BITCOIN

BearWhite

So clearly we're not going to get any agreement on whether Crypto is a good investment or not, so maybe we can try and move on from that, on both sides, and make this thread useful?

I have about 5% of my wealth in it and am interested in what people think are good long terms investments in the space. I have BTC (55%)  and ETH (35%) plus some others platform tokens. Any views here on BTC v ETH as a long term investment? The rest of my money is in global trackers and a rental property so I'm well diversified.

Scottex99

HansOndabush said:

Scottex99 said:

Thrugelmir said:

[Deleted User] said:

IanManc said:

[Deleted User] said:

HansOndabush said:

Bitcoin could go to any price $100K, $1m, anything which still would not prove it isn't just a bubble and might go to $0

Have fun staying poor then, while we enjoy our millions. There’s a sucker born every minute. 😄

That comment might just come back to bite you.  🤨

 Cashed out profits thousand times over already and I still have active position in Bitcoin.

How do you cash out Bitcoin other than to sell it to another dumb speculator. When there's no one to sell it to what happens then? Takes two to trade. 

Why does this get raised again and again like it's relevant? It's not some illiquid fantasy asset with 3 orders in each order book. $65bn of BTC traded in the last 24 hours according to Gecko. My team put 2 x $1m BTC limit sell orders through an exchange fairly recently and they filled in about 4 mins.

Of course it is relevant. Just quoting volumes does not explain how you have cashed out profits thousands of times without someone else being on the losing side of those trades.

How is it not relevant? Volume (and lots of it) means I can sell 99.9% of all the crypto any time I want. Why would I care who is taking the other side of the trade? That's a punter/market maker/desk/trader, do you obsess over any stocks that you sell in profit too?

I bought my DOGE around the WSBs stuff about 2-3 months ago? At a price of $0.05. I'm not a fan of DOGE in general but had been holding as noobs were piling in. I sold 3/4s of my bag at $0.55 yesterday and used the profits to buy something else I liked. I could have easily cashed out to £ and moved the money to my bank too, if I wanted to.

Scottex99

BearWhite said:

So clearly we're not going to get any agreement on whether Crypto is a good investment or not, so maybe we can try and move on from that, on both sides, and make this thread useful?

I have about 5% of my wealth in it and am interested in what people think are good long terms investments in the space. I have BTC (55%)  and ETH (35%) plus some others platform tokens. Any views here on BTC v ETH as a long term investment? The rest of my money is in global trackers and a rental property so I'm well diversified.

Both the big 2 are good for a long term hold. ETH is my biggest bag but I'll happily keep buying both (lightly) with GBP most days.
I also have an ungodly amount of alts including multiple sh11tcoins that have done both badly and spectacularly well, that's general my degen stuff though

underground99

HansOndabush said:

Scottex99 said:

Thrugelmir said:

[Deleted User] said:

IanManc said:

[Deleted User] said:

HansOndabush said:

Bitcoin could go to any price $100K, $1m, anything which still would not prove it isn't just a bubble and might go to $0

Have fun staying poor then, while we enjoy our millions. There’s a sucker born every minute. 😄

That comment might just come back to bite you.  🤨

 Cashed out profits thousand times over already and I still have active position in Bitcoin.

How do you cash out Bitcoin other than to sell it to another dumb speculator. When there's no one to sell it to what happens then? Takes two to trade. 

Why does this get raised again and again like it's relevant? It's not some illiquid fantasy asset with 3 orders in each order book. $65bn of BTC traded in the last 24 hours according to Gecko. My team put 2 x $1m BTC limit sell orders through an exchange fairly recently and they filled in about 4 mins.

Of course it is relevant. Just quoting volumes does not explain how you have cashed out profits thousands of times without someone else being on the losing side of those trades.

If you buy something for £x and sell it for £y. You make a profit or loss of £y-x. Let's say y is greater than x (perhaps it is 10x or 100x or 1000x) so you have made a profit.

