It seems to be going crazy as faith in other assets, like the dollar, decreases. Just asking.

No, Bitcoin will fail someday, due to the way it is structured. If you own Bitcoins and lose the password or die, the currency isn't recoverable as I understand it. Gold being a physical commodity will always have a value, be it up and down at times. Bitcoin seems to me to be another pyramid scheme along the lines of the stock market. I will dabble in the stock market, bit I'm not smart enough to try and make any money with Bitcoins.

Golds value has been relatively constant for over 5000 years. A physical commodity.

Bitcoin is a collapse waiting to happen.

Sounds like someone has some bitcoin they want to sell ...

Not like gold at all. More like a counterfeiting pyramid scheme. And like every pyramid scheme, the earlier you get in, the more money you will make by screwing other people who get in later. Of course, it really boils down to whether you can get your value out of the Bitcoin before the pyramid collapses.

A lot of guys think Tesla buying into BtC means it has gained even more stability. I see the opposite. I think Tesla and its sham founder are nothing but propaganda pushers.

It's more like tulips---IMO

Damn, Bob! You beat me by 3 minutes.

I was going to write the same thing, but I had to check the month and day first (February 1637, by the way...)

John (somewhat of student of history!)

Great minds think a like

Some folks here at The Campfire seems to have done really well with Bitcoin.

Stickfight has led some good discussions on it.

It’s an interesting concept.

That.

There is always money to be made by some in any pyramid scheme. It's about timing.

Yet to be seen.

If you bought Bitcoin for $1 in 2009 and sold it today for $48,000 a unit, that's a good profit even for the high rollers on the Campfire.

I think alot of people don't really know what a pyramid scheme is. If you want to know about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general, find people who actually know more about it than just surface level stuff.

Yessir. This.

My son and his nerdy friends convinced me to buy some Bitcoin last year. I wish I’d have bought more. They buy a little bit every week.

Bit Coin . . . . . . You bit, now they got your coin. 😁

I don't have any but find the phenomenon fascinating. Tulips have a shelf life. Anything is worth what the market says it is. It appears the only thing Bitcoin represents is scarcity. If gravel was made up of gold, its value would be that of gravel, so scarcity is the main element of gold too. The whole concept is fascinating and once again I wind up more in the Trump camp that says it does not represent any tangible asset. Of course, more and more the full faith and credit of the US govt seems like a Ponzi scheme as well.

Maybe vodka?

Musical chairs i think.

I have tried to understand block chain and bitcoin by watching videos and tutorials. I guess I'm just too old and stupid to get it. If you boil it down to it's overly simplistic basis...I keep coming back to you take your US paper money (which seems to have no tangible value, it's based on trust, or a vague promise) trade it for another form of currency represented by little tiny switches that make 1's or 0's, in a memory bank, held someplace no one knows where or by who, again on the promise that it is worth something. Do I have this right, kinda, sorta? So, could you say the entire monetary system, paper or 1's and 0's is based on faith and tradition? Spud farmer accepts paper money for his spuds, because he pays his operating expenses with paper, tradition. How does a wildly fluctuating electronic currency break that tradition? What if the spud farmer's power company won't accept bitcoin for the irrigation bill? I just don't get it.

I never could figure it out either. I figured it was on the same basis as Amway, a get rich scheme.

Bitcoin is the new tulips.

It went over 50,000 and some are saying it'll go to 700,000.

But, it could go to zero too.

Until the power goes out and then ... poof.

Crypto currencies are very bad for freedom. Very bad. Everything electronic can and will be tracked.

Hat, how is it bad for freedom ?

I work with this technology, along with others...

If you happen to lose your security token - you are screwed... so if your computer crashes and you didn’t back it up... poof.
One guy hacked it and stole 32 million (the so called perfect system), they haven’t figured out who the guy is yet.

Better yet if there was a mistake - it can’t be fixed (all trades are permanent.)

When you want to buy that shiny, new gun and the "powers-that-be" decide.....nope, you can't buy (have) that.

You can afford it. There is no glitch in the system. Everything works as it should.

"They" just don't want you to have it.

That is bad for freedom.

That's about where I am and it's hard to trust such things. I will admit, gold has been around for quite a while, but in a pinch, you can't eat it. And, it attracts violent felons.

Yea, but I'll buy all you wanna sell at spot less 100 bucks an oz, trade you guns, ammo, or food for it also.

You are aware that there are Bitcoin ATMs ?

