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[parent] [thread] 23 comments
1. staunc+(OP)[view] [source] 2014-12-16 22:24:41
$1200 to $350 and almost certainly back to $1200 at some point. Compare that with a government issuing a new currency and rendering the previous one invalid.
replies(4): >>sillys+M >>crusso+K2 >>kansfa+g7 >>seanfl+3d
2. sillys+M[view] [source] 2014-12-16 22:35:46
>>staunc+(OP)
$1200 to $350 and almost certainly back to $1200 at some point.

You can't afford think that way. I did, and it took me a long time to realize that I was being insane while I was doing it. Unless you're planning for a timescale measured in "decades," you're setting yourself up to get burned.

Out of all the persuasive arguments I could make, consider this: There are better ways to double your money than bitcoin. Within the next decade, you probably won't see something like the leap from $6 to $600 again. I'll be happy to eat my words about that. Personally, I don't see how you'd even get to 10x your investment. $350 to $1200 would be 3.4x ROI. And while that's a good return, there are other ways to grow a nest egg from $20k to $68k without gambling it. And if we can't publicly admit that bitcoin is essentially gambling, not investing, then we should at least admit that to ourselves.

EDIT: One point I'd like to underscore is that the price of bitcoin is mostly determined by the major holders. If any of them lose faith and pull out, that will trigger others to pull out. Also, they have a lovely tendency to dump a lot of money into the market, which jumps the price, which causes other people to pour money in. Then the major player sells, capturing all of that money that everyone else poured in. You see? It's a predatory game, and you don't have to take my word for it. Examine the graphs and you'll see "jump-sells" like that over and over again.

replies(2): >>waterl+S8 >>polari+Ai
3. crusso+K2[view] [source] 2014-12-16 23:02:34
>>staunc+(OP)
$1200 to $350 and almost certainly back to $1200 at some point

I lost a significant amount of money thinking that way during the .com bubble collapse.

replies(1): >>zanny+Sb
4. kansfa+g7[view] [source] 2014-12-17 00:23:04
>>staunc+(OP)
Why is the price guaranteed to increase forever (or at least until it reaches 1200)?
replies(1): >>jasoni+cd
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5. waterl+S8[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 00:59:34
>>sillys+M
The timeframe for Bitcoin returning to $1200 is certainly not 'decades'. If it hasn't done so in a few years, it's never going to. It's going to die.
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6. zanny+Sb[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 02:04:24
>>crusso+K2
Well if you bought Google or Amazon in 1998 and rode that out you would be sitting pretty right now!
replies(1): >>tcskep+3i
7. seanfl+3d[view] [source] 2014-12-17 02:27:45
>>staunc+(OP)
Why would that be certain? The only reason Bitcoin is more valuable than the seanflyonCoin that I just invented is that people trust it. If people stopped trusting Bitcoin its value would go to near 0 and stay there.
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8. jasoni+cd[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 02:30:43
>>kansfa+g7
Eventually when no one will accept fiat currencies anymore it will be worth infinite [pick your fiat currency]
replies(3): >>vector+Sg >>Pr0met+FX >>kansfa+iC6
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9. vector+Sg[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 04:01:12
>>jasoni+cd
I hope that's a joke, because it doesn't seem like a very reasonable expectation.
replies(1): >>jasoni+Sk
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10. tcskep+3i[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 04:35:06
>>zanny+Sb
Google didn't go public until 2004.
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11. polari+Ai[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 04:52:41
>>sillys+M
> there are other ways to grow a nest egg from $20k to $68k without gambling it

If you mean to do so quickly, and without taking some significant risk, I'll call.

replies(1): >>sillys+Si
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12. sillys+Si[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 05:04:23
>>polari+Ai
No, not quickly. But quickly is how you lose it.

If you don't care what happens to that $20k, then do anything you want with it. But if you do, the EV on bitcoin is probably worse than, say, learning to play poker semi-professionally.

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13. jasoni+Sk[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 06:00:20
>>vector+Sg
It seems utterly reasonable to me. What could be more reasonable than wanting your medium of exchange to be out of the control of incompetent, corruptible governments? What could be more reasonable than wanting your medium of exchange to be based upon open-source, community-edited code, that anyone can review, contribute to, and build on top of? What could be more reasonable than wanting your medium of exchange to be available to anyone, anywhere, anytime, regardless of political orientation, without asking anyone's permission?

