Bitcoin Low

[Texas Proud]

Agreed that it’s not a “classical” investment. No earnings, no revenues, no cash flow, no multiples of same. Same as US dollars, by the way.

This is not, however, how investors value coins and tokens. They are valued for their networks of users. Like Airbnb and Uber.

The same is true of the USD. It’s the network of users that supports its value. If and as confidence and use erode, watch out below. I would not want to have most of my assets in USD-denominated financial instruments the day after the Chinese decide to stop buying US government debt because entitlements are out of control and too many dollars have been printed to pay for it, debasing the USD. That is a non-trivial risk, IMO.

People who don’t understand crypto dynamics’s are wise to stay out of crypto. Buffett said it’s rat poison squared (or something like that), but then Buffett (whom I admire) is (1) long the banksters and (2) notoriously slow to the tech party.

Stick to your circle of competence — I agree with Buffett on that.

FWIW, I think the best plays are BTC, being the first mover with the biggest user base by far; and the supply chain of “picks and shovels” sellers (exchanges, brokers and the like — the supply chain). All of the latter are private investments, inaccessible to the general investing public.

These are very-long-them holds. I would expect them to soar, then crash, several times (as has happened already). I wouldn’t buy anything else. And I wouldn’t buy any of them if I weren’t already FI, unless I happened to be a tech geek like my Millennial daughter who made 100 X 100K and called it a day. She now teaches data science to Ph D candidates at our alma mater as her encore career. She’s smarter than her old man.

None of this is investment advice. YMMV. Cheers.

The main problem is how you see BC... BC was supposed to be an alternative CURRENCY.... not an investment... you say US dollars do not have earnings, revenue etc.... but that is the point... it is a reserve currency.... it is supposed to be a safe place to hold money (currency) so you can transact business....



If any currency would swing wildly then it would be the worse currency around... after I did a transaction and now had currency I would not know what I could do with that since it could be worth 50% less in a short time... it would be stupid of me to hold it as currency...




Since BC fails as a currency I am not interested in it... and do not tell me it is not supposed to be a currency... all places that I look call all of them cryptocurrencies.... Here is the first line about it in Wiki...

Bitcoin (₿) is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash.
​

 

[FUEGO]

Guys, screw bitcoin. It's for nobodies and underperforming endowment funds that no one cares about in this digital economy.

I'm starting a new cryptocurrency called byte-coin (tm) and it's worth exactly 8 times as much as bit-coin. PM me for instructions on how to invest in something that will make us both rich! But mostly me...

 

[ERD50]

Guys, screw bitcoin. It's for nobodies and underperforming endowment funds that no one cares about in this digital economy.

I'm starting a new cryptocurrency called byte-coin (tm) and it's worth exactly 8 times as much as bit-coin. PM me for instructions on how to invest in something that will make us both rich! But mostly me...

Why stop there? How about the new improved bytecoin, the "long-int-coin"! It's 31 times better than bitcoin!

Wait, breaking news! A new crypto currency has just been announced! The "unsigned-long-int"! Not only is it 32 times better than bitcoin - it can't go negative!

-ERD50

 

[JoeWras]

Guys, screw bitcoin. It's for nobodies and underperforming endowment funds that no one cares about in this digital economy.

I'm starting a new cryptocurrency called byte-coin (tm) and it's worth exactly 8 times as much as bit-coin. PM me for instructions on how to invest in something that will make us both rich! But mostly me...

And I'm going to fork your byte-coin with a nanobyte-coin, which is a much more affordable version of your byte coin, worth exactly 0.000000007999 of your byte-coin. I keep the 0.000000000001 as a commission for the idea.

 

[JoeWras]

Why stop there? How about the new improved bytecoin, the "long-int-coin"! It's 31 times better than bitcoin!

Wait, breaking news! A new crypto currency has just been announced! The "unsigned-long-int"! Not only is it 32 times better than bitcoin - it can't go negative!

-ERD50

ERD, thanks for nothing for the w*rk flashbacks!

This is what happens when the nerds take over the thread.

 

[NW-Bound]

Why stop there? How about the new improved bytecoin, the "long-int-coin"! It's 31 times better than bitcoin!

