BITCOIN

adindas

Section62 said:

Feel free to explain how an investor can be sure they aren't being lied to.

Is this a serious statement comes from an investor/trader. Did you ever invest in individual stocks, invest in various assets or just a kind of invest in ETFs, Mutual funds ??

If you ever did invest in individual stock, invest in various assets, Did you ask other people to convince you that you are not lied or you do your own DD and make your own decision ??

adindas said:

I remember someone here is saying BTC is a scam, lol.

....

Have a look now how they perform now. Back to US$ 60k+. BTC the fastest asset to reach 1T+ market cap, faster than GOOG, AMZ

(Note also that the post I was replying to has had various edits from the original version)

Yep I make it more interesting addressing your comment of "Snake Oil Supply Company vs BTC" you see my comment in the current form, do not you ??

Section62

adindas said:  [Today at 10:03PM edited Today at 10:19PM]

Section62 said:

Feel free to explain how an investor can be sure they aren't being lied to.

Is this a serious statement comes from an investor/trader. Did you ever invest in individual stocks, invest in various assets or just a kind of invest in ETFs, Mutual funds ??

If you ever did invest in individual stock, invest in various assets, Did you ask other people to convince you that you are not lied or you do your own DD and make your own decision ??

adindas said:

I remember someone here is saying BTC is a scam, lol.

....

Have a look now how they perform now. Back to US$ 60k+. BTC the fastest asset to reach 1T+ market cap, faster than GOOG, AMZ

(Note also that the post I was replying to has had various edits from the original version)

Yep I make it more interesting addressing your comment of "Snake Oil Supply Company vs BTC" you see my comment in the current form, do not you ??

I didn't make the comment you've attributed to me (BiB)

Otherwise, let me know when you've finished editing and revising your post.  I'll reply to your other points then.  It gets really confusing when people are adding and removing stuff several hours after the original post was made.

User232002

Section62 said:

Which is with a scam the 'performance' information you are receiving may have no relationship to the reality of the situation.  You will hear and see what the scammer wants you to hear and see.

Temporarily. It can only divorce from reality temporarily. The longer the number goes up, the more likely the null hypothesis is rejected in favour of the alternate hypothesis.

Section62 said:

Only pointing out the fallacy in the proposition that 'good' perfomance is somehow proof that something isn't a scam.

Its only a fallacy when people apply that reasoning as fact over short timescales because they underestimate the nature of variance/SD. Nobody is doing that here. When it occurs over a prolonged period, the fallacy would be persisting in believing that it may or must be a scam when the probability points to the contrary.

Section62 said:

I'll repeat - in case the point was missed - that my remarks have nothing to do with whether Bitcoin is a scam or not.  

Fine, but your argument is equally pointless against other assets too.

Section62 said:

Feel free to explain how an investor can be sure they aren't being lied to.

By using their brain and thinking for themselves?

Section62

darren232002 said:

Section62 said:

Feel free to explain how an investor can be sure they aren't being lied to.

By using their brain and thinking for themselves?

Enron?

(And other more topical examples, which I won't name for the health and welfare of the thread)

Zola.

If it's a scam it's a very generous one, annualizing 200% gains per year for anyone who simply buys and holds the asset through at least one cycle. 

User232002

Section62 said:

Enron?

(And other more topical examples, which I won't name for the health and welfare of the thread)

Ah, Enron. Not something I know a lot about, but...

Started M2M accounting in 92/93 when their share price was @ $20 and ended up in full blown fraud in '01 with a comparable share price of $180 I think. So a 9x in 8 years. Bitcoin has gone through a 61000x in 9 years. These are orders of magnitude apart and so an argument that 'it happened with Enron,' doesn't lead to 'therefore it can also happen with Bitcoin.' Additionally, the numbers quoted are the generous versions in your favour. In reality, Enron was a solid company from 85 to 92/93 and became a scam somewhere in between there and '01; probably after gradually realising what they could get away with. It wasn't until 97 that their accounting practices began to markedly impact their share price and by '01 they were basically found out, thus we could argue that actually it was something like a 6x in 3 years. This goes back to what I said earlier; price can diverge from reality, but only on a temporary basis. I also took the initial BTC price to be a dollar from 2012, when it was way lower than that in earlier years (indeed, free in some places) - so that 61000x price increase is actually undershooting it by some margin.

