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What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

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Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#21

Post by DennisP »

keyle wrote: post #5

As much as I see myself as wild person when it comes to offshoot bets, I still can't reason myself into buying bitcoins. Not sure I must be too Gen X to find this reasonable. Anyone here comment "how well they did?" and if you've pulled out or are seriously thinking about pulling out? I feel silly, but I'm still not going to put my hard earned cash in it any time soon... In fact, I wouldn't really know how.

"How" is easy, you just sign up at an exchange like Coinbase. It's no different than getting set up with Ameritrade.

Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#23

Post by tobitornottobit »

keyle wrote: post #5

As much as I see myself as wild person when it comes to offshoot bets, I still can't reason myself into buying bitcoins. Not sure I must be too Gen X to find this reasonable. Anyone here comment "how well they did?" and if you've pulled out or are seriously thinking about pulling out? I feel silly, but I'm still not going to put my hard earned cash in it any time soon... In fact, I wouldn't really know how.

I bought a dozen coins at $100 a coin. I eventually sold when they reached around $800 per coin. My rationale was that I was far too obsessive about it, I checked the price every day, I read and watched articles and videos and kept up with all the drama. The amount of brain time I was spending on it was just too much. I would have remained a holder if I wasn't obsessive.

The technology and ecosystem is very interesting in many ways, buying into it is probably a good way to kick start your interest -- nothing better than having your money on the line to keep you engaged -- but who knows where it's going to be in 10 years. Which would feel worse: buying Bitcoin now and having coins worth nothing in 10 years, or not buying Bitcoin now and in 10 years looking back and thinking "I had the perfect opportunity and I didn't take it, I'm an idiot!"? I imagine for most people they'd take the risk and buy in (hence the price growth) but for me personally it's too consuming and that's why I'm out.

Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#24

Post by DennisP »

TekMol wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is it tremendously volatile, it's very easy for it to be lost or stolen from your wallet, or defrauded by the exchanges. (Unless you're really good at information security and very disciplined. I'd be very uncomfortable keeping a £10k investment on a PC in my house.)

That's actually the biggest issue with Bitcoin. And what I meant with "dabble with the tech". There is just no way to securely create a secret key. Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's software to create the key. How do you know that software is neither malicious nor buggy?

If you really want to be sure, you can create your own private key with dice:

http://www.swansontec.com/bitcoin-dice.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2s2w1r/generate_ad...

Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#25

Post by Tade0 »

znebby wrote: post #15
Tade0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess there's another side to this story: Some people got their bitcoins stolen. Also all this wealth is purely speculative. If everybody converted their bitcoins to fiat currency now the exchange rate would collapse quickly.

> If everybody converted their bitcoins to fiat currency now the exchange rate would collapse quickly. You can say the same about literally any asset or currency. If everyone sells, and no one is buying, then yes, the value drops to 0.

Let me rephrase that: it takes a lesser percentage of bitcoin holders vs fiat currency holders selling their assets to collapse the value of their respective currencies.

Or even better: it's nearly impossible to do that with fiat currency, because there are checks and balances in place.

Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#26

Post by JSDave »

znebby wrote: post #15
Tade0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess there's another side to this story: Some people got their bitcoins stolen. Also all this wealth is purely speculative. If everybody converted their bitcoins to fiat currency now the exchange rate would collapse quickly.

> If everybody converted their bitcoins to fiat currency now the exchange rate would collapse quickly. You can say the same about literally any asset or currency. If everyone sells, and no one is buying, then yes, the value drops to 0.

Yes, but all the systems put in place to shield fiat from the booms and busts don't exist in crypto.

For example, the federal reserve and legislators can manipulate the interest rates and the deficit to encourage people to hold or sell their USD.

Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#27

Post by pg314 »

TekMol wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is it tremendously volatile, it's very easy for it to be lost or stolen from your wallet, or defrauded by the exchanges. (Unless you're really good at information security and very disciplined. I'd be very uncomfortable keeping a £10k investment on a PC in my house.)

That's actually the biggest issue with Bitcoin. And what I meant with "dabble with the tech". There is just no way to securely create a secret key. Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's software to create the key. How do you know that software is neither malicious nor buggy?

> There is just no way to securely create a secret key.

That is wrong. You can generate one relatively easily with dice (google for it).

> Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's software to create the key.

You're conflating generating the key, which is just generating a random number in a certain range, with calculating the public address, which involves some operations on elliptic curves.

The algorithm is not that complex. Using a library like openssl/ec it is not that hard to generate the public address. It takes about 30 lines of C code using that library.

> How do you know that software is neither malicious nor buggy?

You can read the source code.

Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#28

Post by pg314 »

znebby wrote: post #15
Tade0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess there's another side to this story: Some people got their bitcoins stolen. Also all this wealth is purely speculative. If everybody converted their bitcoins to fiat currency now the exchange rate would collapse quickly.

> If everybody converted their bitcoins to fiat currency now the exchange rate would collapse quickly. You can say the same about literally any asset or currency. If everyone sells, and no one is buying, then yes, the value drops to 0.

You're conflating the value and price of an asset. E.g. if you own an asset like a stock that pays dividends, the value of that stock is the net present value of the future dividends. The price is determined by buyers and sellers and can diverge widely from the value.

It's related to the distinction between investing and speculating. Investing is based on whether the intrinsic value is below or above the price, while speculating is just based on the price.

Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#29

Post by TekMol »

DennisP wrote: post #24
TekMol wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually the biggest issue with Bitcoin. And what I meant with "dabble with the tech". There is just no way to securely create a secret key. Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's software to create the key. How do you know that software is neither malicious nor buggy?

If you really want to be sure, you can create your own private key with dice: http://www.swansontec.com/bitcoin-dice.html https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2s2w1r/generate_ad...

Thanks! That bitcoin-dice.html link is awesome. It links to a rather short bash script that seems to do the key to public address conversion. That is exactly what is needed.

Re: What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest

#30

Post by TekMol »

pg314 wrote: post #27
TekMol wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually the biggest issue with Bitcoin. And what I meant with "dabble with the tech". There is just no way to securely create a secret key. Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's software to create the key. How do you know that software is neither malicious nor buggy?

> There is just no way to securely create a secret key. That is wrong. You can generate one relatively easily with dice (google for it). > Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's software to create the key. You're conflating generating the key, which is just generating a random number in a certain range, with calculating the public address, which involves some operations on elliptic cur…

    You can read the source code.
Which code? Any link to that 30 lines of C code?
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