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You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

cryptojunky.com

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Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#51

Post by pron »

anoncowherd wrote: post #23
pron wrote: post #12

I have a question that may sound stupid to Bitcoin aficionados, and yet is the first question that comes to my mind whenever I read something like this, and I'm asking it in all seriousness: why would I want to buy Bitcoin (given that I don't wish to profit from Bitcoin speculation)? I get that there is some novelty to using an online crypto-currency. But other than the possible fun factor (which I don't expect to ex…

>> Personally, I believe currencies are better when they're regulated by governments. Stop believing that. The exact opposite is true. If we could all use a currency that no one could manipulate at the press of a button somewhere behind the scenes, we would . But as long as governments control money, we're shit out of luck there - they're printing and borrowing money as they please, debasing their currencies and caus…

I think that kind of manipulation is good, but you know what? Let's agree to disagree on that one. In any case, this is still a theoretical question at this point.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#52

Post by corford »

pron wrote: post #44
corford wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying domains (namecheap.com), vpn services (privateinternetaccess.com), hosting (bitvps.com), donating to the EFF, buying a ticket on Virgin Galactic, sending money to someone else where doing an international bank transfer would be too expensive for the amount involved, receiving micro donations from other people (maybe you run a popular blog or forum). Admittedly, that's not an enormous list of things but it's a…

But other than the international money transfer (which I don't do very often), you can do all of these with money, and it would be much easier, plus you have the option of chargebacks etc.

True. Although micro payments/donations are more complicated: try donating the USD equivalent of 0.0001BTC using a credit/debit card. Also, paying a supplier with BTC means you don't need to worry about them being hacked and the thieves running off with your card details. Chargebacks are admittedly a benefit you lose.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#53

Post by ye »

pron wrote: post #41
josefwasinski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. A hidden asset that can't be taxed, a digital swiss bank account 2. Total control of movement with no fees, instant free wire transfers. 3. Purchasing of goods anonymously 4. Secure from external sources - avoiding bank of cyprus events In my opinion its all about its widespread acceptance. It's like a telephone the more people who use bitcoin the more value there is.

1. Yeah, well, that's illegal. Besides, I don't have a swiss bank account either, and not because of the fees... Also, the chances of me converting a large portion of my small wealth to Bitcoin are slim to none. 2. I'm not sure about the "no fees" bit. The volatility could hurt much more than the fees. But this could be a valid reason, though not today, at least for me. 3. How? They would still need to send me the go…

3. Create a disposable wallet. Move some money to it. Buy with the disposable wallet.

   The worst they can do is associate the disposable wallet address to your name and sell that information to somebody.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#55

Post by joering2 »

collyw wrote: post #33
pyalot2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been no "investor" in the history of investment that made money by buying high and selling low.

From my limited understanding of finance, is that not what short selling is? (Followed by buying back at a reduced price).

You are bit confused. What he meant is that you cannot buy high and sell low and make money, which is obvious. Its bit ironically because people will always tell you buy low sell high, duh, but its easy to say that looking on historical charts, much harder to predict future. You never know if X is high or low for stock Y. Some people are glad they dump on $1,000 but that's silly. They are glad they were lucky because had this thing go to $10,000 they would have felt like winning 5 out of 6 numbers in month-worth accumulation of lotto. Its all pure speculation at this point.

Short selling, in short, means you put a bet against commodity that this commodity will not rise up but lose value. Not all stocks/instruments can be "short sell", but you can for example bet against oil. So you say "I don't have any barrels but I can bet with someone this $100 worth of barrel will go down to $50. Can you bet against me?". Then someone comes and says "okay I believe it will be $150; I will buy this virtual security from you" (because you don't have oil at all so you sell virtually, on short sell. So actually you are negative 1 in quantity, someone is positive 1. If the value goes down to $50, you "won". So they need to cover the ride from $100 to $50 and you are $50 richer. They lost. So even if stock tanked, you gain/won. At such a point you actually buy the stock back from him to go from negative 1 to zero. If, however, the stock goes up to $150 you lost $50 because you were negative in quantity and you short sell. So there are people losing money when stock goes up.

This mechanism was created many years ago to protect commodities like orange juice or cocoa pricing on stock exchange from large fluctuations.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#56

Post by anoncowherd »

pron wrote: post #51
anoncowherd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Personally, I believe currencies are better when they're regulated by governments. Stop believing that. The exact opposite is true. If we could all use a currency that no one could manipulate at the press of a button somewhere behind the scenes, we would . But as long as governments control money, we're shit out of luck there - they're printing and borrowing money as they please, debasing their currencies and caus…

I think that kind of manipulation is good, but you know what? Let's agree to disagree on that one. In any case, this is still a theoretical question at this point.

