BITCOIN

bugbyte_2

@darren72

....If he really wanted to spam this forum and pump BTC, we'd be in every thread with some poster who has just inherited $50k - $150k telling them to buy BTC because its a better choice than the idiots recommending they put it in NS&I. ...

This really shows a complete lack of understanding and maturity. People generally don't want to see their life savings drop by 50% on a whim and most people are content to hold what they have got, and an NS&I account can form one part of that strategy. So why would you call them idiots? Can people not have a different outlook to you? or are you the only person who can be right?  

....Never mind of course that logically, even with the 50% drawdown, you'd still have been better off buying in to BTC than whatever UK stocks you have......

Future PLC, Ashted PLC, Marks & Spencer, Kingspan, Glencore and loads more UK listed companies I hold (and most people that hold a tracker for that matter) have outperformed Bitcoin in the past year, so are you saying that BTC has done well recently? Just because it 'went to the moon' a few years back does not mean it will jump several thousand % from now on.The current price is what market sentiment deems it to be - and future projection will form part of that pricing. Unlike the companies listed above there is no underlying fundamentals and no way to do a value analysis to form an opinion of where it will go, which just leaves you with hope and speculation. That may work for you but until there is a good reason to hold BTC I'm not going to. 

.....Imagine thinking that UK value stocks would outperform if the US equity market tanked. Seems a bizarre take..... 

Well they have. You apparently haven't been paying attention. The concept of rebalancing seems to be completely lost on you. US Tech up, rebalance to other asset classes. Its not difficult. and yes, Vanguard lifestrategy does this for you!

....My point is, that a 5% drawdown in equities and a 50% drawdown in BTC are basically the same thing given their respective historical volatility.....

Yes because dropping £5,000 is the same as dropping £50,000. As I said, mental gymnastics.

.... Similarly, the idea that Bitcoin mining can be a buyer of last resort and form symbiotic partnerships with renewable energy providers that will provide long term emissions benefits is a reasonable, nuanced take....

Do you really believe that? Are you related to Boris?

RolandFlagg

I think the problem people have with BTC is it's volatility, which is pathetic.

Any good investor knows volatility is NOT the same as risk.

John Bogle said that, as did Warren Buffett:

"The lesson has not customarily been taught in business schools, where volatility is almost universally used as a proxy for risk. Though this pedagogic assumption makes for easy teaching, it is dead wrong: Volatility is far from synonymous with risk. Popular formulas that equate the two terms lead students, investors and CEOs astray"

As billionaire investor Bill Miller (who now has 50% of his personal wealth in BTC) says: "Volatility is the price you pay for performance".

I personally have 80% of my investments in passive index funds, as I've done my research (hundreds of hours) and I know that beating the market and trying to time the market is a fools errand, and that most fund managers can't beat the market even before fees.

The other 20% is in crypto (mainly BTC and ETH), because once again I've put in hundred of hours of research and looked at all the data and consider it the best risk/reward I've seen in my 25 years on investing.

The road will be rocky, but I only care out two points in time. The point I buy and the point I sell. I shut out all the CNBC type FUD. I'm as certain as I can be where this road will take us by the end of the decade, and it's going to be bigger than even most bulls imagine.

Scottex99

Bingo. Ofc this is bias but for me, the risk of BTC or ETH going to zero, is actually close to zero. Which leaves a lot of upside.

Now if you’re 65 and protecting your pension money then it adds other factors. But still doesn’t change the fact that everyone pro crypto here will do well in the long run

User232002

bugbyte_2 said:

@darren72

Hes going to be a bit miffed. 

bugbyte_2 said:

....If he really wanted to spam this forum and pump BTC, we'd be in every thread with some poster who has just inherited $50k - $150k telling them to buy BTC because its a better choice than the idiots recommending they put it in NS&I. ...

This really shows a complete lack of understanding and maturity. People generally don't want to see their life savings drop by 50% on a whim and most people are content to hold what they have got, and an NS&I account can form one part of that strategy. So why would you call them idiots? Can people not have a different outlook to you? or are you the only person who can be right?  

Come on. Please debate with a little bit of intellectual honesty. Nobody here is suggesting that a 65 year old pensioner puts their life savings in to Bitcoin, so why you are raising life savings dropping by 50% is nonsensical. And, since comprehension seems to not be your forte, I said that posting those kind of comments in those kind of threads is precisely what we are not doing.

Its not unreasonable to suggest that a pensioner puts 1% - 5% in to BTC though. And yes, an NS&I account running at 0.1% offers a negative real rate of return so its a very narrow set of circumstances where such a strategy would be the best play.

bugbyte_2 said:

....Never mind of course that logically, even with the 50% drawdown, you'd still have been better off buying in to BTC than whatever UK stocks you have......

Future PLC, Ashted PLC, Marks & Spencer, Kingspan, Glencore and loads more UK listed companies I hold (and most people that hold a tracker for that matter) have outperformed Bitcoin in the past year, so are you saying that BTC has done well recently? Just because it 'went to the moon' a few years back does not mean it will jump several thousand % from now on.The current price is what market sentiment deems it to be - and future projection will form part of that pricing. Unlike the companies listed above there is no underlying fundamentals and no way to do a value analysis to form an opinion of where it will go, which just leaves you with hope and speculation. That may work for you but until there is a good reason to hold BTC I'm not going to. 

Again, use some intellectual honesty please. I'd be very surprised if someone managed to buy exactly those stocks and didn't for example buy the index and/or buy some losing or non performing stocks. This shouldn't be something I have to point out, but you want to argue against Bitcoin so badly based on emotion that simple logic like this goes out of the window. My mental framework is to create a fair comparison based on merits, facts and rational thought so please don;t come at me with contrived and clearly flawed examples.