True, but in a pinch I'd rather have penicillin.

Something you can be confident in, no matter how little you know about Bitcoin, is that anyone who draws an analogy between it and the Dutch tulip bubble is a completely incompetent bozo who knows almost nothing about Bitcoin or the tulip bubble.

But no, it is not digital gold. Gold can't be transmitted over a communications channel.

Buy Hedera.


You're Welcome

Who is "they", and how will they stop me from using crypto?

Bitcoin will only become accepted and somewhat stable, after somebody figures out how to manipulate the market for it.

Brilliant!

One guy hacked what, exactly?

^^^^This

OK, seriously, educate us.

On what?

The Dutch tulip bubble lasted a matter of weeks. People were trading futures contracts on tulip bulbs yet to be grown and the market went crazy. It boomed and busted in such a short time frame no actual bulbs could be delivered.

Bitcoin, by contrast, has been available to the public for 12 years, and on commercial public exchanges for 10. So it usually goes:
BTC $5: This is tulips!
BTC $50: This is tulips!
BTC $500: This is tulips!
BTC $5,000: This is tulips!
BTC $50,000: This is tulips!
And so on.

Buy it or don't, but posting nocoiner cope is just sad.

A numbered account sends another numbered account some bitcoin—the blockchain, open so everyone can see the transaction occurred, certifies the transaction. Nobody know who the number accounts belong too.
There was a hack but it occurred to an exchange—the exchange lost its bitcoin.
At a dollar a bitcoin some people were careless with their passwords and seed phrase-nowadays not so much.

Try as I might I can't understand crypto currency but in July I bought stock in RIOT BLOCKCHAIN a company that focuses on BITCOIN. It is up 1990% since I bought it. I could kick myself for not buying 20,000 shares instead of the 200 I bought. I understand the value of gold but I can only buy paper gold for an IRA. At least that's what I've been told. In 1933 billions of dollars in paper gold was stolen by the U.S. government so I don't trust it too much. I agree with Stickfight about the tulip analogy, it doesn't fit. Like the ostrich craze it is hard to make a fortune on something that reproduces that fast. Limited supply and incorruptibility (and ease of transport) create value in something used as money. Because of unlimited creation of new money U.S. currency seems to me to be the one headed for a cliff that it cannot avoid.

Here is the best ...

You also have to have an account for using bitcoin, and if you forget the password, you only get so many attempts before it wipes your account out.

This guy has a quarter million bucks and 2 guesses left... BWHAHAHAHAHA ...

Read it for yourself -

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55645408

If you make money on it, good for you. A couple years ago, when it was going straight up, like it is now, everyone made the same claims. Then it went down 80%. If you go back further, there are other such crashes of 60-75%. Bottom line, wait until it crashes again because it probably will.

I don't know whether to sell or not. I've never had another stock go up 2000% in 7 months. If it seems too good to be true.

Oldtrapper: I only wish I had bought "Bit-Coin" when it was $1.00 (one dollar!) a coin!
It simply reiterates that "I" can NOT see into the future.
Life (everything!) would be easier if we could.
I would not even dare to predict which would be a better investment of ones monies, starting today - gold or Bit-Coin.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

You do not know what you are talking about.

Everyone who predicts a market crash is eventually right. There is no skill to it.

OK, tell us what makes it intrinsically valuable. I understand what makes wheat valuable, or a house, but what makes blips on a computer valuable, and do spare us the name calling. Thanks

I'm not the best guy to explain it but for one thing its fairly rare, there is a limited supply so that is one thing that makes it valuable. It also isn't controlled by any one entity who can manipulate the price. Properly stored, its very difficult for anyone to access it against your will, or restrict your use of it.

And then you get in. The point is not predicting it, but waiting for it to happen.

I don’t understand it. I’ve read all about the farming and everything else about what it is ect...

I just can’t wrap my head around how it becomes of value, and then how that value increases.

Not that the current ways of the stock market are much different.

The only time I’ve ever seen it have actual value was when hackers held the companies computers and servers hostage and demanded payment in Bitcoin. For that one short period it had value equal to the replacement cost of our servers and computers, but that was a fairly short timeframe.

Those are good qualities, but I do not see the value like a buck knife or a box of .22 shells. How is it different than if I start the same thing tomorrow and call it bits of money? And if everyone did that why wouldn't it inflate the value of bit coin? In fact, it appears such things are happening. How is it that those things don't just turn into so many electrons? Things that are artificially scarce because they are made to be scarce cause me suspicions. just saying.

