BITCOIN

zagfles

Johnjdc said:

Scottex99 said:

How is that different to gold or stocks, aside from dividends and “gold can be used to make watches”

I don’t think it’s zero sum at all. 

I’ve bought at every possible price between $3k and $60k.

I bought at ~$17k in Jan this year when whoever was on the other side was happy to sell to me.

And I’ll sell sometime next year, hopefully in the $60-80k range. When someone will happily buy too.

its a free market, nobody that got in super early needs to convince people to push the price up, the market, hard money and economics does that job well enough 

It's different from stocks because companies do other things to make money, and grow their underlying assets and/or pay out dividends, so it is possible for the amount of money taken out of shares in a company in the long term to be greater than the amount that was put in, with that difference being made up of the company's net profits. That's a fundamental difference not a minor "aside from".

It's not that different from gold in that it's a thing that only has value because enough people agree it has value, and can only really be traded profitably by finding someone else who believes it has a greater value. The main difference is that the agreement about it having value arose more recently than the invention of the iPhone, rather than at about the same time as the building of the Pyramids.

I wonder if papyrus scrolls were distributed then trying to convince people what a great investment gold is?

User232002

Hexane said:

But Scott, for those of us that found this interesting, it's all a bit quiet. What should we do now? Keep searching dead threads like this one? Or do I need to sign up to "podcasts and newsletters" to follow what you guys are up to?

tbh I've just sunk another 10K in an HSBC fund.

Weren't you proclaiming the death of Bitcoin when it was $16k? Funny, its now approaching a 3x from those lows. In a year. 

Just a reminder from this thread on 11th October 2022;

darren232002 said:

Sold nothing. Bought more and will continue to do so. What new information? The thesis is literally playing out right in front of your eyes...

Bitcoin is currently @ $19k. Just posting that so that nobody comes out with some ridiculous statement like 'claims he bought Bitcoin at an opportune time' in a few years time.

I've enjoyed the quiet, and I'm quite sad that its started moving so soon. 

DannyCarey said:

If it gets to around $55,000 I will likely sell it all. 

This will be a mistake.

Aegis said:

You did quite well compared to some others. It's always worth remembering that bitcoin is a zero-sum game.  What that means is that you can imagine it a bit like everyone chipping in £5 in coins, putting them all on a table, then saying to the room "take what you can" and wondering off.  The average "return" for all investors is zero, but the dispersion of those results changes enormously depending on whether you get to the table of coins first or last.

Ah, I see we've returned to saying the same silly stuff we were saying 3 years ago. 

Johnjdc said:

It's different from stocks because companies do other things to make money, and grow their underlying assets and/or pay out dividends, so it is possible for the amount of money taken out of shares in a company in the long term to be greater than the amount that was put in, with that difference being made up of the company's net profits. That's a fundamental difference not a minor "aside from".

A global, decentralised, trustless, permissionless financial system, outside the control of a single person, whose monetary policy is determined by code and game theoretic incentives creates value, just as companies do. Hard money is the foundational rock of a strong economic system. Without it, there is no incentive to overproduce and therefore no abundance.

Linton

The problem with Bitcoin is that the price is unbounded. it could rise 100-fold or fall to zero. Shares as a class are fundamentally different:

A share price  cannot drop to zero unless the issuing company goes bust.  A solvent company should always have some real value, eg any land it owns. So if the price of its shares drops too far the whole company could be bought for peanuts and stripped of its assets.

If all companies went bust that would be an end of the world scenario where the infrastructure needed for bitcoin would no longer function.

The maximum value of most shares is also bounded.  If the price goes too high the % value of the ongoing and likely future profits drops to below the interest rate given by safe government bonds.  Under those circumstances there would be  no rational reason to hold the shares.

There are shares with an underlying asset value of virtually nothing that rise in price far beyond any reasonable expectations of future profits.  So yes such shares can be compared with Bitcoin.  But you would be very foolish to regard any investment in such companies as anything more than a bit of fun with a small amount of spare cash rather than a significant contribution to your future financial security

boingy

Comparing Bitcoin with shares is not a sensible approach.
You should compare Bitcoin with other, more traditional, currencies. People invest in Dollars, Pounds and Euros. Just like Bitcoin, none of those things are real.

Anyhow, I'm just glad to get my Bitcoin money back. Too volatile for my liking.

I don't know why crypto triggers such strong responses in people. 

Scottex99

boingy said:

Comparing Bitcoin with shares is not a sensible approach.
You should compare Bitcoin with other, more traditional, currencies. People invest in Dollars, Pounds and Euros. Just like Bitcoin, none of those things are real.

Anyhow, I'm just glad to get my Bitcoin money back. Too volatile for my liking.

I don't know why crypto triggers such strong responses in people. 

Good for you, everyone is here to try to make money from their investments.

It creates such strong responses because it’s nascent, the White Paper for Bitcoin is 15 years old.

Typically older people don’t trust it as they can’t understand it and younger people see it as a type of digital gold: store of value, democratised hardest form of money that cannot be inflated away like fiat money can (and has).

