Any Bitcoin investors here?

GypsyPilot

GypsyPilot

Mohawk Town
Was anybody here fortunate enough to get in early? I remember a friend telling me about it several years ago, and I thought it sounded interesting but kind of forgot about it. I think it was selling for less than a dollar at that time, man do I wish I bought then!

Anyway, it's been fascinating watching the latest runup... I started looking at it again a couple weeks ago when it ran up to $200, and was thinking how badly it would crash. I figured maybe I'd pick some up if it went down to $50 or so. But instead it has continued an exponential climb, even hitting $900 briefly a couple days ago. It is insanely volatile and interesting to watch, but I really cannot understand any justification for the current price.

Here's an interesting chart:

http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/mtgox/btcusd
 
mikecweb said:
Just goto Vegas if you're into that kind of thing. You'll even get drinks while you're "investing"
Click to expand...

I agree Mike! But it sure is fascinating to watch. It's one of the craziest runups I've ever witnessed... The chart I linked doesn't even make sense unless it's on the logarithmic scale.
 
Just curious why you discount BitCoin? I agree I wouldn't touch it now ($800+) but I said the same thing when it was at $150-300.

I think over half of the coins have already been mined and it's getting harder to find new coins every 2 weeks.
 
PGT said:
Just curious why you discount BitCoin? I agree I wouldn't touch it now ($800+) but I said the same thing when it was at $150-300.

I think over half of the coins have already been mined and it's getting harder to find new coins every 2 weeks.
Click to expand...

Are you referring to me? I'm not discounting it at all. But right now I have absolutely no idea what the heck is going on with it. If (when) it crashes, I will probably invest for the long term. Right now I think there's a ton of hype and short term "get rich quick" hopefuls investing. I just wish I would have invested even a few hundred when I first heard about it!
 
If the construct is to limit the amount in circulation to 21M (or any number), then it's doomed for failure.

Paul Krugman describes the DC Baby-Sitter Coop Script of the 1970s here:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1998/08/babysitting_the_economy.html

Without some form of method to continuously inject new currency into the market, Bitcoin will become scarce, nobody will want to give up their BitCoin, and the whole thing will collapse.

To me, BitCoin is nothing more than digital baby-sitter scripts.
 
mikecweb said:
What's interesting is the average american doesn't have the ability to understand the benefits of using a credit card vs. cash and they are going to understand bitcoin.????
Click to expand...

That's what I'm trying to understand as well. To me, it still seems like an experiment for crypto nerds. I really don't know what would make it breakout to the average investor and eventual consumer.

One main advantage it does have is for foreign transactions. Unlike PayPal, there are potentially no fees for a transfer IF it ever got to the point where enough businesses accepted it as payment. But it is so insanely volatile so far in it's history, it remains a large risk as a form of payment.
 
It gets really interesting when you read about the ties of Bitcoin's Satoshi something or other and Ulbricht aka Dread Pirate Roberts founder of The Silk Road.

I mined a few when it first came out and spent them on some nerdy things. Wish I had sat on them. Oh well.
 
Itchy said:
http://news.yahoo.com/norwegian-man-buys-flat-forgotten-24-bitcoin-investment-174651722.html
Dude got $24 four years ago, forgot about it. Now worth $690,000! I wish I could be wise enough to get something like that and forget about it.
Click to expand...

I set up a video card mining rig a few years ago to play with it. FPGA and then ASIC rigs made that obsolete, and I lost interest. Perhaps I should look around for any old bitcoin wallets I have, might be sitting on some cash now :)
 
bronco21016 said:
It gets really interesting when you read about the ties of Bitcoin's Satoshi something or other and Ulbricht aka Dread Pirate Roberts founder of The Silk Road.

I mined a few when it first came out and spent them on some nerdy things. Wish I had sat on them. Oh well.
Click to expand...

I remember when a friend of mine from college was telling me about them. I think it was like $.20/BTC at the time (2010). Augh. Looks like it might hit $1,000/BTC today on Mt. Gox. Almost makes me sick, how easily I could've been a millionaire! ;)
 
GypsyPilot said:
I remember when a friend of mine from college was telling me about them. I think it was like $.20/BTC at the time (2010). Augh. Looks like it might hit $1,000/BTC today on Mt. Gox. Almost makes me sick, how easily I could've been a millionaire! ;)
Click to expand...

I was working for tech startups during the dot com boom. Everyone was a millionaire back then. Didn't last, either :)
 
In essence, the reason it's possible to have made such a ridiculous return is that the people investing didn't have a clue what they were doing. It's the old investment catch 22...by the time it's even remotely sane to do, the days of 1000% returns are long gone. To put it another way, if you were the sort of person who would have dropped a bunch of money on bitcoins years ago, you'd almost certainly be the sort of person who would have blown them all years ago on something ridiculous.

In any REAL economy, people who are investing to invest aren't the ones who are getting rich in ten minutes (or say, months). Obviously, the rules are different for Investment Banking, but that's political, not economic, at its core, and probably a whole 'nother thread...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top