To me stock is more understandable because you are owning a piece of an entity that creates consumer desired goods and services. And, if they do a good job of it their value goes up. I get that.

I am not saying that I know bit coin is a scam or anything. I am saying, like you, that I cannot see the intrinsic value of it. Maybe someone can and can explain it. ???

H&R Block asked if I had bought or sold any cryptocurrency.

I don't much about Bitcoin. A buddy invested $10K in and it went up tp $70K, he took his original $10K out and it going to let the rest ride. He says I may end up a millionaire or with nothing, but I 'm going to let it play out!

The value of bitcoin is driven only by the people who want to be 'in the club' and are willing to pay today's price to join. A country club with fluctuating membership charges.

I never claimed BTC has Intrinsic Value. Like gold, Bitcoin does not generate a cash flow therefore it is not possible for it to have Intrinsic Value.

And I won't be sparing anyone anything they've earned. The guy I quoted didn't even understand the article he linked yet he felt compelled to reveal that by posting to the thread. People like him should be asking questions, not answering them, and I believe that if more people pointed out dumb people they'd go back into hiding and the signal to noise ratio of the entire internet would increase.

That question is near the top of the 1040 forms this year.

Cryptocurrency’s and the Blockchain are two completely different things.

There are hundreds maybe thousands of crypto’s out there and Bitcoin is just the first. It is hard to use as a currency because it is so volatile. It is easy to send back and forth between users with no one else knowing about it but it is hard to agree on a price. I could sell you my widgets at a good profit today only to lose 50% of my bitcoin value tomorrow. The opposite could happen also in which case my customer who bought my widgets feels like he way over paid for them. When you are in a very high-profit business like murder for hire, kidnapping or dope the anonymity of the exchange over comes the volatility of the currency. It works better for that than cash.

Blockchain is open ledger accounting that retains its anonymity of users—its decentralized—not controlled by government. Blockchain is going to change the internet—in ways that are hard to predict. Blockchain is going to change medicine, agriculture, business, education—virtually every aspect of our lives. It’s hard thing to predict.

I first heard about the whole internet thing in 1985 or so—I thought it was something for kids to play games on. Because of the internet Iam better informed today than I was in 1985 when i bought a newspaper every single day. It’s going to be similar with the blockchain

Whats the deal with the questions on the tax forms?

Also, can you create a "wallet" without coin or a very small amount?

Is there a way to vet or research the exchange or whatever they call it?

Don't know my azz from a hole in the ground about the whole subject but thinking if I were a bit more knowledgeable I'd risk a little next time it drops.

Blockchain tecnology is here to stay.

Many banks are starting to use Bitcoin. Including Goldman Sachs, Simple Bank, Ally Bank , USSA Bank and many others.

GBTC is an alternate to holding Bitcoin.

I think the IRS is trying to gauge how many crypto owners aren't paying taxes on their gains or reporting payments. Most likely they are more focused on the payment side right now, because the Pavlovian training all IRS agents go through causes them to salivate when they hear the phrase "unreported business income".



Yes. A wallet is just an address that the blockchain knows about. It has to be created before it can be funded with crypto and the blockchain does not care if it ever is. Hardware wallets are available for "cold storage", which means they can be plugged in to the internet, have crypto sent to them, then be unplugged and put in a safe. As long as the blockchain still exists and the hardware wallet can be connected to it, crypto can be sent or received from it.



Just searching the web for reviews is about it. My advice would be to open a Coinbase account, they are the most trustworthy exchange available in the US. They actually follow the laws where they operate, get the necessary licenses, etc, so are unlikely to be blocked by a government. They also keep most of their assets in the sort of cold storage described above, so if they are hacked the damage to their liquidity should be minimal.

A Coinbase account can be funded with a credit debit card and their interface is good. They do a good job not letting scam cryptos on their exchange. Their fees are high but they go toward security, interface, I think they have or will soon have a debit card, etc. For an account >$10k USD or so it would be good to skip straight to Coinbase Pro for lower fees and higher transfer limits.

One thing to be aware of is that all the exchanges limit the USD you can move off them. Coinbase Pro defaults that to $25k/day I think, and I know I got to $50k just by asking. So if you have 2 BTC you can sell them both and have $100k USD balance as soon as the trade is verified, but you can move only $25k per day to your bank and have to carry the balance with Coinbase.



