Bitcoin - to invest or not?

[Mark T Jones]

Knuckle-dragging stupidity would be my take on that one!

The present Bitcoin mania and other ******-currency nonsense may indeed remind us of the Dutch tulip madness of the 17th Century, but that madness was based upon the first intersection of selective breeding and growing international trade.

Neither selective breeding, nor international trade have gone away. They were here to stay. The madness went away of course - as will Bitcoin madness.

But the two technologies that created that madness are here to stay. Internet trading and blockchain technology are here to stay. Tulips are here to stay - indeed, I believe we have a few in our garden, though of course they are almost without any monetary value.

What we shall use blockchain tech for, remains to be seen. When the madness subsides, Bitcoins will go back to whatever they cost when they were launched, which was, I believe, a Dime.

I would tend to equate it to the DotCom bubble of 2001. The underlying assumption that the internet would be huge, would change the way we did things was absolutely sound

What was completely unsound was the idea that anything in any way related to the internet was a sure fire way of making money.

So, will Bitcoin be Amazon, or will they be Deckchair.com? I suspect nobody has any idea of the answer to that.

 

[Deleted member 226268]

The end of Bitcoin ......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/banks-financial-firms-cracking-bitcoin-buying/

 

[Alan]

No doubt some people got rich / very rich.

 

[Anders Jorgensen]

To me it's like the gold rush in US where the ones who did really make the money were the ones selling the equipment of shovels and so forth. Also investing takes experience and knowledge. It seems like a lot of hype or get rich scheme that will burst at some point.

 

[Deleted member 226268]

More... End of Bitcoin.....

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitc...f-chinas-full-ban-of-cryptocurrency-exchanges

https://qz.com/1197541/bitcoin-ban-inside-the-indian-governments-struggle-to-curb-cryptocurrencies/

Governments around the world are becoming frightened at the rate of ease of use and growing interest of using digital currency by the lowly Plebians..

Governments and banks frightened of losing their financial control over us peasant serfs.

So this year will be the start of their stamping out process of all
digital currencies.

There will soon be fines for collecting and using Bitcoins, etc.

.

 

[MikeJ]

Or, to put it another way, "Governments ban scam operations".

 

[Deleted member 226268]

Would be interesting to know what happened to Bitcoin one year from now.

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/c...s-coindesk-falling-today-cryptocurrency-crash

https://www.rt.com/business/417772-bitcoin-doomsday-scenario-collapse/
.

 

[Karimbo]

Bitcoin can't exist on it's own. It needs regular currency to exchange for bitcoin, and it requires you to cash out and sell your bitcoin for real money so you can pay rent. mortgage, go on holiday, buy a car.

Sure there are people earning in bitcoin and can do their shopping in bitcoin but these are the fringes and probably shop in overpriced coffee shops and whole foods stores that your regular person would not shop.

The recent plunge in bitcoin value is [IMO] due to various governments coming out and saying they will ban bitcoin trading. This caused a panic because people want to cash out before their bitcoins get locked into the system and can't get their money back.

Retailers like hipster coffee shops in shoreditch (London) loved and accepted bitcoin as it was surging because they could hold onto it and double their profits if they kept it for a month. Now the tables have turned. Now bitcoin is going the other way so it's toxic and nobody wants it. The ones that do will increase their bitcoin prices to something like double the cash value and it's going to make it less attractive.

 

[Jay Shields]

My opinion is: as people hear stories of others making money from cryptocurrencies, they buy their own – which inflates the price, creating more stories of wealth and more investment. The cycle continues until eventually the price of the underlying asset is out of kilter with reality. Eventually, the bubble bursts, and a lot of people look around to find they’ve lost everything.

 

[Karimbo]

My opinion is: as people hear stories of others making money from cryptocurrencies, they buy their own – which inflates the price, creating more stories of wealth and more investment. The cycle continues until eventually the price of the underlying asset is out of kilter with reality. Eventually, the bubble bursts, and a lot of people look around to find they’ve lost everything.

yes, and also other currencies piggybacking on bitcoins success. So many other currencies out there, seems like every week there's a new cryptocurrency coming out trying to become the new bitcoin. When all the currency holding is from speculators with no real transactional use of the currency it's only going to end in disaster.

A university friend whose a complete tech luddite tried to get me to invest in ripple (XRP). Saying ti's backed by banks etc. My question is what is the purpose of this, what is the everyday joe going to use this for? Truth is you can't do anything with it apart from buy it and sell it. You can't even use it to pay for digital services like ebooks or web hosting,.

 

[Mark T Jones]

My opinion is: as people hear stories of others making money from cryptocurrencies, they buy their own – which inflates the price, creating more stories of wealth and more investment. The cycle continues until eventually the price of the underlying asset is out of kilter with reality. Eventually, the bubble bursts, and a lot of people look around to find they’ve lost everything.

The bubble has pretty much burst. There might be a couple of little peaks - where very clever investors will make money - but the overall trajectory will be downwards

The clever money left several months, possibly years ago (clever money doesn’t wait for the market to peak). Like you say, last years peak was just a feeding frenzy of fools

 

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

The bubble has pretty much burst

Isn't it crazy how only a few weeks ago it was all one heard about on the news, and there were adverts everywhere, and so many people coming here and posting about it, and now - nothing!?

Where are those who argued that it would take over from the pound and the dollar? The new paradigm? How fickle our society is.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Isn't it crazy how only a few weeks ago it was all one heard about on the news, and there were adverts everywhere, and so many people coming here and posting about it, and now - nothing!?

Where are those who argued that it would take over from the pound and the dollar? The new paradigm? How fickle our society is.

Slightly depressing really. I. Afraid I lost sympathy with the ‘innocent’ gullible enthusiasts because, maliciously or not, they were driving Up the price for personal gain.

 

[Alan]

There might be a couple of little peaks - where very clever investors will make money

Daily movements of up to 13% are pretty volatile, clever traders can make easy money whether the trajectory is up or down.