Additionally, their accounting practices were known about at the time and praised for being 'innovative.' That, plus enough commentators questioning the company throughout 2000 at least, means that the signs were there for you to figure out what was going on. So yes, using your brain would have helped.

In any event, whats the point of this? If you want to discuss probabilistic models of various investments and how far they can deviate from their mean expected or underlying value then start a thread discussing such. Posting this in a Bitcoin thread whilst simultaneously stating that it isn't a comment on Bitcoin is pointless. 

adindas

Zola. said:

If it's a scam it's a very generous one, annualizing 200% gains per year for anyone who simply buys and holds the asset through at least one cycle. 

Aahhhhhhh Only 200% per year?. A few of biotech stocks manage to spike 6X+ in a day, very few are even 10X+ a day due to catalysts, breaking news of a new drug invention, drug approval by authority, etc. 

So they are scam then ....

I am not saying that there is not any scam in biotech stock, in fact many of P&D case happen in Biotech sector as many of Biotech share price are penny stock, low float, with a small market cap. So the price is relatively easy to be moved by the scammers, who own that company or who own majority of the shares.

But BTC market cap is US$1T+, how many people in this world will be able to move/manipulate the price significantly with such market cap?? Is there any people own BTC more than 50% (say) so for those people the risk/reward is a huge incentive to commit that action as they will benefit the most with price movement??

How could it possibly happen for people to own majority of BTC? Keep in mind there are limited supply, there are few hundred millions of people getting involved. You could only get 50% if vast majority of people want to sell it.

Who control BTC?? Keep in mind the main benefit of blockchain is the distributed economy, so no single person or government will have enough power to control them as the power is distributed along the chain.

RolandFlagg

My favourite video explaining how Blockchain works, for those interested.

IMO, everyone should take a couple of hours to research this. It will change the way we live, and offer the best risk/reward investments in our lifetime, as long as you are patient, have a long term view, don't panic sell in volatility, and only invest what you don't need anytime soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl8OlkkwRpc&ab_channel=TED

adindas

RolandFlagg said:

My favourite video explaining how Blockchain works, for those interested.

It is very informative indeed for those who want to start to dip their toes in the water understanding the basic of blockchain.

For those who want to learn blockchain as a series of lectures like Business, Finance Economics student at the university (not computer science student) learn. The series lecture from Gary Gensler might be more appropriate. Gary Gensler,  the current Chief of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was a former professor at MIT teaching block chain and crypto.

You could find most of his lecture on YouTube using the search word, for instance “gary gensler's crypto and blockchain”

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6vE97qIP4&list=PLUl4u3cNGP63UUkfL0onkxF6MYgVa04Fn)

You could also find his lecture among with other open lecture in MIT OpenCourseWare including Blockchain intended blockchain cryptography intended for computer science students.  

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEBb1b_L6zDS3xTUrIALZOw

Section62

darren232002 said:

In any event, whats the point of this? If you want to discuss probabilistic models of various investments and how far they can deviate from their mean expected or underlying value then start a thread discussing such. Posting this in a Bitcoin thread whilst simultaneously stating that it isn't a comment on Bitcoin is pointless. 

No, I'm not really interested in discussing probabilistic modelling. That discussion is the one you wanted to have, apparently to deflect away from the point I was making.

Which was that the proposition put forward by adindas, that equates to 'look at the profits, this can't be a scam' is a dangerous suggestion on a consumer-orientated forum where people frequently arrive asking "This investment looks too good to be true, is it a scam?"

Anything which implies great performance is a reliable indicator of the safety of any investment doesn't deserve to be on a forum like this one without some cautionary balance.

As for Bitcoin, very few people would claim the cryptocurrency space is free from scams, I'm pretty sure pros like Scottex have made that point themselves.

So, without getting bogged down in an argument about whether BTC is or isn't, there should be a relative consensus here that any investment requires some research and knowledge, and a simplistic 'look at the profits' approach to due diligence is one which is deeply flawed.

My view FWIW, is one of the serious threats to cryptocurrency is the scamming circulating around it, not the nature of the currencies themselves.  Folks who are serious/professional about cryptocurrency, who can't see the danger in remarks like the one adindas made, and who won't tolerate any discussion around the subject of scams/fraud, really need to give their heads a bit of a wobble.  Bitcoin won't be crashed by the 'boomers' having nothing to do with it, it will be crashed by the pseudo-experts who encourage others to dive in without due care.  They are the ones you need to watch out for.