This run is going to end at some point and BTC will pull back. No one really knows when or how much, but it will recover. I don't keep the kids' college money in crypto but do carry some cash in it that we'd not be hamstrung by if it crashed.

If you have a traditional brokerage account, just buying a blockchain mining ETF like RIOT or MARA is a way to get in on the boom without buying crypto directly.

Now that is interesting...are you asked to disclose how much and which crypto you bought, or are they just trying to get an idea of its popularity.

Just curious as to why you recommend Hashgraph?

Thanks for the quick reply.
Internet research on a topic I know zero about its great but its nice to hear from actual users that are in the game.

The hardware wallet, is that like an OS with data or just data? I guess my question is would that be something that would have to maintained/updated or more like an encrypted file that's just modified as needed?

TIA

It is just a Yes / No right under the name and address section. Something along the lines of "did you buy, sell, send, or receive any virtual currency in 2020?". That is it.

I think they are looking for a rough number of people involved. Assume 20% of the people actually involved will answer Yes, count them up and multiply by 5, then multiply that by the median USD flow through wallets for BTC. Easier than trying to figure out which wallets are owned by US taxpayers.

I learned more in 2 sentences from KKahmann than all the supposed explanations on Youtube. "I could sell you my widgets at a good profit today, only to lose 50% of their value tomorrow."
Legitimate productive business demands a stable currency, that must be why the US credit based dollar that we complain about is still the world's currency. It isn't the Euro, the Yuan or the Yen.
Stability...what a concept.

They usually run custom firmware which handles the initial cryptography to create the wallet and generate seed phrases, talk to different operating systems ver USB, display things on their screens, etc. I don't know if any run a full OS but if they do it is probably some kind of embedded Linux. They do get firmware updates from time to time. I don't believe any of these are strictly necessary for their operation, just bugfixes and feature updates like support for new cryptocurrencies.

I read something about a new one that never has to be connected to a computer. It displays a QR code for transferring on/off the device.

Important to note that the actual balance of the wallet isn't stored on the device at all, that is maintained by the blockchain. All the hardware wallet does is generate a wallet address and private key (or several if it is used to store multiple cryptos). People can still send crypto to the address even with the wallet disconnected. It only has to come out to take balance out. And if the device is physically destroyed, its private key can be restored on a new device using the original seed phrases, and its balance will be preserved.

beads and tobacco are better investments than crypto, biotech, energy etc

One guy says the blockchain stores funds on “cold storage” wallets for security. Implying that disconnected wallets are somehow secure.
Then the same guy(or another guy) attempts to explain how the currency isn’t stored on the wallet at all and that’s it’s just a key to funds on the blockchain.

These two statements seem to contradict each other.

Is one or the other true?

Sounds like another method to launder cash and hide gains and assets. Uncle Sammi isn’t going to allow this to continue for very long.

Timing the market or any investment is impossible or at best lucky. Either go in or stay out. Ya just don’t know when the bottom is the bottom until some time later then at that point one might have missed it. The people that bought in before the crashes and stayed in are doing just fine.

3 guys walking the dogs every night from 9:30 to 11:00 pm. 15 years ago

Retired engineer in his 50s... me, loud mouthed opinionated
Retired biz owner in his 40s ... big guy, loud mothed opinionated
Software engineer supervisor in 30s....mensch, married to a gorgeous PhD physicist .

My thing was investing in AMZN and TSLA
The big guy was buying Gold and farms in Uruguay.
The mensch was buying bitcoin

I am worth 11 times what I was worth then.
The big guy is worth 1/4 of what he was worth then.
The mensch won't answer the question if his wife knows about the bitcoin.

I'm sure there's plenty of pointy heads out there trying to figure out how to stop this. At best they can make it more inconvenient for people to get in or to get money out, they can't stop it.

It is at its root only Monopoly money. If I understand it correctly, that is - which is doubtful.

The oldest bank in America is accepting it. BMY Mellon.

As is Goldman Sachs and a few others.

GM is not yet accepting it as payment but Barra says it’s in their crosshairs for the future

Made me laugh out loud !

good input.

I am thinking the ones bitching about Bitcoin are the same ones that will be crying about bitcoin when the last Bitcoin is mined. Ray

Absolutely not. Bitcoin has no intrinsic worth. It has no real-world existence. Gold exists in reality and it has properties that humans have learned to use for several thousand years. Folks may speculate over both, but Bitcoin's value could drop to zero. Read up on the Dutch Tulip Craze and get back to me.

