BITCOIN

IvanOpinion

Mt problem with Bitcoin and any of the other crypto currencies is that I just don't understand them and how they can reflect a 'value'.  The who buying/managing/selling seems overly complicated.  I also think that central banks will eventually come out with one or more 'sanctioned' national/international cryptocurrencies at some point and that will see the demise of many that currently seem to be in favour ..... but as I said I don't really understand them.

My golden rule is that I do not invest in anything that I don't understand.  I have a couple of blockchain companies in my portfolio though (but that is not to do with crypto).  Maybe when it falls back below £10K again I might dip my toe in the water and have a flutter.

Scottex99

moneywow1 said:

It's so cringe reading posts from people who joined a bull market (the likes of which have never been seen before) and think they are the next Warren Buffett.

Imagine bragging about a 200% return in 3 months when you could make this (or more) betting on practically anything.

Can't wait for the big crash.

No bragging on my side, if I felt like it, I'd brag about the 50-100xs.

I also said it was muck about money that my mates sent me, just an example that there's money to be made.

I'm in from the last bull run, I've done a crypto winter already, if there's sign of another one coming, people will assess and adapt. Or go broke if they are in too far

janeskips2

Every time crypto seems to be done it comes back stronger. Everyone man and his dog is into crypto now.

eskbanker

janeskips2 said:

Every time crypto seems to be done it comes back stronger. Everyone man and his dog is into crypto now.

Many a true word....

Malthusian

lardellion said:

I suppose there is a certain value to the utility of being able to send money anywhere you have a reliable internet connection, but it's hard to put a number on that.

Not that hard - you could just look up the market cap of Wise, XE etc.

Using Bitcoin to send money to people in other countries is daft because you'll miss out on your exponential returns and they'll get them instead. It would make far more sense to send your worthless fiat to whoever you want to pay and hodl your Bitcoins.

Crypto might be useful as a hedge against certain disasters.

Maybe, in the sense that gold is. But the idea that gold (and therefore Bitcoin) always goes up when the market goes down is not based on reality. In some crashes gold has, in others it hasn't.

These things don't justify the current prices though. I think it's all about hopes and dreams coupled with the fact that Bitcoin is scarce.

Not that scarce. It's an asset that is going to lambo moon and go to $100,000 at some point in the near future and maybe $1 million beyond that. Yet millions of bros will happily sell you one for $41,000. That's not what scarce means.

TheAble

IvanOpinion said:

Mt problem with Bitcoin and any of the other crypto currencies is that I just don't understand them and how they can reflect a 'value'.  The who buying/managing/selling seems overly complicated.  I also think that central banks will eventually come out with one or more 'sanctioned' national/international cryptocurrencies at some point and that will see the demise of many that currently seem to be in favour ..... but as I said I don't really understand them.

My golden rule is that I do not invest in anything that I don't understand.  I have a couple of blockchain companies in my portfolio though (but that is not to do with crypto).  Maybe when it falls back below £10K again I might dip my toe in the water and have a flutter.

So you DO invest in things you don't understand 

IvanOpinion

TheAble said:

IvanOpinion said:

Mt problem with Bitcoin and any of the other crypto currencies is that I just don't understand them and how they can reflect a 'value'.  The who buying/managing/selling seems overly complicated.  I also think that central banks will eventually come out with one or more 'sanctioned' national/international cryptocurrencies at some point and that will see the demise of many that currently seem to be in favour ..... but as I said I don't really understand them.

My golden rule is that I do not invest in anything that I don't understand.  I have a couple of blockchain companies in my portfolio though (but that is not to do with crypto).  Maybe when it falls back below £10K again I might dip my toe in the water and have a flutter.

So you DO invest in things you don't understand 

No, I have never invested in something I don't understand.  I thought I had been quite clear about that.??

TheAble

IvanOpinion said:

TheAble said:

IvanOpinion said:

Mt problem with Bitcoin and any of the other crypto currencies is that I just don't understand them and how they can reflect a 'value'.  The who buying/managing/selling seems overly complicated.  I also think that central banks will eventually come out with one or more 'sanctioned' national/international cryptocurrencies at some point and that will see the demise of many that currently seem to be in favour ..... but as I said I don't really understand them.

My golden rule is that I do not invest in anything that I don't understand.  I have a couple of blockchain companies in my portfolio though (but that is not to do with crypto).  Maybe when it falls back below £10K again I might dip my toe in the water and have a flutter.

So you DO invest in things you don't understand 

No, I have never invested in something I don't understand.  I thought I had been quite clear about that.??

It was only intended as a light hearted observation. You just mentioned a couple of Blockchain companies and that you might have a dabble below 10k.

User232002

Malthusian said:

Not that scarce. It's an asset that is going to lambo moon and go to $100,000 at some point in the near future and maybe $1 million beyond that. Yet millions of bros will happily sell you one for $41,000. That's not what scarce means.

Haha. Nobody is going to sell you a Bitcoin for $41k in the current environment. Good chance we never go below $45k again actually.

IvanOpinion said:

I also think that central banks will eventually come out with one or more 'sanctioned' national/international cryptocurrencies at some point and that will see the demise of many that currently seem to be in favour ..... but as I said I don't really understand them.

Maybe when it falls back below £10K again I might dip my toe in the water and have a flutter.