Wait, breaking news! A new crypto currency has just been announced! The "unsigned-long-int"! Not only is it 32 times better than bitcoin - it can't go negative!

-ERD50

Thirty-two-bit integers, my friend, my friend... Are you stuck in the last century? Common CPUs now handle 64-bit integers in one gobble, and it has been this way for quite a few years.

Reminds me that back in the early 80s, when building one of the world's first GPS receivers, using then state-of-the-art 16-bit microprocessors, we had to write basic library routines to do 64-bit extended arithmetic.

Why use 64-bit numbers, you ask? It was to get sufficient resolution for the pseudo-ranges from the GPS receiver to the GPS satellites. If using floating point arithmetic, we would need to use double-precision floating points, and that would also need to be done in software as there was no microprocessor then that had hardware floating point. Hence, scaled 64-bit arithmetic was the best way to implement all the calculations.

 

[aja8888]

Guys, I just want to be the guy in the middle handling all these "cryptocoin" transactions charging high fees and paid for with USD!

Kind of like the Bookies here in the sports betting circus.

 

[ERD50]

Thirty-two-bit integers, my friend, my friend... Are you stuck in the last century? Common CPUs now handle 64-bit integers in one gobble, and it has been this way for quite a few years.

Reminds me that back in the early 80s, when building one of the world's first GPS receivers, using then state-of-the-art 16-bit microprocessors, we had to write basic library routines to do 64-bit extended arithmetic.

Why use 64-bit numbers, you ask? It was to get sufficient resolution for the pseudo-ranges from the GPS receiver to the GPS satellites. If using floating point arithmetic, we would need to use double-precision floating points, and that would also need to be done in software as there was no microprocessor then that had hardware floating point. Hence, scaled 64-bit arithmetic was the best way to implement all the calculations.

Well, sort of. My most recent little hobby programming efforts were with those little $8 ESP-8266 controllers. I was a little surprised to learn they are 8-bit CPUs! But 80 MHz, so for basic apps, you can do quite a lot.

https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Internet-Development-Wireless-Micropython/dp/B010O1G1ES

I even read that they are challenged handling any floating point. But it was easy for me to scale most of what I was working on to 0-127 values, so no problem. I did need to pay attention at one point to multiply before I divided, so the intermediate result was still an integer, not a fractional value, which the int would turn to zero.

... This is what happens when the nerds take over the thread.

-ERD50

 

[1-31-18]

The main problem is how you see BC... BC was supposed to be an alternative CURRENCY.... not an investment... you say US dollars do not have earnings, revenue etc.... but that is the point... it is a reserve currency.... it is supposed to be a safe place to hold money (currency) so you can transact business....



If any currency would swing wildly then it would be the worse currency around... after I did a transaction and now had currency I would not know what I could do with that since it could be worth 50% less in a short time... it would be stupid of me to hold it as currency...




Since BC fails as a currency I am not interested in it... and do not tell me it is not supposed to be a currency... all places that I look call all of them cryptocurrencies.... Here is the first line about it in Wiki...

Bitcoin (₿) is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash.
​

Call me a snob or a fool (like those Ivy League endowment managers), but I honestly don’t care what Wikipedia says about bitcoin (or about anything else).

As for the intended use, that’s irrelevant, too. Technology changes, and its uses change, over time. That’s how invention and innovation occur. How it functions as it matures is what matters.

The fund managers who sell to the endowments (answering someone else’s question) see BTC in 2018 as a store of value, not as currency. That’s how I see it, too. And again, it’s also a hedge against systemic collapse. Other “stablecoins” may or may not get traction as currency.

Just looked at a screen: BTC up more than 10 percent in the last few hours. Gotta run.

 

[Bestwifeever]

This article about how paid positive articles/reviews about cryptocurrencies are planted was published yesterday https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1NW17S

Earlier this year, Ukrainian start-up Hacken was looking to promote its new coin after raising $3 million online in late 2017. Chief Executive Dmytro Budorin and his team identified a list of almost 200 cryptocurrency social media personalities they thought could help them, he said.