Who is “bitching “ here ?

How about ‘paper gold ‘ , Shaman?

How many people do you reckon hold physical gold? Do you ?

Has gold ever been confiscated?

F’k a bunch of tulips!
Grins

Lots of big players are lining up to use Hederas DLT. Faster, more secure and less expensive. BTC purists complain it's not decentralized enough. If the world has taught us anything, the Big Boys rarely lose. Hedera is their ecosystem.

PS- it's a long hold for me. Not something to swing on 20% pumps. Buy and hold, buy and hold.

Are you saying it is not a bubble because it has gone on for longer? There have been some pretty long bubbles, the biggest I know of being the national debt.

No one said you claimed it had intrinsic value, that is my question. I do however reject your assertion that something has to create cash flow to have intrinsic value. Witness, a loaf of bread, no cash flow, real intrinsic value.

And the question remains. Where is the intrinsic value?

I’ve missed out on some ginormous gains due to my not liking to invest in things I don’t understand.

Had a friend my age ask me 5 years ago or so what I thought of bitcoin 🤔 I’m like wtf what do I think about quantum mechanics, I’m too dumb to have an opinion on either.

He was going to buy some. I need to call him & find out if he did & if so if he’s still holding or sold already.

Only other guy I knew to ask was my computer & network guy, a kid 23 years old at the time who’d done network maintenance for our University & was currently working for the hospital. Btw he did my stuff as a favor as I’d known the kid since he was born, I had less troubles w my puters & networks under his management than I ever did when using “pros” in our area. He’s a sharp kid. I of course insisted on paying him a third more than what he charged me initially.

He tried to explain it to me, but I just couldn’t grasp the concept enough to take the plunge. 🤦🏼‍♂️

Don’t recall what the price was in 2016, but it was well south of 40K. Damn it hurts to be dumb

For me the hilarious part is people thinking that the money is untraceable, in order to use DLT (the underlying fabric for bitcoin) you have to an a account somewhere.

So if you have an account - trust me, they know who you are.

Internet inventors people aren’t the smartest crowd of anarchists I’ve ever run into.

If you've read this whole thread and still don't get it, its probably not for you.

🤣

Maybe you can explain where the value comes from. I am usually pretty good with plain English.

No, I’m claiming that the comparing it with the tulip bubble is ignorant and the no one should allow ignorant people to advise them on any matter.

Read Goetzmann’s paper on bubbles. He doesn’t even mention Dutch tulips, because it isn’t analogous to any real modern bubbles.

You are borrowing a term from the finance industry that you do not understand. Intrinsic Value has a definition that requires cash flow generation. You can’t just make up your own.

People want it.

Thanks for your time, but it still sounds like digital tulips to me. ;-{>8

Time will tell.

Time has told.

Apparently, I am the new gold.

Time goes on. ;-{>8

I can't wrap my mind around digital currencies. But I think if it starts to look like it's capable of becoming a challenger to the Federal Reserve's monopoly on manufacturing money, it's going to have problems, eventually.

I think this may prove to be a genie thats very hard to put back in the lamp....that's the hope for me anyway.

THE BUBBLE IS PRICED AT $52,000 + RIGHT NOW. SAY THAT OUT LOUD ! PUT SOME MONEY IN IT AND LET IT GROW FOR A WHILE AND SELL IT FOR A PRO PROFIT. DO YOU NOT LIKE MAKING MONEY ?? 2 OF MY INVESTOR GUYS SAY THAT BITCOIN WILL MAKE $100 k EASY THIS YEAR. Hi, TOOT . Ray

Yo, Ray!

Have enjoyed the education from you, Stickfight, xxclaro and others here.

When you see major banks going to this like they presently are,,,,,it’s kinda hard to bet against that flow direction.

No doubt that the perceptions and values will cycle over time.

Good thread.

Bitcoin exists only digitally, The entire record of which wallet has how much of it exists on the blockchain, something that is replicated across many many computers. It is this way because the blockchain is the ledger for every Bitcoin that was ever mined, and which wallet is was mined to, which wallet those were sent to, etc etc. It does this via cryptographic proof of each transaction.

The blockchain simply records that a transaction occurred between two wallets, and the sum of all transactions for a given wallet determines its BTC balance. So if a person sends BTC to a cold storage wallet the blockchain makes record of that. The only way to move them off is to for the wallet to sign a transaction with its private key to enable the blockchain to cryptographically prove the transaction valid. The "cold storage" is that private key going offline so that no one can move BTC off it.