The person who bought it from you for £y then holds an asset which has cost them £y. Does that mean they are on 'the losing side of that trade'? The fact that they chose to pay y rather than buying it earlier at x means that they didn't make a profit in that earlier period. Are they a 'loser' who has 'made a loss'?  No, they are an investor or speculator who has bought something for a price. Time will tell whether they will ultimately consider the purchase of that thing for price £y to be a good thing or a bad thing.  As you mentioned in a previous post, you don't know whether the person buying for £y per BTC could eventually sell it for $100k or $1m. 

Perhaps the buyer at £y will eventually find it to be worthless and write it off for £0. Or perhaps he will make a profit. That is unknown. All that is known is that the person buying at £x and selling at £y made a profit.   

Your contention that the person buying at £x and selling for £y must be living in fantasy land because someone making a gain means someone else making a loss and he can't explain how he has made a gain without someone losing so must be an idiot, seems to betray a misunderstanding on your part. There is not always a profit and a loss. In that example, there is a profit and an unknown, which will be revealed in the fullness of time.    The person originally selling it for x could have made a lot more money if he held it instead until he could sell it for y. But he may have realised a profit by selling at x and then used the proceeds of x to do some alternative profitable venture, so would not consider himself a loser. The person buying from him at x and selling at y also made a profit and took those profits off to some other profitable venture, so he would not consider himself a loser either.  That just leaves the person who bought at £y and has not yet sold it. Today he could sell a bitcoin bought for £y for $58k which might be a profit or loss for him depending on how much £y is.

Your contention is that the bitcoin is worth £0, so you think the person paying £y for it must inherently be on the losing side of the trade as he paid £y which is more than £0. However, just like the person who bought an ounce of gold for $2040 which was more than anyone else ever paid before or since, the purchase at a high price and an eventual sale at a different price may end up making an overall profit, or not, and if it is a profit it might be good or bad level of profit compared to the profits which with hindsight were available from other assets over the same time period.

HansOndabush

All well and good but Scottex99 was talking about 'thousands of times' which implies short-term trading and hence if he is making a profit, someone else is losing or are you saying that there can only ever be long-term investors/speculators on the other side of these thousands of trades?

Scottex99

1. That wasn't me, check the chat.
2. Who cares? if there's a market to buy and sell every second of the day, who's on the other side of my trades is of no importance to me. This whole "THERE MUST BE LOSERS" thing is boring at best and also flawed as per Underground's post. There's millions of trades every day, people get rekt and make fortunes all the time. I've invested in stuff that has died a slow death and I've made 50x in a month, so what?
3. You're here all day being told what is what by people who know what they are doing and continually drudging up the same poor arguments, give it up for your sanity.
4. When BTC hits $100k, i'm giving £1k to charity, you can have first pick at who that is, get your thinking cap on.

seansjt

It is definitely going more mainstream and mass adoption is starting to take off.  It will have a place in modern society it is just a case of how and where and when

HansOndabush

Scottex99 said:

1. That wasn't me, check the chat.
2. Who cares? if there's a market to buy and sell every second of the day, who's on the other side of my trades is of no importance to me. This whole "THERE MUST BE LOSERS" thing is boring at best and also flawed as per Underground's post. There's millions of trades every day, people get rekt and make fortunes all the time. I've invested in stuff that has died a slow death and I've made 50x in a month, so what?
3. You're here all day being told what is what by people who know what they are doing and continually drudging up the same poor arguments, give it up for your sanity.
4. When BTC hits $100k, i'm giving £1k to charity, you can have first pick at who that is, get your thinking cap on.

1. You are right; it is patient_investor who has apparently cashed out profits 'thousands of times'; obviously none too patient with his positions then, heh heh.

2. It matters because currency, crypto or otherwise, is a zero-sum game and that is what distinguishes it from shares which can increase in value because the company that you buy a share in is working to produce things and supply services. Bitcoin is just a speculative token but is being portrayed by the industry as some kind of wonder that you can't lose on. As has been said, it would be impossible for all bitcoin holders to cash out at the current price. That is why it matters, why it is important to point this out. That crypto is not always profit making for everyone as this thread seems to imply.

