Cryptocurrencies
 

Any Bitcoin owners among us?

I recall when I first read about it some years ago it caught my eye and I gave it some thought but decided against it then as it seemed like some kind of a scam to me more than an investment.

Of course with $1,200 spent on some 480,000 bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today... Over the course of seven years, bitcoin’s value has multiplied 879,999 times over since 2010. WOW... Imagine if we invested some of the "audio money" that many of us spent over the years into the Bitcoin! :smoking:

I do believe many more are paying attention to it today than 7 years ago. It has also been highly volatile over the past year and has also skyrocketed! With all the geopolitical turmoil going, it's no wonder but it may also be a huge bubble ready to pop since people are rushing in to capture the upside.

It does offer some kind of a safety net over the possible implosions of most countries' FIAT money systems where the currency is only as good as the faith in the government that issues it, like our dollar for example since we are not on the gold standard since the Nixon era and our money is not convertible to anything anymore.

It's all just paper after all and in times of crisis it can become worthless overnight. History has shown us examples of that. Weimar Republic Mark Hyperinflation, the Zimbabwe 100 Trillion dollar bills, where a loaf of bread costs a 300 billion dollars today... and there are many more. History does tend to repeat itself. Will the cryptocurrencies offer some safety net against the dark times?


What are your thoughts on it?


http://www.oldpicz.com/picz/2017/03/...epublic-16.jpg

I'll rather have gold and diamonds for when we get hit with an EMP.

Well, I can sort of understand the gold but how do you imagine paying with diamonds?

What's the going price of that pumpernickel loaf of bread today?
.25 carats? Princess cut and at least WS1 clarity?
Sorry, I only have the Oval cut and FL clarity....
Well... for that you can only get the sesame seed loaf.... :lmao:

The appropriate breadth and depth of points to consider are prodigious if trying to discuss this thoroughly. However, more generally, I see evidence that Bitcoin will be around long enough to be considered a legitimate currency. Consider what Tama Churchouse (a crypto currency “expert“) has to say about Bitcoin: “...characteristics of money. Money is portable, durable, divisible, scarce, uniform, and accepted. And I'll just run through those briefly.
... Portability means: can you carry it around, and can you transfer it? With bitcoin, absolutely. You can transfer it at the push of a button. You can transfer it from a mobile phone to the other side of the world in moments. So yes, it's portable.

The bitcoin blockchain ledger is absolutely durable. Hackers have tried everything to bring it down, all without success so far. And bitcoin's divisible. One bitcoin is divisible all the way down to eight decimal places.

It's also scarce. Central banks continue to print money out of thin air. That's why currencies around the world collapse time and time again. But only 21 million bitcoins will ever be mined. And only 16.5 million are in circulation today. Nobody can simply "print" more bitcoins. With a finite and known supply, it's certainly scarce. And of course, it's uniform. One bitcoin is the same as another.

The only place where bitcoins don't hold up as real money compared with the U.S. dollar is acceptability. Bitcoin's acceptability in day-to-day merchant activity is not high yet. But in Japan, for example, merchants have already begun to accept bitcoin as a form of payment. So that's changing.“.

He goes on to explain that Bitcoin can be deposited into a digital wallet, which in turn may issue a plastic cash card which can be used at a Point Of Sale, thereby addressing some of the portability limitation.

It appears to have real legs.

I agree with that assessment. There are at least 25 legitimate Bitcoin dealers in the US. The list of companies that accept Bitcoin in the US is growing but is probably only in the hundreds so far. The only downside seems to be the volatility. :scratch2:

I believe you have nailed the crux: volatility. I intend to take a position in Bitcoin, and will manage the risk by factoring in volatility. It will be a relatively small, speculative position. :fingerscrossed:

Good luck! :thumbsup:

What drives the market for Bitcoins? Is there any inherent value in the ‘bits’?

I just don’t get it.

There is no inherent value in the bits just like there in no inherent value in the paper money that is not convertible into anything precious. The government does not back your money with anything other than a promise it will do the best it can to keep the country and the economy stable. It's good today but may be worth much less tomorrow. Dollar has lost 93% of it's value since 1913.... We call that inflation and it seems like that's the norm but when the Government and the Central Bank are in cahoots, is it really???

Even gold is speculative, there is demand and there is supply but the price of gold today may be very different tomorrow if say a huge deposit of it is found somewhere that is easily mineable. As far as bitcoin this article explains it pretty well. https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/affects-bitcoin-price/

Gold is an interesting topic in itself. Gold has no intrinsic value other than the value people attach to it. There are elements and metals much rarer than gold such as Platinum and Palladium for example. Over the centuries people have been attracted to gold because it does not rust, it is a pretty yellow color, it can be melted easy and it is easy enough to make coins out of it. So why is it more expensive than Platinum and Palladium.

All the Platinum ever mined can fit into your living room! The problem is that the precious metal must be rare to have value but no so rare that you could not make enough coins to circulate... :smoking: So other than people being attracted to gold in the form of jewelry and coins and governments hoarding it, while it obviously has value, it is really not intrinsically valuable. :D