There are no actual digital data that actually accumulate in a wallet. The only data a wallet ever has are its own private and public cryptographic keys.

There is a reason why only, gold is gold, and has been since antiquity.

Physics

Give you best gal a bitcoin to wear on third finger, left hand, see how that flies?

Something wrong with your cap locks button?

I'll wait for the crash which will happen. Then maybe I'll get in. I sure as Hell am not buying something that already went up 1,000% in a matter of months.

About 20% of Bitcoin value / wallets are locked for good ....due to lost passwords / email addys.

I invested in XRP-Ripple

Great value at .50 cents

How much is 1 Bitcoin worth when you lose your password?

Same amount your cash is worth when you loose your wallet.

I sold my XRP, will wait to see how the SEC lawsuit turns out. It has managed to hold on better than I expected though.

Do you have a preferred exchange for Hedera?

Except it's more like losing an entire bank account than just walking around money?

Bitcoin is no better than Paper Money and Paper Money is only worth something if People believe it is worth something. In reality it really is just Paper nothing more. Beliefs can be destroyed in less than a day. Same goes for Bitcoin it’s only value is belief.

I'm BY FAR no expert on the subject but I think there is some confusion in that you don't have to own a whole Bitcoin worth 50k plus. You can own really small fractions and essentially put in as many dollars worth as you want. So, like you probably would not walk around with $50k in your physical wallet, someone likely would not walk around toting a phone or whatever that stored whole bitcoins.

Only if you put all your eggs in one basket. Nothing stopping you from having multiple wallets, can have multiple cold wallets, couple hot wallets and even leave a bit on the exchange if you want.

Gold could become valueless as a trade item in one day if governments put enough penalty on its possession and use. The BANK could effect that scenario. And could send agents to kill whomever would defy the edict. Same with Bitcoin. Alternative to fiat currency will not be allowed when it comes down to the nut cutting. 1984 is here, 37 years behind schedule, but it is here.

That's correct, you can buy very small amounts of Bitcoin. Most people will have at least one cold wallet that stores the keys to most of their crypto, instead of leaving it online where it might be vulnerable to attack.

Not really. First off paper money can be counterfeited, and more can be printed at any time in any quantity. Bitcoin has a limited supply.

I wish you password fairies were more motivated to learn before posting.

There is no such thing as a “Bitcoin password”. Just because you read about that in the Jew York Times doesn’t make it so, they have no idea what they are talking about either.

What people are “losing” is the password to the software they use to secure their wallet’s private key.

For people who are open to learning this risk is easily mitigated. A person can create a wallet at a place like Bitcoin Paper Wallet, print it on literal paper, and put that in a safe. That document has the wallet’s public key which can be shown to someone who wants send BTC to it, and the private key that can be used to transfer it out.

The fearful among you are likely correct though. If you are dumb enough to lose the password to the software that stores your key, lose the password to the backup, lose the printed paper wallet, and lose the seed words to restore the keys....Bitcoin is probably not for you and you should eat your dinner with a spoon so you don’t end up with a fork in your eye.

It sure has. Quite a few of my buddies are buying it because of the cost

Yep. I use Coinbase and put my password in my safe. Coinbase is kind of expensive but I felt very safe with each of my 3 transactions.

You using Coinbase or Coinbase Pro? The Pro version has much cheaper fees, and transferring your stuff over to Pro is very simple.

Uphold

Until someone finds your wallet. What's the likelihood that someone will stumble across your lost password?

coinbase pro works well for me too

Wouldn't be surprised to see it at 60 thousand next week.

Reached 57k today.

Can one spend such when the power is off in central Montana?

I’m hanging on.

Not bitcoin necessarily

58k today

My accounts are in Canadian dollars so it makes it look e even better, 72k today! Ethereum has had a strong week too, I'm hoping that continues, got more riding on that than I do BTC

Bought more due to the below. I admit I don't know what "extractive" means in this context but I think it is something I would approve of. Let the marginalized people keep building houses out of sticks and mud like muskrats.

But 28k BTC ($1.6BB worth) moved into public exchanges today. Probably going to hold down price as it is almost certainly to sell.

Buy Mirror Protocol (Mir)

You're Welcome

Its definitely interesting, SNX is kinda similar and has done quite well so Mir could definitely be a good pick. Where are you buying?

