Cryptocurrencies: Your thoughts?

nfmg

Thank you everyone for your thought provoking answers.

Aegis Fantastic information and a wealth of it and new terms to look up. Thank you so much for giving me some food for thought and points of interest to build a frame or frames of reference around. Much appreciated. Every bit of info helps.

And furthermore to the point of seemingly attractive prospects which were in reality really risky assets: This is where I would be concerned about double talk from the world's most slippery sharks [and this veers into stock market territory which I am also interested in learning about]. I guess there are interested parties letting things lie and while before moving in for the kill so to speak - in a financial sense - to take as much as they can get specifically at the expense of others in theory? OR:

It is now striking me that this is just the way it goes; people do not necessarily have to be amoral types out to screw everyone else over but that there must be a positive and negative for lack of a more informed way of putting it? So it basically all boils to returns/profits and losses - or however one would put it, yes?

One also wonders if this is a handy way for certain sharks to assuage their own guilt when intentionally doing someone out of something but just thinking out loud at this juncture as the thoughts occur to me - haven't been sitting on this as a longstanding question or anything like that.

darren232002 Some interesting stuff to consider there also.

Thrugelmir said:

nfmg said:

...

Would you ever consider buying foreign currency and trading it to make a return? 

Not usually no, I'm not sure why that would occur to me. I just mean in terms of discounts and savings etc that Crypto has a certain appeal at times. Wasn't really looking into it as an investment but the topic seems to be opening up now. I like that one can have an opinion on for it, for everyone can find out for themselves whether or not it works for them - although guessing it is difficult to see it that way for any who have lost out on Bitcoin.

Thrugelmir

darren232002 said:

Thrugelmir said:

nfmg said:

With how they are known to fluctuate are they ever a safe bet? I haven't used them but one can surmise certain things with even the slightest modicum of information. That is what we are all here for, yes? 

Would you ever consider buying foreign currency and trading it to make a return? 

The name 'cyptocurrencies' needs retiring. Plenty of these assets, and all the investable ones, have no intention of being currencies.

Serves no other usefull purpose other than a means of payment. With cash harder to launder these days. Obvious choice for less well regulated parts of the globe. 

User232002

Pretty much nothing in the space is trying to be a more effective 'means of payment.' Its basically not a stated aim of any decent project so I'm not sure why you would think its relevant. You can't judge a dog by its ability to be a cat.

And there is a wealth of evidence showing that the amount of crypto transactions used for illicit activity is lower than in the fiat (cash) system. Public, unchangeable ledgers aren't great for hiding criminal activity.