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Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

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Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#21

Post by palish »

carbocation wrote: post #18
palish wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know of any balls-out investments that paid off (or didn't)? (I'm referring to "if this investment doesn't pay off, I'm jumping out a window" risk.) I'm just looking for interesting stories, and that sounds promising.

Those stories could be made any day. Take any volatile stock and stake out an extremely leveraged position on it for a day (or a few hours). If the stock moves in the direction you've bet, then congratulations, you've just made a bunch of money on a gamble. If not, you've lost everything.

I was asking for specific examples that have already happened. The point is to hear a fun story, not to learn any valuable or deep insights.

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#22

Post by mdonahoe »

tobias3 wrote: post #14

"[Bitcoin is] an entirely new kind of currency that can’t be seized or frozen by governments" Simply not true. At the end of the day you need to change Bitcoins back to real money. The money that actually has some value because it (is supposed to) represents goods. The stuff you need in order to survive and live (food, clothes, ...). Goverments can declare these "banks" that change bitcoins back to real money illegal…

People accept bitcoin as direct payment for things already, removing the need to switch back to dollars. Granted it's not a big selection

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#23

Post by weavejester »

synctext wrote: post #11

"I predict that it has at least another thousandfold increase to go in the coming few years" Clearly a 'Bernard Madoff 2.0' pyramid scam. Only profitable for the early adopters, pay by the last suckers whom enter.

Bernard Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme, not a pyramid scheme, and Bitcoin cannot be classed as either.

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#24

Post by adrianwaj »

vaksel wrote: post #4

I recommend reading up on the MMM company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_%28Ponzi_scheme_company%29 there is also a Russian movie called PiraMMMida that came out a few months ago, which is the fictionized version of history. Now that movie, is pretty much exactly how bitcoin tends to be covered by the fanboys. And as the movie points out, it comes down to pure greed, people give up real money in order to buy worth…

This is just FUD. Why don't you go trash sub-prime lenders before you trash bitcoin? Don't buy bitcoin. Buy Euro instead!

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#25

Post by tobylane »

The history of bitcoin is 14 months. How stable has it been over that time? It's only been in the news 2-3 weeks. I see the three bc/$ figures given, but it says nothing of stability. Other than that, it's fairly sensible. I'll stick with my 4.2%+ tax free isas.

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#26

Post by tobias3 »

mdonahoe wrote: post #22
tobias3 wrote: post #14

"[Bitcoin is] an entirely new kind of currency that can’t be seized or frozen by governments" Simply not true. At the end of the day you need to change Bitcoins back to real money. The money that actually has some value because it (is supposed to) represents goods. The stuff you need in order to survive and live (food, clothes, ...). Goverments can declare these "banks" that change bitcoins back to real money illegal…

People accept bitcoin as direct payment for things already, removing the need to switch back to dollars. Granted it's not a big selection

But can you pay your rent in BTC or at the grocery store... As long as the essential things are not available via Bitcoins it is not an independent system and thus successible to goverment intervention. And even then. People tend to trust currencies issued by the government more and money is just an artificial thing based on trust.

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#27

Post by thecabinet »

scotty79 wrote: post #12
vaksel wrote: post #4

I recommend reading up on the MMM company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_%28Ponzi_scheme_company%29 there is also a Russian movie called PiraMMMida that came out a few months ago, which is the fictionized version of history. Now that movie, is pretty much exactly how bitcoin tends to be covered by the fanboys. And as the movie points out, it comes down to pure greed, people give up real money in order to buy worth…

If such silly thing as gold became money and paper printed by governments became money then a tool possessing qualities that bitcoin possess is bound to become money eventually. Only two real risks. Crypto weakness or Bitcoin 2.0 Gold is intrinsically similarly useless as bitcoin. We used it as money only because it was durable and rare. We used paper as money because strong, trustworthy entity declared that its supp…

We use paper as money because a strong entity said they would accept those pieces of paper for tax payments. Rather than going to jail.

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#28

Post by motters »

This is probably a very bad idea. It's too early to tell where Bitcoin will go, and whether it will achieve widespread acceptance as a currency. Putting all of your savings into something highly speculative isn't very wise, unless you can afford to lose them.

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#29

Post by pyre »

thecabinet wrote: post #27
scotty79 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If such silly thing as gold became money and paper printed by governments became money then a tool possessing qualities that bitcoin possess is bound to become money eventually. Only two real risks. Crypto weakness or Bitcoin 2.0 Gold is intrinsically similarly useless as bitcoin. We used it as money only because it was durable and rare. We used paper as money because strong, trustworthy entity declared that its supp…

We use paper as money because a strong entity said they would accept those pieces of paper for tax payments. Rather than going to jail.

We originally used paper money, because it was backed by something (banks, gold, etc). Nowadays most (all?) paper money has been centralized to government control.

Re: Why I’m Putting All My Savings Into Bitcoin

#30

Post by adrianwaj »

palish wrote: post #15
raganwald wrote: post #5

A few points: 1. There is a difference between "This is useful, I will use it," "This is useful, many people will use it, I think it is going to succeed," and "This is useful, I will invest in it." I have recently started using a text editor called Byword. I quite like it. But I am not rushing out to invest in it. 2. There is also a difference between "I will invest some of my money in it," I will invest all of my mo…

Does anyone know of any balls-out investments that paid off (or didn't)? (I'm referring to "if this investment doesn't pay off, I'm jumping out a window" risk.) I'm just looking for interesting stories, and that sounds promising.

Seems to happen a lot with bigwigs.

Soros shorting the pound. Buffett investing in Visa.

Bitcoin is going to go through the roof, speculators or not. The guy in the article is taking a calculated bet that will pay off.

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