A salient lesson for those jumping onto financial bandwagons

dryhat

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Ah yes.....

IBM.

I wonder what happened to them? PC's were sold off to Lenovo I'm sure. Are they making fridges now?

[Sorry, can't be bothered to watch the bitcoin youtube plug. Sun having just gone well and truly over the yardarm, I simply must go downstairs and enjoy a very large gin & tonic....:)]

Sorry. Gotta go. The courier has just arrived with my new smartphone (paid for with bitcoin of course) so I'm off to play with that.

MFW_ASAP

dryhat wrote: »

Sorry. Gotta go. The courier has just arrived with my new smartphone (paid for with bitcoin of course) so I'm off to play with that.

Not that I actually believe anything you say, but I'll play along for a laugh.

You seem to be wasting a lot of your 'gains' by buying material items (I think you said you bought a car the other week and some other tech stuff). You're the classic mug punter. You buy in low, make a decent profit and then sell a portion of the asset to buy some crap.You then re-invest some more money (from monthly salary or wherever) and buy back in, but at a higher level than your first investment. You keep doing this and the average price of your holding goes up and up. Then when the inevitable crash comes, instead of having a healthy paper profit to cushion you, you end up wiped out.

Once the golden journey has ended (and it always does), you'll have a car that will eventually be sold for scrap, a smart phone and other tech that will have an operational life of three years, and nothing else to show for it. All of the stuff you're buying has little resale value.

You're like those lottery winners who blow a fortune on crap in just a couple of years. :rotfl:

dryhat

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

Not that I actually believe anything you say, but I'll play along for a laugh.

You seem to be wasting a lot of your 'gains' by buying material items (I think you said you bought a car the other week and some other tech stuff). You're the classic mug punter. You buy in low, make a decent profit and then sell a portion of the asset to buy some crap.You then re-invest some more money (from monthly salary or wherever) and buy back in, but at a higher level than your first investment. You keep doing this and the average price of your holding goes up and up. Then when the inevitable crash comes, instead of having a healthy paper profit to cushion you, you end up wiped out.

Once the golden journey has ended (and it always does), you'll have a car that will eventually be sold for scrap, a smart phone and other tech that will have an operational life of three years, and nothing else to show for it. All of the stuff you're buying has little resale value.

You're like those lottery winners who blow a fortune on crap in just a couple of years. :rotfl:

Phew.

I bet you're glad you got that of your chest.

(Thanks for playing along for a laugh by the way. It's nice to know you have a sense of humour underneath all that anger and resentment)

John1993_2

dryhat wrote: »

Not really.

Although I did buy 10 sovereigns back in 2008 when there was talk of financial armageddon and whatnot.

I'd sort of forgotten about them but now you mention it, I might sell some of them now and buy some more bitcoins.

How does your history as an analyst look? Have you a good track record of identifying good investments over many years, based on fundamentals, or are you just a guy who's got a real bee in his bonnet about something that you hold yourself?

A sig of somoene with genuine insight is that you'll have a target selling price in mind, at which you believe that they are fully-vauled, and you'll sell. A mindless ramper, on the other hand, will always just say "it'll go higher!"

What's your selling level?

John1993_2

Linton wrote: »

Really? How would a Bitcoin mortgage work? Wouldnt bankers be involved? What about investment money for business - again bankers etc. Does Bitcoin mean the demise of all savings accounts? I dont see how Btcoins would dispense with accountants - a company still needs to manage its wealth. Lawyers deal with laws and contracts, why do they disappear with Bitcoin?

This is a point that the bitcoin bugs struggle to get their heads around. Us bankers already provide all sorts of services in every currency and commodity under the sun, and will happily offer the same services in bitcoins if the demand is there.

The idea that you'd want to do it other through the large, efficient and regulated mechanism that mainstream banking provides is just laughable. Would you prefer your bitcoin mortgage off Natwest, of "#Pirateboy7565"?

If you have a guaranteed income in bitcoins and want to swap it into monthly dollars, at a fixed rate, will you do the swap through JP Morgan Chase, or will you trust "@@@MTgox-crusher23" to honour the swap payments even when it's not in his interest to continue doing so?