Nowhere in the video - which has more than 92,000 views - is Hacken's payment to Greene mentioned. Greene, who used to work for wealth management firm Merrill Lynch, directs viewers in the first minute of the video to a disclaimer on his website that states he "may receive compensation for products and services" that he recommends. There is no specific mention of Hacken, or any specific cryptocurrency issuers, paying him.

Greene did not respond to emails and phone messages from Reuters asking about his work for Hacken.

Four days after the YouTube review was published, Greene turned to Twitter to brag that Hacken's coin was up 14 percent on the day to $1.54 per coin.

 

[REWahoo]

Call me a snob or a fool...

Remember, you gave the go ahead...

 

[1-31-18]

Agreed. Benchmark against what you would actually do, not against some de-construction of what they did. That's really the only comparison that matters, not some theoretical.

-ERD50

So the data I’ve seen suggests that a one percent allocation to BTC over the last 5 years would have improved a 60/40 portfolio’s ROI by at least 100 bps. I haven’t checked that myself, but it sounds about right. And it explains the attraction to the people that I’ve been talking about.

While keeping an eye on past performance, what endowment managers lose sleep about is future performance. If, like most of them, you believe equities and bonds to be over-priced now, then you worry intensely that Bob Shiller might be right. (Another Eli. Damn.) If Bob is right, then the next 10 years will be mighty ugly for the 60/40 crowd.

And in that case, assuming you have ten billion or more to manage (and maybe even if you don’t), you look to fill out your portfolio with low- or negatively-correlated asset classes. Crypto assets “might” suit that need. Jury is still out on that one, after a mere 10-year run.

I have been fortunate for 40 years to spend my days working with some of the brightest people on the planet. The few at the forefront of crypto asset invention today are the brightest I’ve met in my lifetime.

I don’t really expect you all to buy these assets. You should only buy what you understand well and have confidence in. It took me three years of study of this subject to get to where I am now. I started where you are, and I know enough about Ponzi schemes to testify as an expert witness about them — have done so. My daughter started earlier, then retired after a four-year hodl, as noted.

So ... don’t feel I’m trying to convert you. The last slide of every presentation I make states that I’m not giving legal or investment advice, and I mean it.

Hey, it’s a good day today for old-fashioned indexers, even if the bitcoiners have gained four times as much since dawn. Everyone should be happy. Cheers.

 

[Chuckanut]

This article about how paid positive articles/reviews about cryptocurrencies are planted was published yesterday https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1NW17S

In the 25-minute video, published on June 22, Greene raved about Hacken’s coin and business, describing it as a “huge market opportunity” with “potential 1,000x returns.”

What?!?!?! You don't trust what you read in the media, especially the social media? You don't believe in 1000x returns just because a paid somebody you don't know said it was possible?!?!?! Good Grief!

I may have to put you on my list of Dangerous Radicals who infest this site. You're getting close.

 

[Bestwifeever]

What?!?!?! You don't trust what you read in the media, especially the social media? You don't believe in 1000x returns just because a paid somebody you don't know said it was possible?!?!?! Good Grief!

I may have to put you on my list of Dangerous Radicals who infest this site. You're getting close.

May I direct you to my imaginary blog: dangerousradical.com?

 

[corn18]

Wealth storage? In something that is down 80% (well, only 70% now)? I'd rather store my wealth under my mattress. At least it is only subject to loss to inflation.

In order for us to agree, I would have to acknowledge that there is a significant risk that governments will devolve into chaos and all that is left to trade with is BTC. I do not acknowledge this risk. But rather than buy BTC for this scenario, I would store water, food, guns & ammo. Those will serve me better than BTC if your doomsday scenario happens.

 

[1-31-18]

Wealth storage? In something that is down 80% (well, only 70% now)? I'd rather store my wealth under my mattress. At least it is only subject to loss to inflation.

In order for us to agree, I would have to acknowledge that there is a significant risk that governments will devolve into chaos and all that is left to trade with is BTC. I do not acknowledge this risk. But rather than buy BTC for this scenario, I would store water, food, guns & ammo. Those will serve me better than BTC if your doomsday scenario happens.

Damn. Amazon was down, what? 95 percent? 98 percent? It’s been a pretty solid wealth creator nevertheless.