CBDCs are terrible and simply evidence that the central banks have a complete misunderstanding of whats happening. They don't solve any of the issues that BTC does because they can still 'print' more of their digital money at zero cost, just like they can with fiat currency. Plus, lets factor in the inevitable problems with state issued programmable money... Stimulus in the future is that you get £2k in your bank account but if it isnt spent by X date then it evaporates. Perhaps they issue stimulus only to people that have < Y value in their wallet. Or maybe they just go the whole hog and if they don't like you and/or your ideas your CBDC wallet is simply wiped out to zero or are no longer acceptable by merchants.

I think there is approximately zero chance that Bitcoin goes below $10k ever again. In fact, if it ever went back below $20k my beliefs are invalidated and I'd be selling everything I have (at a healthy profit still btw).

moneywow1 said:

Can't wait for the big crash.

200%+ CAGR for over a decade and you're still saying this. At this point its not based on rational thought, its simply a psychological bias. FYI I bought and sold Bitcoin in 2013 and 2014. The ability to change your mind given new information is an important attribute.

benbay001 said:

Further edit: Did you know the US banned gold as an investment glass from the 1930s until the 1970s? And the result was that the price halved, adjusted for inflation.

Give me one reason why the same couldnt happen to BTC?

Because game theory means it will hurt them more than it would ever help them.

Firstly, its owned by millions of their citizens and several US companies have billions of it on their balance sheets. You think attempting to wipe that value to zero is just going to be accepted by those people/companies? Do you think this is a logical action for a government that has overwhelmingly chosen to preserve value in business for the last two decades? Do you think it is a logical decision for a government that has moved towards recognising and legislating around this space in the last decade?

Secondly, logistics - you can't ban it unless you turn off the internet. You can ban yourself from the network, but that's going to make the country significantly poorer.

Thirdly, if you try to target fiat on and off ramps - I can walk across a border with my entire net worth in my head. If a country bans Bitcoin, people will move abroad to my favourable places (I actually no longer live in the UK anyway for much the same reason; I'm paid far more and have a better quality of life abroad and think the UK is doomed over a long time frame). This matters because the people that own Bitcoin tend to be STEM educated, so its a brain drain of the highest order.

Fourthly, look at the people appointed by the BIden administration - mainly pro Bitcoin with extensive history in the space (Gensler and Pierce come to mind to start with). Fifthly, if we look through history, every country that has tried to ban bitcoin has seen a premium for it, increased demand and has pretty much given up attempting to limit is use (most recently, Turkey went from attempting to ban it to legislating around it).

Bitcoin is lindy. The longer it exists, the longer it is likely to exist. Believing Bitcoin can be banned just shows an overestimation of the power and competence of governments and an underestimation of the technical difficulty of actually doing so.

HansOndabush said:

Bitcoin is not a company, does not produce anything or pay dividends, you can't use it in industry or make anything from it like you can with gold,

Only a fraction of the value of gold derives from its actual use cases. The majority of its value is its monetary premium. Bitcoin does pretty much everything that gold does, but it does it far better so in time that monetary premium accrues to Bitcoin and not gold.

The hilarious thing is this entire thread is about Bitcoin and how people still can't wrap their heads around it, but most people in the space are way more interested and see far more potential in other crypto assets. I often think that crypto will separate those that can think and reason abstractly or from first principles from those that can not. 

HansOndabush said:

The only way that Scottex99 can profit is by the fact that some greater fool is willing to pay a higher price for the Bitcoin tokens that he bought at a lower price. i.e. the latecomers to the party are paying the profits of the early arrivers; is that not the nature of a ponzi scheme?

As I've stated before, we don't need MSE'rs to buy our bags. Its a $1T asset, so whatever people from this forum throw at it is not going to move it in any meaningful way. Tesla, Microstrategy, Massmutual, Square et al have bought billions of $ of BTC. Chances are Elon probably has a better idea of managing money than you do. Chances are that he consulted with several people before that purchase; people who all also probably have a better chance of managing money than you do.

At this point, institutions are buying for their own treasuries as well as financial institutions advising high net worth clients to put 1-5% of their portfolio in to BTC. A Bitcoin ETF is probably a certainty at some point this year which will further improve liquidity. As it continues to go up, larger funds will become more involved (some funds have strict limits on the minimum size of the asset they can invest in). 4 years ago, being pro-BTC was a career risk (see JPMorgan CEO threatening to sack anyone he caught buying it) but now there is a pretty good argument that a fiduciary would not be doing their job correctly if they ignore an asset that has 200% CAGR over the last decade with the best Sharpe ratio of any asset over that same timeframe.  JPMorgan now has a $145k price target for Bitcoin btw.

deejaybee

Hi,

I'm considering dipping my toe into Bitcoin..

I live in a small market town in DEvon, and funny enough they have had a Bitcoin ATM in the local Tourist office since 2018 ish.

I popped in there today to ask some questions,they could only give me some basics, as it is actually operated by "ALPHAVEND"

They told me i needed to have a Bitcoin wallet, so that i could scan a QR code, then follow on-screen instructions and basically feed it banknotes. Its currently set at £100 minimum , and there is a £5 charge per transaction - i'm not sure whether there is a seperate % commission fee..

The manageress said that someone bought ONE Bitcoin for £5K back in the day, which must have taken a while to get the notes in.

So, anyone had any dealings/experience with ALPHAVEND ATMs ?  Which wallet would be suitable for use with them ?

Ideally i would keep wallet on my Android mobile.

Thanks