Sorry but fiat currencies possess no advantages other than incumbent localised network effects. The world needs a true global currency and Bitcoin is it.

replies(1): >>tonysu+kl
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14. tonysu+kl[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 06:17:22
>>jasoni+Sk
Until somebody invents a quantum computer with a sufficiently large number of Qbits. Then they can completely destroy the blockchain.

Alternatively, wait a few hundred years until you need several hundred terabytes to store the blockchain, which is required for transactions. That's going to be a problem.

Or you could switch to Bitcoin before realizing that currencies which deflate in value are a terrible idea.

(For the record, I support cryptocurrency. I just think Bitcoin has too many issues to be viable long-term. Nice proof of concept, but it needs to be refined).

replies(2): >>evanb+sm >>celtic+gs
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15. evanb+sm[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 06:51:04
>>tonysu+kl
| Alternatively, wait a few hundred years until you need several hundred terabytes to store the blockchain, which is required for transactions. That's going to be a problem.

It seems more likely to me that in a few hundred years, several hundred terabytes will come in your mobile implant than for hundreds of terabytes to be a storage problem.

replies(2): >>tonysu+7G >>Pr0met+BZ
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16. celtic+gs[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 09:48:56
>>tonysu+kl
>Until somebody invents a quantum computer with a sufficiently large number of Qbits. Then they can completely destroy the blockchain.

That wont be developed overnight, by the time it is a possibility people will be working on solutions. a quantum computer would impact a lot more than bitcoin, all cryptography would become useless.

>Alternatively, wait a few hundred years until you need several hundred terabytes to store the blockchain, which is required for transactions. That's going to be a problem.

With the cost of storage rapidly reducing then that probably wont be an issue in a few hundred years.

>Or you could switch to Bitcoin before realizing that currencies which deflate in value are a terrible idea.

Currencies that inflate have had their share of problems and we certainly have not found a way to solve those problems or the issue of inflation/hyper-inflation. Any problems with delfationary currencies (which you do not detail) are merely hypothetical as no real deflationary currency has existed before.

replies(1): >>tonysu+1G
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17. tonysu+1G[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 15:30:19
>>celtic+gs
Deflationary currencies reward saving over spending. Aka, you can just sit on your money and it increases in value.

That's really bad for an economy.

My ideal cryptocurrency would constantly "leak" money, trying to maintain a 0.1% or so inflation rate a year, to prevent this problem.

replies(2): >>celtic+6J >>Pr0met+vZ
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18. tonysu+7G[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 15:32:12
>>evanb+sm
There is a limit on information to area in space. Eventually, bitcoin is going to be impractical to store even if you have a very large storage device at absolute maximum capacity.
replies(1): >>celtic+LI
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19. celtic+LI[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 16:07:06
>>tonysu+7G
bitcoin will not be impractical to store, the blockchain maybe, but clients like electrum allow you to store bitcoin without the blockchain.
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20. celtic+6J[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 16:13:12
>>tonysu+1G
>Deflationary currencies reward saving over spending. Aka, you can just sit on your money and it increases in value.

>That's really bad for an economy.

The economy is hardly in brilliant shape right now. This process of Boom/Bust has been running for the last century or so and they still cannot control it (or properly understand it) and they have had a lot of time to try and master fiat currency, controls, regulation etc. You say that people saving is bad for an economy, but that implies that the only good thing for an economy is constant spending and growth. That is bad for an economy, the belief that only through constant growth can the economy work. At somepoint there is a plateau, the planet cannot support an infinite number of people, at some point the world economy will stop growing. according to current thinking that may as well indicate the end of the economic world as we know it.

It is time to try something new, it may go against what most people believe but it cannot be any worse than the current situation which is not working as evidenced by the economic slump of recent years.

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21. Pr0met+FX[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 18:58:58
>>jasoni+cd
Infinity times nothing is still nothing... oh wait, it's NaN.
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22. Pr0met+vZ[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 19:21:14
>>tonysu+1G
Instead of leaking money, why not just let the total number of coins keep increasing exponentially indefinitely?
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23. Pr0met+BZ[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-17 19:23:07
>>evanb+sm
The blockchain length is only growing linearly with time, but that's because it can only process O(1) transactions per hour. It'd be growing exponentially if either the monetary velocity or the size of the real economy was growing exponentially.
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24. kansfa+iC6[view] [source] [discussion] 2014-12-22 21:39:44
>>jasoni+cd
This is an issue that only a small percentage of people will ever care about as long as the system works well enough (eg annual inflation circa 3%). Even if people were to care, why is Bitcoin guaranteed the victor?
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