Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

theguardian.com

81–90 of 133 posts

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#81
post #66
post #40

In London they are advertising bitcoin on the side of buses and in the Underground with the slogan 'when you see bitcoin on the side of a bus, it's time to buy'. I thought that was outrageous and actually was a sign to sell. I mentioned this to a foreign exchange trader friend and we even finished each other's sentence with the above!

There is a relevant quote apparently from the 1920s. "Taxi drivers told you what to buy. The shoeshine boy could give you a summary of the day's financial news as he worked with rag and polish. An old beggar who regularly patrolled the street in front of my office now gave me tips and, I suppose, spent the money I and others gave him in the market. My cook had a brokerage account and followed the ticker closely. Her…

But these days we do expect every cook and taxi driver to be in the market, because dollars in a savings account are getting returns below inflation.

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#82

I was going to buy a bitcoin at 6K but thought it risky. Now I feel dumb.

I probably could have bought BTC at either $25 or $250 because I had a colleague who was really into it, but I shrugged because nobody can predict the future and it seemed dodgy as fuck. Eh, hindsight. In hindsight I should've bought google, apple, tesla etc as well.

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#83
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought $100 worth in 2014 when it was $580. Now I wish I'd bought $1000. But of course I never would have, because it was a crazy risk at the time, and still is today.

Betting 1000$ is not a crazy risk.

Tell that to those who don't have $1000.

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#84
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sold my bitcoin at 6k when I lost my job. IDK how I feel.

It last hit 5k in March. It hit 5k three years before. Wait a bit, it will drop before raising again.

Or it'll be end of the line for BTC as the institutions crack down on it.

A Twitter thread the other day (probably linked to from HN) showed a strong correlation between the BTC price and Tether's money printer going brrrt, warning that once they get sued (and they will), they'll go down and take the artificial price increase of BTC and all other crypto along with it.

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#85
I have 0.75BTC locked away in an encrypted distributed Android wallet that I am unable to remember the password for.

I received this BTC from an amazing soul here on HN (again, THANK YOU so much for that blessing if you are reading this!) who, after I wrote up a blog post about how I was arrested without any probable cause in Las Vegas, so very generously sent it to me after asking if it could "be of use?."

BTW, the end result of the bullshit arrest was I was released with time served and the felony possession charge dropped due to the improper nature of the arrest, which was all caught on the officers bodycam.

So at the time I read the email, I was literally walking down Fremont Ave. wondering where I was going to sleep that night (remember I had just been released from Clark County Detention Center) as my 34 nights in jail had made me lose everything I owned in the weekly place I had been renting. I was asked for a wallet address, so I quickly jumped on the playstore and dl'ed the first app with a good rating and was highly "secure". At the time I thought he or she would send me $50-$100 TOPS, so imagine my surprise when 0.75 (at the time worth like $600) plopped into my wallet.

I must have fat-fingered the password entry, and of course I couldn't remember the 12-word phrase that the app author pleaded with me to "write-down and store in a safe, secure place"..no matter I thought at the time because of course there must be a password-reset email/text thing. right? RIGHT?

Well, no.

Alas, no happy ending here...I lost my very interesting and well-paying remote LAMP-development job working for a fast-growing company that was focused on lowering the overall cost to everyday people of filling drug prescriptions ( I know the irony of it all has not been lost on me ).

The owner was someone I really respected and was smart enough to know his systems needed a total re-design for security and performance reasons, and to be honest years later I still have not recovered, work-wise and economically, from that night I was illegally (not my opinion, the actual criminal court finding and its' legal outcome) arrest. I still hate the feeling I get in the pit of my stomach I get when I think of the bind I put him in...ugghhhhhhh.

So anyway...I still have the wallet safely stored away on an unencrypted USB (kind of late for that) that is physically locked away. I did contact the app author and fortunately for me, his app code was FOSS on github and I have the archive. Another fortunate item here is that I know I only used lowercase letters and the password was 12 char long.

At approx. $30k in value, it's getting to the point where a concerted effort at cracking the damn thing is in order...however, I am personally very optimistic on the FV of BTC in particular and think I will hold off my attempts at cracking it until 1BTC=$100kUSD.

Finally...the main reason I wrote this up this long post was to ask the community if anyone here knows of any reputable services that crack wallets such as mine for a reasonable fee and that I can feel secure that they will not just steal the BTC if they do manage to open it?

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#86
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought $100 worth in 2014 when it was $580. Now I wish I'd bought $1000. But of course I never would have, because it was a crazy risk at the time, and still is today.

Betting 1000$ is not a crazy risk.

It is if it means you may not be able to feed your family for the month.

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#87
post #80
post #42

Bitcoin speculation is an almost pure Keynesian beauty contest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest As long as most people think everyone else thinks BTC is the prettiest girl, it can have substantial value and the sky is the limit. It's a pure speculation asset. You don't need bitcoins to pay taxes. The value has a very weak link anchored to anything in the real economy (limited number of coins an…

That's true, but it's true for gold and a whole lot of other things too.

Gold used in manufacturing is significant fraction of annual production. There is real demand for gold.

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#88
post #81
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a relevant quote apparently from the 1920s. "Taxi drivers told you what to buy. The shoeshine boy could give you a summary of the day's financial news as he worked with rag and polish. An old beggar who regularly patrolled the street in front of my office now gave me tips and, I suppose, spent the money I and others gave him in the market. My cook had a brokerage account and followed the ticker closely. Her…

But these days we do expect every cook and taxi driver to be in the market, because dollars in a savings account are getting returns below inflation.

Agents are forced to play to avoid getting robbed by inflation thus wealth is transfered to owners from no-owners.

Luckly for the working class, nowadays everybody can invest with a cheap smartphone and their little capital thus there is nobody to rob from and the system collapses.

Re: Bitcoin: Be prepared to lose all your money, FCA warns consumers

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but it's a good reminder given that: - There are a lot of economic instabilities in the world right now (e.g. COVID, lockdowns) increasing poverty. - Bitcoin increased by up to 400% in the past year, and about an order of magnitude since its lows in 2019. There's obviously a temptation to invest more and more when the value keeps going up -- desperation latching onto volatility -- which can cause increase hards…

They only lost if they sell it now. If they're not planning to sell for a couple of years when they invested then it doesn't matter that it dropped >20% in the last 48 hours. I've been through this rodeo twice before, I've been checking the price regularly since at least 2014. I haven't lost any money because I didn't sell during downturns (although it's been tempting to do so for sure). It's hard to say for sure if…

It's only annoying b/c you're riding the train and hope it hits whatever # it takes you to sell.

That's what's happening right now. It hit a number and folks are selling. For every seller at 40k, there's a buyer. That sucks for those who got caught up in it.

Bitcoin won't magically "stabilize" if it hits 50k/100k/1m, it will crash, just like its doing now. It will make a small group of people very wealthy on the losses of everyone else

Post reply on HN