I am not feeling so smart about keeping my crypto investments that I should have sold last week. It's hard to jump off of a rocket ship.

47.8 not the end of the world.

My cost basis for BTC is still 4 figures so it has a ways to go before I get worried. While anything is possible, this is probably more of a price correction than the start of another crash.

But I still have stop losses set....

So few use stop/loss, Stick,

And not just for Bitcoin.

Gate.IO

On no (((Schiff))) doesn't like it? I can't imagine a Jew would lie to us for his own gain!

Schiff has been hawking gold and badmouthing Bitcoin for how long now? At some point your better off admitting your mistake.

Volatility is pretty much off the radar of most investors. However, volatility is real and often unbalanced, meaning, it goes down easier and faster that it goes up. The financial industries cover up this little problem by reporting filters. They often use running year filters to eliminate the view of volatility. Bitcoin going up and down 8% 10% a day is crazy. It reminds me of playing pachinko ball in the casinos of Japan. Each ball is a dollar and your shooting 9,000 – 10,000 balls a minute.

Ryou need gold to get bitcoin
But you don't need bicycling to get gold.

Someone could have said what you're saying about tulip bulbs, too.

There’s no real commonality between the two.

True....if they didn't know wtf they were talking about

You mean, if they did know what they were talking about.

There's no actual value in a bit coin. There's price, but no value. Same with tulip bulbs.

Well, actually, tulip bulbs do have some value, unlike Bitcoin.

Tulips don’t have ATMs nor do they have major banks and car companies accepting them as payment.

A third party sucker doesn't validate a valueless item.

What does value mean to you?

Gold is the most useful metal in the world. It's atomically real, and it derives its value from its metallic properties. Bitcoin only exists theoretically, and has no value.

Our dollar is no longer tied to the gold standard and the guberment is running the US dollar printer nonstop. So where’s the value in the dollar?

Ok but that doesn't answer the question....surely gold is not the only thing of value. What does value mean to you?

It does to those who transact with it as a store of value,

It does to those who go to the ATMs and withdraw 25k$ at a time,

It does when BNY Mellon accepts it as does Goldman Sachs.

It does when GM presently has it under consideration as payment for their products.

There’s more as it relates to validation of a “ valueless item “.

Another market that could be cornered..

Not at all.

Bits are accepted now *only* as a means to another transaction.

A car stealership may take em, but only when they have a buyer waitin, at a higher bit price, just like banks are doin.

Bit's only value at this time, is that there's even bigger suckers, than you.

Not s single post that comes close to defining value, as usual. You're all better off avoiding the question.

Commercially useful gold is overwhelmingly used as decoration, not for any industrial purpose. That doesn't mean it lacks value.

Correct

Value=monetary worth.
Gold, my house, my truck, Bitcoin all by definition have value.

Gold, your house, your truck, all have both a price and real underlying value (on which its price is mainly based). Bitcoin has a price, but no real underlying value supporting it. For this reason, therefore, Bitcoin is more akin to a fiat currency than it is to gold, your house, or your truck. Bitcoin's price is X because that's what folks are willing to pay for it at the moment, and that's the only reason.

But why are folks willing to pay for it?

Same reason as Beanie Babies. Because they expect its prince to go up.

Yeah.

The Institutions that I mentioned are well known suckers and fools.

You’ll see a question regarding e-currencies on your federal tax form this year. The government probably thinks it’s phony stuff, too.

Heh.

Well,,,,duhhh.

Of course gold has a different value, just like diamonds, it's a glittering shining rock.
We humans like things that are pretty.

BTC, not so much, if it were just more pretty.

Ok.

So we agree that it has no underlying value.

The looks of gold are only a small part of its value. It's an element (element 79, symbol Au), one of only a small handful of them that possess all sorts of important properties valued by civilization, properties that other elements do not possess, and it's extremely rare, at least anywhere near the earth's surface (the core of the planet is likely pure gold, but you cannot reach it).

We don’t.

Now you're contradicting yourself.

I guess the idea is bred into us.

My mom alway kept the cookie jar on the highest shelf in the kitchen.
I couldn't reach it either.

And cookies taste good, and contain nutrients useful to the body, and are found in a useful form. So they possess properties that are valued innately by people, and are rare (at least in your household growing up).

The world according to Hawk.

I suppose you get the point I'm driving at.

Bitcoin is no more stupid than other things we place value on.