No, Bitcoins are not going to do away with banks, or bankers. If they ever become a serious currency the we'll trade them like we trade anything else.

It doesn't, though, seem very likely.

dryhat

John1993 wrote: »

How does your history as an analyst look? Have you a good track record of identifying good investments over many years, based on fundamentals, or are you just a guy who's got a real bee in his bonnet about something that you hold yourself?

A sig of somoene with genuine insight is that you'll have a target selling price in mind, at which you believe that they are fully-vauled, and you'll sell. A mindless ramper, on the other hand, will always just say "it'll go higher!"

What's your selling level?

I kinda got lucky really because after starting to research Bitcoin this time last year, when I eventually bought in Feb this year it was just before the crisis in Cyprus, which sent the price rocketing.

I started buying in at £11 and bought loads all the way up to about £90 and then cashed out my original investment at £98 leaving me with loads of "free coins".

I continued buying and selling up to £153. The price eventually went to £178 and then crashed down to about £30.

I then started buying loads more all the way up to £140. That was about 6 weeks ago and I have not bought anymore since, but sold quite a few at the £400 range.

I am now just holding what I have for now and am more than happy to have a significant amount of my wealth in Bitcoin. I see it as a far better store of value than £ or $ and I'm enjoying the idea of being involved in a revoltionary new technology at its beginning.

Apart from that, other investments are just run of the mill stuff like property, shares, pension etc

dryhat

John1993 wrote: »

This is a point that the bitcoin bugs struggle to get their heads around. Us bankers already provide all sorts of services in every currency and commodity under the sun, and will happily offer the same services in bitcoins if the demand is there.

Yes and charge billions in fees for something which can be done for a fraction of the cost.

Bitcoin is going to have a severe impact on banking and some of the more nefarious activities you engage in will cease to be profitable.

We don't need your "services" thank you.

doughnutmachine

dryhat wrote: »

I kinda got lucky really because after starting to research Bitcoin this time last year, when I eventually bought in Feb this year it was just before the crisis in Cyprus, which sent the price rocketing.

I started buying in at £11 and bought loads all the way up to about £90 and then cashed out my original investment at £98 leaving me with loads of "free coins".

I continued buying and selling up to £153. The price eventually went to £178 and then crashed down to about £30.

I then started buying loads more all the way up to £140. That was about 6 weeks ago and I have not bought anymore since, but sold quite a few at the £400 range.

I am now just holding what I have for now and am more than happy to have a significant amount of my wealth in Bitcoin. I see it as a far better store of value than £ or $ and I'm enjoying the idea of being involved in a revoltionary new technology at its beginning.

Apart from that, other investments are just run of the mill stuff like property, shares, pension etc

surely one of the definitions of a currency is a "store of wealth"? if bitcoins have yo yo'ed in value from £11 to £400 they can't really be a "store of wealth"?

why should the rest of the world adopt bitcoins if you early adapters have got in first and got them cheap? if bitcoins became mainstream someone that bought a bitcoin for £11 would then become a billionaire....

Marazan

dryhat wrote: »

Yes and charge billions in fees for something which can be done for a fraction of the cost.

Bitcoin is going to have a severe impact on banking and some of the more nefarious activities you engage in will cease to be profitable.

We don't need your "services" thank you.

The BitCoin system will charge you money for the equivalent of giving your mate a fiver. Currently with my worthless fiat money I can do that for free.

dryhat

doughnutmachine wrote: »

surely one of the definitions of a currency is a "store of wealth"? if bitcoins have yo yo'ed in value from £11 to £400 they can't really be a "store of wealth"?

why should the rest of the world adopt bitcoins if you early adapters have got in first and got them cheap? if bitcoins became mainstream someone that bought a bitcoin for £11 would then become a billionaire....

We have only ever seen deflation in the context of collapsing demand, which is why it conjures up horrific images.

It is possible to have a healthy, functioning economy and a (long term) deflating currency like Bitcoin. And it encourages both saving and spending.

If early adopters become very rich due to the rising value of Bitcoin good luck to them. And a lot of them are spending as well, taking advantage of their increased spending power.

I can't see the problem.