I've yet to see someone say here that bitcoin will go up several thousand percent, so why are you raising that as an argument? I'm just going to yawn and move on from the comments of 'fundamentals' and 'value.' Its been consistently explained but you don't want to know unless it fits your narrow definition of a dividend or whatever. You can use BTC to get 10% per annum as a carry trade without exposure to the volatility but that's not a valid use case or an actual yield apparently.

bugbyte_2 said:

.....Imagine thinking that UK value stocks would outperform if the US equity market tanked. Seems a bizarre take..... 

Well they have. You apparently haven't been paying attention. The concept of rebalancing seems to be completely lost on you. US Tech up, rebalance to other asset classes. Its not difficult. and yes, Vanguard lifestrategy does this for you!

Sir, 'the concept of rebalancing' is like a 12 year old playing with crayons whilst doing some fraction problems. Its not cutting edge knowledge. Anyway, please see above regarding general intellectual honesty; I'm sure I could cherry pick some Turkish stocks that have outperformed the S&P; doesn't mean we should be constructing a Turkish equity portfolio right now.

bugbyte_2 said:

....My point is, that a 5% drawdown in equities and a 50% drawdown in BTC are basically the same thing given their respective historical volatility.....

Yes because dropping £5,000 is the same as dropping £50,000. As I said, mental gymnastics.

Haha. You're accusing me of mental gymnastics? Really? Sure if we put $100k in to both at the absolute top its not great, but do you actually believe that's a fair comparison!?

Tell you what, lets say you put $4k each in to BTC and SPY after their covid crashes near the absolute bottom. That $4k in the SPY got up to like $7500 or something and after the 5% drawdown is now at like $7200 for a $300 drawdown. Meanwhile, your $4k in BTC got up to $70k but is now sitting at only $38k for a $32k drawdown. Wow, I really wish I'd have bought the SPY instead because the BTC drawdown was 100x the SPY! Like I keep saying; its a math test.

Same old, same old.

bugbyte_2 said:

.... Similarly, the idea that Bitcoin mining can be a buyer of last resort and form symbiotic partnerships with renewable energy providers that will provide long term emissions benefits is a reasonable, nuanced take....

Do you really believe that? Are you related to Boris?

Do you have any evidence why its not? Or are you, as I suspect, merely trying to make it seem like you know a lot and my opinion is a clearly incoherent take...

BTC mining farms in Iceland would seem to prove you incorrect, as would all the recent renewable energy investment being done in Texas where many BTC miners moved to. And of course, as I keep saying, BTC mining being 55% renewable (per the BTC mining council with Elon on the board, who I'm sure has got his sums right) is higher than the UK renewable energy use. Thus, it would seem its a leader in renewable energy and not the laggard many people claim it is?

Facts are inconvenient to an emotional argument, I know.

Aegis

Scottex99 said:

Bingo. Ofc this is bias but for me, the risk of BTC or ETH going to zero, is actually close to zero. Which leaves a lot of upside.

Now if you’re 65 and protecting your pension money then it adds other factors. But still doesn’t change the fact that everyone pro crypto here will do well in the long run

Sorry, but no, that is not a fact at all.  If those pro crypto individuals buy the wrong coin and it tanks, they could lose pretty much everything.  And, as I have implied before, all coins could be the wrong coins.

Scottex99

Aegis said:

Scottex99 said:

Bingo. Ofc this is bias but for me, the risk of BTC or ETH going to zero, is actually close to zero. Which leaves a lot of upside.

Now if you’re 65 and protecting your pension money then it adds other factors. But still doesn’t change the fact that everyone pro crypto here will do well in the long run

Sorry, but no, that is not a fact at all.  If those pro crypto individuals buy the wrong coin and it tanks, they could lose pretty much everything.  And, as I have implied before, all coins could be the wrong coins.

Except BTC and ETH, which I’ve just implied

Aegis

Scottex99 said:

Aegis said:

Scottex99 said:

Bingo. Ofc this is bias but for me, the risk of BTC or ETH going to zero, is actually close to zero. Which leaves a lot of upside.

Now if you’re 65 and protecting your pension money then it adds other factors. But still doesn’t change the fact that everyone pro crypto here will do well in the long run

Sorry, but no, that is not a fact at all.  If those pro crypto individuals buy the wrong coin and it tanks, they could lose pretty much everything.  And, as I have implied before, all coins could be the wrong coins.

Except BTC and ETH, which I’ve just implied

Ah, so in your view these are sure fire guarantees of future growth?  Pardon my skepticism, but whenever I see people making such claims I am pushed even further away, as it's clearly ludicrous.

Scottex99

When did I say that? I said they are not going to zero and therefore I see a lot of upside and minimal risk. Again risk for me is different to boomer risk, omg BTC COLLAPSED 10% in a day? Wow, cool

Aegis

Scottex99 said:

When did I say that? I said they are not going to zero and therefore I see a lot of upside and minimal risk. Again risk for me is different to boomer risk, omg BTC COLLAPSED 10% in a day? Wow, cool

Well, my comment was that buying the wrong coins could see someone lose almost everything, and you argued that this wouldn't be the case with either BTC or ETH.  Sounds like you're effectively calling them sure things.

Scottex99

Well I’m not am I? Because that would be dumb. For me I like the look of them and a few other blue chips in the space, same way you might like SPY calls or whatever you like to invest in.

Minimal downside outside of crazy black swan stuff and lots of upside as BTC becomes the hardest form of money and ETH helps to revolutionise Finance, and other sectors