We all know big bankers can’t be trusted to look after the average person, the same as the majority of politicians. Jamie Dimon just came out this week saying he hates Bitcoin and no doubt gave some Terrorist Financing, Money Laundering reason for it, ironic given what his bank has paid in fines for doing the exact same thing.

It is very volatile and speculative, I personally find it fun.

If you want to hold bonds or very low risk funds, then go ahead. If you want to throw £500 at some super risky altcoin then do that too. We all know to max out our ISAs, invest in sensible baskets of stocks that return 10-12% per year and over decades we can retire comfortably - but

A lot of young people today don’t have that choice and they are looking for alternatives. If there is some great reset coming in whatever form, crypto MAY be a way to front run it.

boingy

Scottex99 said:

boingy said:

Comparing Bitcoin with shares is not a sensible approach.
You should compare Bitcoin with other, more traditional, currencies. People invest in Dollars, Pounds and Euros. Just like Bitcoin, none of those things are real.

Anyhow, I'm just glad to get my Bitcoin money back. Too volatile for my liking.

I don't know why crypto triggers such strong responses in people. 

Good for you, everyone is here to try to make money from their investments.

It creates such strong responses because it’s nascent, the White Paper for Bitcoin is 15 years old.

Typically older people don’t trust it as they can’t understand it and younger people see it as a type of digital gold: store of value, democratised hardest form of money that cannot be inflated away like fiat money can (and has).

We all know big bankers can’t be trusted to look after the average person, the same as the majority of politicians. Jamie Dimon just came out this week saying he hates Bitcoin and no doubt gave some Terrorist Financing, Money Laundering reason for it, ironic given what his bank has paid in fines for doing the exact same thing.

It is very volatile and speculative, I personally find it fun.

If you want to hold bonds or very low risk funds, then go ahead. If you want to throw £500 at some super risky altcoin then do that too. We all know to max out our ISAs, invest in sensible baskets of stocks that return 10-12% per year and over decades we can retire comfortably - but

A lot of young people today don’t have that choice and they are looking for alternatives. If there is some great reset coming in whatever form, crypto MAY be a way to front run it.

Scott, I find that quite an aggressive response to what was a very neutral post. So I've put you on ignore. 

zagfles

Scottex99 said:

Hexane said:

But Scott, for those of us that found this interesting, it's all a bit quiet. What should we do now? Keep searching dead threads like this one? Or do I need to sign up to "podcasts and newsletters" to follow what you guys are up to?

tbh I've just sunk another 10K in an HSBC fund.

Yeah I don’t mind keeping it going, just can’t be bothered with all the arguments like last time.

Even though I’ve worked in Crypto since 2018, the bear markets are boring and I tend to cut out the newsletters and podcasts, but I’m back in them now, haha.

It’s pretty interesting to see the psychology.

”oh it’s dead, it’s going to 0”
”wait a sec it’s come back a bit”
”it’s doing pretty well now”
”I can’t believe I didn’t buy loads at the bottom, please will it go down in price so I can buy more”

Yeah really interesting psychology, here's another, although it probably doesn't fit the narrative

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78167059/#Comment_78167059

Strange, I never feel the need to do or say anything like that with any of my investments, or potential investments, regardless how well or badly they've done. Why don't other investments have the same psychology I wonder.

Scottex99

Lol, my point exactly with forums, especially this one.

No aggression intended and I wasn’t being sarcastic either when I said that I was glad you broke even 

zagfles

boingy said:

Comparing Bitcoin with shares is not a sensible approach.
You should compare Bitcoin with other, more traditional, currencies. People invest in Dollars, Pounds and Euros. Just like Bitcoin, none of those things are real.

Anyhow, I'm just glad to get my Bitcoin money back. Too volatile for my liking.

I don't know why crypto triggers such strong responses in people. 

I'm sure you do really!

Scottex99

zagfles said:

Scottex99 said:

Hexane said:

But Scott, for those of us that found this interesting, it's all a bit quiet. What should we do now? Keep searching dead threads like this one? Or do I need to sign up to "podcasts and newsletters" to follow what you guys are up to?

tbh I've just sunk another 10K in an HSBC fund.

Yeah I don’t mind keeping it going, just can’t be bothered with all the arguments like last time.

Even though I’ve worked in Crypto since 2018, the bear markets are boring and I tend to cut out the newsletters and podcasts, but I’m back in them now, haha.

It’s pretty interesting to see the psychology.

”oh it’s dead, it’s going to 0”
”wait a sec it’s come back a bit”
”it’s doing pretty well now”
”I can’t believe I didn’t buy loads at the bottom, please will it go down in price so I can buy more”

Yeah really interesting psychology, here's another, although it probably doesn't fit the narrative

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78167059/#Comment_78167059

Strange, I never feel the need to do or say anything like that with any of my investments, or potential investments, regardless how well or badly they've done. Why don't other investments have the same psychology I wonder.

It’s a forum to talk about investments, some might have strong opinions, incorrect or not.

It’s cyclical in nature, just the stock market but on a shorter timeframe. 2017, 2021 and soon to be a likely bullrun in 2025 - due to the 4 year halvening events. All you can do is try to learn more from each one.

People also tend to gloat or brag if they are in the minority of being right on something speculative. I’ll try to keep mine to a minimum when BTC rips next year 😉