I know families who own boltholes in New Zealand and are hedged against systemic collapse in bitcoin, which travels better than USD or gold — or even guns and ammo, I would guess. I wouldn’t really know about the latter. No guns in my ‘hood.

You seem to operate on a different time frame and live in a different (kind of) world than I do. To me and mine (except for my brilliant daughter), crypto assets are a 10-year hold, minimum. It’s called hodling. But not by no-coiners, who just think we can’t spell correctly.

I suspect you also might have less to fear in the way of government confiscation of wealth than my hedged clients do. All of which is OK and doesn’t surprise me, as this forum is wide open. Family offices see this more like major endowments do and less like retail investors across the fruited plain of America.

All the best to you. Not trying to make you agree to anything. Doesn’t seem at all likely.

Cheers.

 

[dtbach]

Damn. Amazon was down, what? 95 percent? 98 percent? It’s been a pretty solid wealth creator nevertheless.

I know families who own boltholes in New Zealand and are hedged against systemic collapse in bitcoin, which travels better than USD or gold — or even guns and ammo, I would guess. I wouldn’t really know about the latter. No guns in my ‘hood.

You seem to operate on a different time frame and live in a different (kind of) world than I do. To me and mine (except for my brilliant daughter), crypto assets are a 10-year hold, minimum. It’s called hodling. But not by no-coiners, who just think we can’t spell correctly.

I suspect you also might have less to fear in the way of government confiscation of wealth than my hedged clients do. All of which is OK and doesn’t surprise me, as this forum is wide open. Family offices see this more like major endowments do and less like retail investors across the fruited plain of America.

All the best to you. Not trying to make you agree to anything. Doesn’t seem at all likely.

Cheers.

And all the best to you. Hope it works out well.

 

[aja8888]

Damn. Amazon was down, what? 95 percent? 98 percent? It’s been a pretty solid wealth creator nevertheless.

I know families who own boltholes in New Zealand and are hedged against systemic collapse in bitcoin, which travels better than USD or gold — or even guns and ammo, I would guess. I wouldn’t really know about the latter. No guns in my ‘hood.

You seem to operate on a different time frame and live in a different (kind of) world than I do. To me and mine (except for my brilliant daughter), crypto assets are a 10-year hold, minimum. It’s called hodling. But not by no-coiners, who just think we can’t spell correctly.

I suspect you also might have less to fear in the way of government confiscation of wealth than my hedged clients do. All of which is OK and doesn’t surprise me, as this forum is wide open. Family offices see this more like major endowments do and less like retail investors across the fruited plain of America.

All the best to you. Not trying to make you agree to anything. Doesn’t seem at all likely.

Cheers.

After reading many of your posts and all about your, and you daughter's great success making tons of flat currency on BC's, I can't figure out why you are here wasting your valuable time?

I don't mean to say you aren't welcome to stay, but it's just strange to me why you are here if it's for just defending BC. You certainly know the BC position of the vast majority of forum members.

 

[Texas Proud]

After reading many of your posts and all about your, and you daughter's great success making tons of flat currency on BC's, I can't figure out why you are here wasting your valuable time?

I don't mean to say you aren't welcome to stay, but it's just strange to me why you are here if it's for just defending BC. You certainly know the BC position of the vast majority of forum members.

I was thinking a bit similar....


Why worry about what the price of BC is compared to $$$s since he seems to not care much about $$$s.... except that he has to pay that fiat currency for probably close to all of his transactions...


BTW, I know of a girl who still has some beanie babies she bought way back when it was a fad... holding for a long time does not mean it will go up in value... as one guy on TV said, just because it is old does not make it a valuable antique....

 

[NW-Bound]

This thread is a late starter on the subject of bitcoin. We already discussed this last year when the bitcoin mania was going on full-blast.

See this thread, which was started exactly 1 year ago on 11/28/2017: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f44/bitcoin-worlds-30th-largest-currency-89521.html

And in the above thread, in post #256, I shared an article from IEEE Spectrum (the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) about a Chinese operation to mine bitcoins in a computer farm in inner Mongolia: Bitcoin Mining Operation

Crypto currency concept does have some novel and innovative features. But the use of crypto currency when central governments collapse is highly dubious if not absurd. There would not be any world-wide Internet or computer facility for bitcoin transactions to get encoded and shared among the users (look at the above article to see a bitcoin computer farm, one of the many in operation).

