I’m glad that trading BTC has gone well for you. Sincerely. I feel the same way for my friends who have 5-6 figures in various cryptos. With this relatively recent bump, some of them might be pushing up to 7 figures.
There are some questions that I never get satisfactory answers to regarding their thought process for deciding when to buy/hold/sell, and justifications for the price targets that they have. Everyone has their own threshold for what they find satisfactory though.
Personally, I just don’t view crypto as “investing”, it is still firmly in the category of “speculation” to me. I have made speculative plays and bets in the past, so I’m not hating on your play or your gains.
The clearest and closest summation of my perspective comes from Prof. of Political Economy Mark Blyth:
Anyway, I value reading your perspective on BTC and experience, and hope your position remains strong.
Thank you and @feedthabeast for the kind words. I hope my posts aren’t coming across as overly arrogant, but if I’m gonna argue for something so vehemently on the internet I like to at least back it up with my own positions and results.
I certainly agree that buying crypto is speculation. I’d argue that the stock market is just the same, perhaps just with a different level of risk and volatility. If I had a family to support right now I wouldn’t hold such an aggressive position. If your question is simply what I think bitcoin “is” or why it has value, I think those arguments have been beaten to death but I would gladly attempt to answer any more specific questions. It’s worked well as a currency for my purposes although it’s certainly not perfect. My bullish case for bitcoin generally stems from a short of the USD, combined with an increasing interest and acceptance of bitcoin and digital assets in general in the years to come.
My BIL and I made a bet a few years back when we were drunk involving crypto. He had the stupid side and in the morning when I said ‘so we are still on’ he said ‘remind me what it was again’. ‘I can do better than that’ and showed him the recording we took of the details in our stupor. He sheepishly asked if he could be let out of it. i let him off.
The details of the bet aren’t important but I was curious about doing my side anyway so brought a mixture of Bitcoin, Etherium & Litecoin every month for a year.
At one stage it was about 25% of what I’d put in and if I’d never touched it last week it would have been over 350% of my investment. As it is I’m about 20% up. With most withdrawn and most of the rest in cash. I sold about a third of what I had in the various cryptos just before Xmas because I was clever taking advantage of that spike. If I had have left that decision for 2 weeks I would be around 40% up. Lol me.
It’s been a blast tho for someone who rarely gambles much anymore. And that’s all it ever was for me
I think of BTC as very similar to gold. Gold has a little intrinsic value, but nothing like what we spend on it for the ooh shiny effect. As long as people still value shiny, gold will be valuable.
Same for BTC - the only thing backing it up is goodwill. But gold has a much longer track record and seems to be something endemic to us as humans.
Of course the big wildcard is if businesses get tired of being blackmailed for BTC and call on govts to outlaw it. It won’t die but few will want to hold very much.
Oh also @edc5036, I am not begrudging you your success in crypto. That is great, sincerely.
I didnt want it to appear that I was dancing on any graves when the price tumbled. I find the whole thing fascinating because I dont see how it ever becomes anything more than speculation and gamble, which makes the numbers we see so nuts in my eyes.
As someone who is invested, do you see a future beyond speculation? And if so, how does it logistically get there. How do you convince somebody (your average every day somebody who can connect to facebook on the computer and that’s about all) to take their yearly paycheck and exchange it for 1 of something (in this case, a bitcoin) and use that as currency going forward? How does the industry overcome the psychological impact of that kind of exchange?
He should use one more and then turn the IronKey device into an art work - some sort of schrodinger thing - the device is worth $200M and $0 at the same time.
Yeah, what’s amazing is that guy (toothsayer?) spent years talking about how TSLA was a no-brainer short, going to zero. And he’s somehow still unironically providing his amazing analysis in that thread.
It’s just the amount you’re borrowing, right? So if you have 100 dollars and borrow 200 to buy 300 dollars worth of TSLA (smart!) your balance will be -200?
I’d be careful about making a definitive statement on what it means - it might depend on how the specific broker is presenting it. (Remember the Robinhood suicide issue?) Your explanation makes sense, but I could also imagine that the entire account is negative if your brother margined up on something that dropped, or that his equity fell below the broker’s required margin balance.
Definitely something he should contact the broker about to see if there’s any required action on his part.
I’d argue that it already has fundamental properties that give it value/use apart from speculation. I don’t trust the fed or bankers to act in my best interest while holding my money or when implementing monetary policy. This makes the decentralized aspects of bitcoin appealing to me.
I’d also argue that bitcoin has proven to be a successful store of value on all long term timeframes throughout its entire existence. You can pick some arbitrary start and endpoints where it performed very poorly, but a very clear logarithmic uptrend has held serve since its inception. As time goes on I believe volatility will decrease and this will become more obvious to the average joe. I could definitely envision a future where it’s just as common to see someone with their primary savings in a bitcoin wallet as opposed to a bank account–or where bitcoin is something you pass on to your children.
What bitcoin is and how it’s used will continue to change over time. This is of course common in emerging markets. In a world with rampant money printing driving up asset valuations, combined with increasing technological integration into our daily lives, and more young people achieving wealth who are more comfortable buying bitcoin than their older counterparts, it’s almost impossible for me to envision interest in bitcoin decreasing in the near future. Therefore fundamentally it will have to continue to increase in value over this timeframe.
Your posts don’t come across even remotely arrogant, imo.
I’ve discussed BTC with numerous btc-invested friends IRL, and the one consistent aspect is that everyone one of them is objectively intelligent. It’s just that we don’t see eye to eye on this particular issue. I’m curious about your perspective and response to the questions that @CanadaMatt3004 posed a few posts up.