You may think so, but it's not.

Imagine a scenario like this.

  - There's 10 units of wealth in the world
  - There's 10 units of currency in the world
At this point, 1 unit of currency corresponds to 1 unit of wealth. But what if someone presses a button and conjures up 10 units of the same currency into his own bank account?

  - Still 10 units of wealth in the world
  - Now there's 20 units of currency in the world
.. So now, after someone printed money for himself, 1 unit of currency only corresponds to 0.5 units of the wealth available in the world. So everyone who holds that currency just lost half of their purchasing power, which is kind of bad. But the guy who printed money doesn't give a fuck - his share of the total purchasing power went up from zero to five, after all, while everyone else's dropped.

Of course, this is grossly simplified, and possibly partially wrong/inaccurate etc, but you get the idea, right? We really do lose purchasing power when more currency goes into circulation.

Besides, we haven't even touched the effects of zero interest rates, borrowing massive amounts of money that will never be repaid, economic stagnation, an ever larger portion of the national tax revenues going towards paying interest on the ever more massive debts, and so on.. It's all bad, and it's all something that: 1) we do not want to happen, and 2) would not happen in a free market (with a market-chosen currency etc).

But don't take just my word for it: http://mises.org

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#57

Post by pron »

anoncowherd wrote: post #56
pron wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that kind of manipulation is good, but you know what? Let's agree to disagree on that one. In any case, this is still a theoretical question at this point.

You may think so, but it's not. Imagine a scenario like this. - There's 10 units of wealth in the world - There's 10 units of currency in the world At this point, 1 unit of currency corresponds to 1 unit of wealth. But what if someone presses a button and conjures up 10 units of the same currency into his own bank account? - Still 10 units of wealth in the world - Now there's 20 units of currency in the world .. So n…

That's not how the economy works (international trade is different from local trade, you're not taking employment into account etc.), but for now let's just say that some think a regulated currency is better and some don't. This has little to do with buying Bitcoin now.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#58

Post by gexla »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37
gexla wrote: post #19

I'm not convinced. Like gold, Bitcoin isn't an investment. Warren Buffet will tell you that investing is putting your money into something which creates real value, like a business. He would also tell you that you should stick to what you know, otherwise its just gambling. For me, that's investing my time and money into building my own income streams. I don't really care that I could possibly get a return of 10x or m…

> Warren Buffet will tell you that investing is putting your money into something which creates real value, like a business. Warren Buffet is an investor , i.e. someone seeking returns from interest, dividends, or capital gains from the reasonable expectation of future interest or dividends. Healthy markets have three other fundamental actors: hedgers , who trade to offset a preëxisting risk, arbitrageurs , who trade…

Thanks for taking the time to make such a well written reply to my comment. This further backs up one of my main points. I'm not a sophisticated trader (nor do I wish to become one) so I probably shouldn't be speculating.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#59

Post by macspoofing »

oznathan wrote: post #26
macspoofing wrote: post #22

You can't have 20-40% weekly swings in an asset and still expect to use it as currency. Neither merchants, nor consumer can trust it, and speculators just sit on it and distort the entire market. I hate that Bitcoin as a currency is almost worthless.

Give it some time. A child crawls before it starts walking.

I'd buy that, but bitcoin is inherently deflationary. That's a problem for a currency. The more popular it gets, the worst it gets.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#60

Post by vkou »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #49
vkou wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something meaningful assets are priced in. I can go to Europe, and buy things that have fixed Euro prices, with Euros. It's possible because the entire Eurozone economy backs the Euro. No such thing exists for BTC. And no, buying something priced in USD, but having the option to pay for it in BTC doesn't count. At that point, I'm just speculating.

You are talking about day-to-day spendings. I don't understand why fixate on them. They are a very tiny blip in most people's finances. I manage to live most ordinary days of my life without spending any currency. What I care about is raking together money for realty, and otherwise preserving money for the day when I need them. This is where bitcoin is a viable addition.

My rent, my car bills, and my groceries aren't a tiny blip in my finances. So far, none of them have a fixed bitcoin price.

I mean, I suppose I could do the hip thing and live in a homeless hackspace, but I don't think that would be considered normal. Also, it's bit cold for that outside the Valley.

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