3. I might just; not much else to say anyway until it all crashes.

4. Hopefully you will do the same if it goes sub £1K again. As has already been suggested, a gambling charity would be appropriate.

thegentleway

BearWhite said:

So clearly we're not going to get any agreement on whether Crypto is a good investment or not, so maybe we can try and move on from that, on both sides, and make this thread useful?

I have about 5% of my wealth in it and am interested in what people think are good long terms investments in the space. I have BTC (55%)  and ETH (35%) plus some others platform tokens. Any views here on BTC v ETH as a long term investment? The rest of my money is in global trackers and a rental property so I'm well diversified.

My view is fairly bland I'm afraid: it's I don't know and I don't think anybody else does either. Seems reasonable to gamble a small proportion of your wealth you can afford to lose just in case it does become widely accepted.
I wanted to ask you something though: you mention the other 95% is in trackers and property so I was wondering if you have any gold or other speculative commodities/currencies? I find it interesting that people seem to be very happy to speculate on crypto but not other more conventional speculative assets.

underground99

HansOndabush said:

Scottex99 said:

1. That wasn't me, check the chat.
2. Who cares? if there's a market to buy and sell every second of the day, who's on the other side of my trades is of no importance to me. This whole "THERE MUST BE LOSERS" thing is boring at best and also flawed as per Underground's post. There's millions of trades every day, people get rekt and make fortunes all the time. I've invested in stuff that has died a slow death and I've made 50x in a month, so what?
3. You're here all day being told what is what by people who know what they are doing and continually drudging up the same poor arguments, give it up for your sanity.
4. When BTC hits $100k, i'm giving £1k to charity, you can have first pick at who that is, get your thinking cap on.

1. You are right; it is patient_investor who has apparently cashed out profits 'thousands of times'; obviously none too patient with his positions then, heh heh.

Last year on the thread, Patient was saying he had cashed out amounts  that were 'dozens of times more' than what he had invested, and this weekend he's mentioned making profits 'thousands of times over'. In that context, the number of 'times' can refer to a multiple on the initial investment rather than specifically meaning that number of trades. If you invest a fiver when it's at $50 or $500 and sell when it's at $50,000, there's 100x or 1000x return just from tucking them away - it doesn't really mean that he entered into transactions thousands of times.  So perhaps he was patient and held from $20 to $20000 before giving up work in 2017.

To be honest, your doubling-down on how BTC is not an investment, and your telling everyone until you're blue in the face that it is fundamentally one big joke, seems like it's coloured by your not having bought it at $5 or $50 or $500 or $5000 and being more than a little bit envious of those fools that did; clearly you can't be seen to have a change of heart at $50,000 having been so adamant about $500 or $5000 or $20000 being a ridiculous price to pay, so you just have to stay in the corner you backed yourself into, and repeat how the price must be wrong because it's all worth $0 really.

Last year on your 'liquidate portfolio until it's over?' thread you were saying in mid March that you had sold some of your equities but bemoaning that you hadn't exited nearly as much as you ought to have done and you were recommending gold and silver as protection against the inevitable further price crash and heavy inflation to anyone who would listen. But since then, while silver is up, gold is merely flat at £1300 /oz and an MSCI World tracker is 45-50% up...  And back in 2015 on your 'Anyone else making a loss on all their S&S investments?' thread, you were bemoaning how your portfolio had holdings that were down right across the board due to getting unlucky with sectors and stockpicks, and noting how you had avoided the US gains because it had seemed so overvalued (while as of now, S&P is now 2x higher than late 2015, plus five years dividends). 

It will probably come across a bit rude to suggest it, but my guess is that you must be a bit frustrated with the calls you've made from time to time and are really quite agitated that you've called Bitcoin so wrong on top of everything else, which makes it really really important to tell everyone that Bitcoin is not an investment and they should walk away from it so that it doesn't end in tears, for their sakes.  But perhaps some of it is for your own sake too, as you'd sleep easier if BTC did crash back to $1000 vindicating your decision to leave it well alone.