that or TV has de-sensitised me to criminals doing taking the risk for surprisingly small rewards). It wouldn't surprise me it were revealed to have been an FBI creation in the first place.

Well, the risk was pretty much non-existent. You'd pay a drug dealer (well above market value) in an anonymous currency, which he will launder through the system and withdraw. Nobody knows his address. He sends you the drugs via Royal Mail. You can't prosecute the sender, because you don't know who they are. You can't prosecute the receiver because you have no evidence against them. I know of a number of people who have used Silk Road in the past, so I think it was more common than you think.

dryhat

vectistim wrote: »

I'm slightly cynical about Silk Road, I had a look and from the type and volumes of stuff being advertised I would be surprised if any professional criminals were using it (either that or TV has de-sensitised me to criminals doing taking the risk for surprisingly small rewards). It wouldn't surprise me it were revealed to have been an FBI creation in the first place.

The biggest drug dealers of recent years are HSBC bank.

They admitted to laundering $400 BILLION of mexican and bolivian drug money and facilitated the distribution of thousands of tonnes of drugs throughout America.

And these are the people we are supposed to tust to run our economy?

JohnRo

The CIA have always controlled the international drug trade to varying degrees, and that's control in the sense of its operation not it's restriction. It's a subject the MSM goes out of its way to avoid despite heaps of evidence because it doesn't sit well with the false war on some drugs narrative.

I'd be very surprised if the CIA didn't have intimate knowledge of what HSBC and everyone else were and still are up to. They're caught in a dilemma, if they make any serious efforts to shut down the international drug and money laundering trade they'd be out of an extremely lucrative job.

Now, where's that tin foil..

Glen_Clark

JohnRo wrote: »

Pah, amateurs... and calling it sterling is a scam in itself, since it is backed by exactly nothing.

Reading that prompted me to look at a five pound note. All is says is a promise to pay the bearer 5 pounds. Apparently if you take it to the Issuer - Bank of England - to redeem it, all you will get is another 5 pound note. Just another piece of paper the same as the one you have got!! And Thats It!!

EdGasket

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Reading that prompted me to look at a five pound note. All is says is a promise to pay the bearer 5 pounds. Apparently if you take it to the Issuer - Bank of England - to redeem it, all you will get is another 5 pound note. Just another piece of paper the same as the one you have got!! And Thats It!!

Yes I am afraid since we left the gold standard all you can get is paper. That is why throughout history currencies come and go but gold has always been a currency of last resort because it has intrinsic value and the supply is limited. You can't just keep printing gold like they are printing notes right now.

JohnRo

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Reading that prompted me to look at a five pound note. All is says is a promise to pay the bearer 5 pounds. Apparently if you take it to the Issuer - Bank of England - to redeem it, all you will get is another 5 pound note. Just another piece of paper the same as the one you have got!! And Thats It!!

Worth every piece of the paper it's written on

brasso

This is a weird discussion. There seems to be an air of fanaticism and religious fervour on display here like you see on that nutjob HPC website.

The problem for me is that any attempt to portray it as a solid, dependable unit of exchange is massively undermined by the title of this thread -- that this "investment" has changed its value by 1900% this year so far.

If it shoots up by that much in a year, it's susceptible to crashing on the same scale. We all know that high risk = chance of high return = chance of big loss. The fact this made-up currency spikes, crashes, spikes, crashes, should be enough to warn off most people.

This subject doesn't belong on the Savings & Investments forum. It should be in with gambling.

grey_gym_sock

as an investment, it's ridiculously volatile. some ppl would like it to be more widely used as a medium of exchange - which is a different issue.

dryhat

brasso wrote: »

This is a weird discussion. There seems to be an air of fanaticism and religious fervour on display here like you see on that nutjob HPC website.

The problem for me is that any attempt to portray it as a solid, dependable unit of exchange is massively undermined by the title of this thread -- that this "investment" has changed its value by 1900% this year so far.

If it shoots up by that much in a year, it's susceptible to crashing on the same scale. We all know that high risk = chance of high return = chance of big loss. The fact this made-up currency spikes, crashes, spikes, crashes, should be enough to warn off most people.

This subject doesn't belong on the Savings & Investments forum. It should be in with gambling.

Come back in 12 months time and see.

I will bet anyone on here that bitcoin will be worth more then than it is now. In fact, I will say 100% more.

Any takers amongst all you people that think you know better?

brasso

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

as an investment, it's ridiculously volatile. some ppl would like it to be more widely used as a medium of exchange - which is a different issue.

Sure, appreciate that, but drooling over the massive volatility isn't compatible with promoting it as a credible mainstream currency. The one thing that people want in a currency is some measure of stability. As they used to say, "banking should be boring".

It's all very well people deriding the 'fiat' currencies but they work because they tend to retain a dependable value very well. If the dollar fluctuates against the pound by 10% or so over a few weeks or months there are anxious questions asked in parliament. Compare that with the figure in the subject line of this thread.