I don't see that point at all. Cookies at least have real underlying value supporting their price. They exist in physical reality and can be used in ways other than as a means of exchange, ways valued by most people, value based in factors pertaining to the fundamentals of human nature.

Headfirst into the abyss of inanity.

That's not an argument.

I can’t wait for your take on Ethereum!

These folks see value.

https://www.dubailad.com/dubai-businessman-plans-biggest-bitcoin-investment-in-history/

I wasn't aware that Etherium has been proposed as a money substitute. Isn't it a method of doing business, absent middle men?

Ever hear of pump and dump?

Partly

Can I interest you in some Webistics stock?

Do you find this web site valuable?

Until .gov intervenes, lol.

I, like many of you have been for a long time unsure/ignorant/skeptical of Bitcoin. Have basically ignored it and stuck to traditional investing by buying long and holding and have done very well at it. But being 60 years old, my brain has been programmed like many of yours to look for material value like gold, or underlying value, etc. My millennial son on the other hand, with a couple of masters degrees in finance, does not have the same predispositions. Not saying that is good or bad. Just not the same. Well he has been bugging me for some time to jump into the Bitcoin/blockchain arena. I have resisted but about 6 weeks ago, I bought some Bitcoin as well as a blockchain ETF that together amounts to about 7% of my overall investments. So far have been rewarded but its only been a handful of weeks. Then he sends me a copy of a podcast (see the link below) as an educational tool with a 60+ year CEO of a Capital Management company and a millennial youtuber. On the surface, I'd say these guys know way more than anybody on this forum (i guarantee you they know way more than me on the subject), and have a 1 hour discussion about the state of Bitcoin. How we got here, where it might go, etc. The podcast is about 1.5 hours long, but is fascinating and informative to me if nothing else. But admittedly, I am too ignorant to know any better. Actually I am too ignorant to know about a lot of things which is why I go to a doctor when I am sick, If you don't want to watch the whole thing, fast forward to about 1:17 mark and watch it from there. The "old" guy wraps up where we are and where he thinks its going. Enjoy.

https://mobile.twitter.com/prestonpysh/status/1362906901793681412

That's what I've been trying to tell people that I know. Things change, technology advances, new opportunities arise. Staying in one place, even if its been a good place, only ensures that you will be left behind. I don't know what the future holds, but even the little that I understand about blockchain and defi makes me believe its going to play a significant part in the future. Its one of the only possibilities I see for beginning to squirm out from under Big Brother's thumb.

I'm not recommending it to anyone or saying its a good investment. It has been for me, but I've only been in it a short while. What I am saying is that its probably a good idea to at least have a decent understanding about what it is/isn't, and what the potential might be. Dismissing new ideas out of hand just because you don't get it is rarely a winning strategy.

Good post xx, I've been listening to Preston for a while now.

But you can trade gold coins for food and ammo when everything collapses. Lol

I’d love to see you try and trade a gold coin to a 25 year old

I wouldn't put too much faith in Bitcoin. It's not as private and free as everybody seems to think it is. And - in contrast to gold - it has no inherent value and is the subject of a relatively fickle market as is.
Not to mention that everyone can see your account balance by simple analyzing the Blockchain. If you want to get into Crypto for privacy and stability reasons, I'd suggest Monero.

Interesting, Boomer.

Only the ignorant, of which there is no shortage, think it is private. By design its entire ledger is public so it has 0 intrinsic privacy. What it can be is anonymous and the extent of that is entirely up to the wallet owner. Where people have had their identities associated with their wallets it has been because they created/connected those wallets to commercial exchanges or their traditional banking accounts, and those institutions gave gave up their info.

There is nothing stopping a person from transacting Bitcoin anonymously other than their own capability.

I'm not sure what you mean by free here but the tech that underpins is open source and available to anyone for no cost. That has resulted in open source wallets and exchanges also available free. There is nothing, again other than their own capability, to stop 2 people from writing their own software to conduct an exchange of BTC that was mined with their own software, so they can remain completely anonymous. There is/was a guy running an ETH mining rig in his section 8 apartment in California that he is powering from multiple circuits in public areas of the building, a configuration necessary due to the power draw not cost since he doesn't pay for electricity.

My crypto, metal, and oil are all down way more than the overall market today. Even the metal ETFs are down over 3%. What's to be expected?

when the commies take over the internet, a lot of people are going to lose whole fortunes in crypto.

There's still time.

Thanks, xarcher, this is the most helpful explanation on this thread, by far.