Nah

Nah

Nah

Yeesh, sorry.

Talk to a tax specialist, it's codified.

How is bitcoin much different than gold (except for the fact gold is physical)?

Neither one is a true currency. 99% of service or goods providers do not accept them - they need to be converted to dollars.

Both are based on trust - one has been trusted for thousands of years though and technically has some physical properties.

I don't like investing in things that don't create value in some way but I do keep a small amount of gold. It's hard to come up with a reason to buy bitcoins over gold - the only reason would be hopes of some wild increase. Am I right?

Hold fiat. Bitcoin has no value.

WaltonLoads08 said:

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wheelskjm said:

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Futureman, no more or less than the good ol' USD, in case that affected your moral view of the technology.

Also we made it to $1095 last night.

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FYI, current market chatter is that Chinese citizens are using Bitcoin to clandestinely move money out of China to offshore locales to circumvent China's Govt attempts to curb capital flight.

If true, you should see selling of the Bitcoin when capital flight slows, as people will want to buy local currency or real estate in the destination country of their choice.

Be very careful cheering on the rapid appreciation you are seeing, as it may be less of a vote of confidence in Bitcoin than a vote of no confidence in China's economy.

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Almost like you can see the future... WSJ article about this posted online this morning, coupled with ~10% pullback in Bitcoin.

I agree it is inderminate but it is also finite and for the purpose of investing I find it easier to trust that there will not be a monumental gold find that drastically changes the value than I do to trust programming that I know nothing about with no assurances if things go south.

My gold could be stolen from my safe and I might have recourse if insured. Can you insure your bitcoins in case they disappear (as has happened to past bitcoin investors). And why the hell cant they identify where those coins went and give them back? It seems like that should be a benefit of a digital currency.

Casey TableTennis said:

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WaltonLoads08 said:

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wheelskjm said:

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Futureman, no more or less than the good ol' USD, in case that affected your moral view of the technology.

Also we made it to $1095 last night.

---

FYI, current market chatter is that Chinese citizens are using Bitcoin to clandestinely move money out of China to offshore locales to circumvent China's Govt attempts to curb capital flight.

If true, you should see selling of the Bitcoin when capital flight slows, as people will want to buy local currency or real estate in the destination country of their choice.

Be very careful cheering on the rapid appreciation you are seeing, as it may be less of a vote of confidence in Bitcoin than a vote of no confidence in China's economy.

---

Almost like you can see the future... WSJ article about this posted online this morning, coupled with ~10% pullback in Bitcoin.

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China's PBOC appears to have interveined in their CNY to stop its depreciation. The Chinese currency rallied and Bitcoin sold off.

Again, beware buying Bitcoin for anything but novelty or high risk speculation.

Nah

Nah

Nah

wheelskjm said:

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Ditto What Walton said:

"Again, beware buying Bitcoin for anything but novelty or high risk speculation. "

Unless you're in Venezuela where the local currency is the high risk and bitcoin is the stable currency.

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Sure, I'd rather own Bitcoin than VZ Bolivars.

A less extreme candidate would maybe be something like Iran (20%+ inflation), where you can still actually find products to buy, but you live under an oppressive regime that could go off the deep end at any moment.

Still, I think it's more interesting to debate BTC versus developed currencies.

This brings me back to previous question - if you are concerned about government manipulation and want to protect against that, why bitcoin over gold?

Nah

No, I don't consider it a developed economy. It's centrally planned and routinely manipulates it's currency, as I pointed out earlier.

Not sure why you'd disagree with me on that?

My point is that it's more interesting to debate BTC versus basket currencies.

Nah

Nah

Thanks, but that wasn't very informative. And his closing sentence didn't make sense . I'm not sure making bitcoin sound even more mysterious is a good selling point for the olds.

What's the plan for BTC when there is a failure of a major currency? If the USD, GBP, CNY, etc, fail, I can see that there could be issues with the power and communications infrastructure in the effected countries? Are people just supposed to trade slips of paper with random combinations of letters and numbers on them and hope that the person they're dealing with is honest?

I am still a believer in the potential for the technology to be extremely disruptive, but I'm not sure I could come up with a worse adoption strategy than tying the value of the technology to an alternative currency.

Nah

Nah

wheelskjm said:

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jh0400 said:

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What's the plan for BTC when there is a failure of a major currency? If the USD, GBP, CNY, etc, fail, I can see that there could be issues with the power and communications infrastructure in the effected countries? Are people just supposed to trade slips of paper with random combinations of letters and numbers on them and hope that the person they're dealing with is honest?

I am still a believer in the potential for the technology to be extremely disruptive, but I'm not sure I could come up with a worse adoption strategy than tying the value of the technology to an alternative currency.

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Bitcoin is a platform, like facebook, as long as the platform is up and running, it has value.

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So who maintains the platform is up and running? 100% availability is key, and the situation in which the currency would theoretically be the most valuable is also the situation in which it will be least reliable. It's incredibly naive to think that there won't be systemic infrastructure and availability issues in the event of a major currency failure, and it seems to me that a major failure is what all of the btc cheerleaders are banking on.

Nah

Bitcoin looks to be going the way of the Chinese stock market last year. Don't be a bag holder of this massive pump and dump... Or do - your call.

I remember when Bitcoin started and the big selling point was that it was anonymity... That has more or less gone away as people have realized the consequences of the wild west of "currencies" (Mt. Gox, Bitfinex). Now I'm not sure what the value of it can be justified as except as a medium to escape certain currency controls. If things were to settle down or become more restrictive or say just another Bitcoin scandal the price could collapse even further than the 20% so far. The Chinese are not what you would call mature investors (as seen by the stock market rise and collapse), and I would be very concerned if my assets were controlled by their investment. I'm sure it was a fun ride, but at some point, this kind of growth in value is unhealthy and unsustainable for any asset.

wheelskjm said:

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It's incredibly naive to think that in a global crisis where no infrastructure exists that you have a valid solution in gold or anything else other than bullets and ammo and force.

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So you're admitting that in the event of a currency failure, bullets > bitcoin?

If I called bitcoin 'digital tulip bulbs', is there any difference?

Tulips.

Nah

wheelskjm said:

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It's incredibly naive to think that in a global crisis where no infrastructure exists that you have a valid solution in gold or anything else other than bullets and ammo and force.

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gold has been and always will be a treasured metal. Without the internet bitcoin doesn't exist.

Nah

You're right.

Nah