I’d look into Monero and Zcash. Allow my wealth to be truly private.
Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
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Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#12If the bubble bursts the right place to invest would be bitcoin itself. Whether you like it or not BTC is here to stay and most likely going to be the next currency. A lot of people hate BTC on this forum cause they feel they missed out.
I do hate bitcoin and for exactly that reason. But I'm conflicted about it - if I could make a huge amount of money and know, for a fact, that it was caused by me being in the right place to take money off people who actually earned it... is this a bad thing to do? It's a confidence trick - is it bad to be a con artist? Or is relieving the gullible of their hard earned cash a noble pastime? There certainly isn't any…
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Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#13Does anyone spend BTC? Seems like these upward spikes in value would incourage people to buy and hold indefinitely.
Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#14I would buy more Bitcoin. The world needs a censorship-resistant digital vault to store wealth. Bitcoin is basically a very cheap "Swiss bank account as a service" for the world's unbanked. Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to tak…
I don't think "invest" is the right word when talking about speculation.
Your points 1 & 2 are decent, and your lead-in is okay. But I counter with the following: bin Talal is an out and out criminal, and may be partly responsible for 9/11 and other heinous crimes, we'll see. You really want people like that having some escape mechanism? He's probably going to lose his head anyways, so Bitcoin isn't going to help him any.
I'm sure I don't understand the needs of the unbanked. There may be a good use for Bitcoin there. However, "unbanked" people may not be cognitively capable of using Bitcoin, we'll see.
The world does need censorship resistance, I'm with you there. You may not like what happens with that resistance--it could become a far left or far right genocide. I'm thinking the Federal Reserve already has a monopoly on that level of killing power.
In the end, I don't think Bitcoin will end up being the thing that solves any real problems. People who are "unbanked" have very little in the way of money. A reform of the banking system itself is in order and long overdue (e.g. they have been sticking customers with crazy fees for decades and need to stop). Banking reform would solve the problem better than some janky cryptocurrency ever will.
Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#15I would buy more Bitcoin. The world needs a censorship-resistant digital vault to store wealth. Bitcoin is basically a very cheap "Swiss bank account as a service" for the world's unbanked. Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to tak…
How does the rising transaction fees on the BTC network effect these people? I could easily see a scenario soon where both 1 and 2 might have to pay 50% of the money they are trying to save in fees to the network.
I mean a transaction today can cost $3-4 USD. With valuation rising, and the network automatically paying out less per block, we could soon see a flooded network that is asking for $10-15 for a transaction. Is this an impediment from it becoming a large scale value store?
Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#16Bitcoin is just pure speculation at this point. Like gold, Bitcoin's value comes from the fact that more and more people are interested in buying it. Unlike stocks, it does not generate real money through dividends. For every person that got rich with Bitcoin, some other unlucky guy will lose the very same amount of money. When the bubble will burst, it will be zero sum game.
Index-based ETFs should be the way to go for casual investors. Put some money in half-a-dozen index funds from the US, EU and Asia, and you'll get a low-fee, relatively stable and 7% average yearly ROI.
Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#17I would buy more Bitcoin. The world needs a censorship-resistant digital vault to store wealth. Bitcoin is basically a very cheap "Swiss bank account as a service" for the world's unbanked. Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to tak…
What if there's a reason why its bubble bursts? Perhaps a single party manages to have >51% hash power for a long time.
Or Bitcoin exchanges get outlawed in several important countries.
Or fees keep rising to $50 or higher per transaction.
These developments could make Bitcoin (mostly) unusable and thus worthless. Would you still buy more?
Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#18I don't consider Bitcoin to be an investment per-se. More of a punt. If I need an alternative way to punt, maybe some penny stocks?
I came here to say this. Knowing the difference between an investment and a gamble is my most important rule in money management. There is nothing wrong with gambling-just know when and to what extent you are doing it.
Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#19Ripple. Its more stable and is being adopted by financial institutions (AMEX being one of the biggest so far). I honestly think it'll be the first widely used crypto. Its a little different from Bitcoin, but I think it'll do well in the long run.
Re: Ask HN: IF the Bitcoin bubble bursts, where would you invest next?
#20Bitcoin is just pure speculation at this point. Like gold, Bitcoin's value comes from the fact that more and more people are interested in buying it. Unlike stocks, it does not generate real money through dividends. For every person that got rich with Bitcoin, some other unlucky guy will lose the very same amount of money. When the bubble will burst, it will be zero sum game. Index-based ETFs should be the way to go…
I'm not sure if this is true--in Wall Street, too, there is a seller for every buyer. Every time someone gets a killer deal on some stock, someone else got equally ripped off. As far as I can tell, the distinction between BTC and stocks is trivial--the price of both is driven by supply and demand.