For doomsday events, it is far better to carry gold, or even better, lead and gun powder.

 

[indiajust]

It is not fair to compare BTC to DJIA because it is a currency, not an asset. Proper comparison is to the FOREX market.
I've been reading everything since the Nakamoto paper in 09. The underlying software tools will change the world and are highly valuable. Digital currencies are more of a thought experiment.
The only thing they hedge against is currency collapse when the ruling class gets too greedy, think Venezuela, Cyprus, Argentina...

It was decades after WW2 before the british pound realized the empire had fallen and swooned. The dollar will likely do the same if the ruling class keeps running deficits and pursuing wars. But I doubt I can remain solvent long enough to wait it out.

There are much safer ways to play the currency markets than BTC.

 

[1-31-18]

Remember, you gave the go ahead...

Taken out of context. Important to read the clause that followed the comma.

That said, I don’t mind the remarks coming from this group. Next they’ll be calling me “four eyes.” As mother used to say, reflects on them, not me. [emoji102]

Have a presentation on alternatives to give tomorrow. Big crowd. Need to update my deck. Haven’t read anything new here, so will check out. May all your 60/40 index portfolios pay off big.

 

[1-31-18]

It is not fair to compare BTC to DJIA because it is a currency, not an asset. Proper comparison is to the FOREX market.

I've been reading everything since the Nakamoto paper in 09. The underlying software tools will change the world and are highly valuable. Digital currencies are more of a thought experiment.

The only thing they hedge against is currency collapse when the ruling class gets too greedy, think Venezuela, Cyprus, Argentina...



It was decades after WW2 before the british pound realized the empire had fallen and swooned. The dollar will likely do the same if the ruling class keeps running deficits and pursuing wars. But I doubt I can remain solvent long enough to wait it out.



There are much safer ways to play the currency markets than BTC.

Finally, a thoughtful critique. Thank you. When I use the expression “social collapse,” I mean to refer mainly to the kleptocratic impulse you mentioned. Venezuela is the best recent example. Other worrisome possibilities include nuclear holocaust, biochemical warfare, and the 99% rising up against the 1% when they finally realize that their entitlements are going to be whacked. As you note, the USD is not assured of remaining the reserve currency. These are all reasons why family offices are buying bitcoin (and also boltholes and guns and ammo). That’s not speculation. That’s a fact.

Endowments buy for different reasons. For one, they have the longest investment horizons of all — so volatility is irrelevant to them. For another, they are managed by very smart people who know the difference between decentralized, irreversible, instantaneous, global transfers of wealth and ... beanie babies or flowers.

Best wishes to you in New Hampshire. Great crypto community among the freedom-loving libertarians choosing to live there.

 

[Texas Proud]

Considering that BC is not safe from hackers, it still does not seem like a good investment....


All hype... and it sounds like 1-31-18 is actually giving seminars about it to people... so, making money on fear and greed... (oh, and that is fiat money no less)...



You have been swayed by something.... and as one of my professors told me one time when I asked about arguments I could use with a friend who believed that we needed to be back on the gold system... he said 'if he really believes that there is nothing you can say to change his mind'...


So, you are a true believe and there is nothing I can say... I can sleep at night and I am sure you can...


My proposal... in 10 years come back here and tell us what has happened with BC.... and if you are right you can gloat about it... but I have my doubts...




Edit... forgot to add the link to the theft... http://fortune.com/2017/12/07/nicehash-bitcoin-hack-cryptocurrency/


There are more out there...


Wow... from 2014.... https://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-bitcoins-have-been-stolen-2014-3

 

[flintnational]

Instead of a no-coiner, I think I should be called a coin-denier! It's not that I just don't have bitcoins, it's that I don't think bitcoin will exist at some point in the future. It may be the Altavista of the crypto world. Right race wrong horse. Even if crypto survives, with hardly any start-up costs (or decentralized costs), a better cryptocurrency will come along. It is technology after all. I'm still pushing fn coin!