Bitcoins are a better investment than stocks even. Look at the past years improvement, and is not even main stream yet.

norrisb
Bitcoins are a better investment than stocks even. Look at the past years improvement, and is not even main stream yet.

(Lol) - Bitcoin is a day trade at best and not an investment. 
 
Pure speculation driven madness and totally unsustainable, the bubble can and will pop.
 
The original miners, those that "got their coin early in the game" are laughing all the way to the bank and selling
 
After all, what intrinsic value does the imaginary coin have ?   Why is it valuable ?  Because we say so
 
Right now all the cryptocurrency boats are going up with the tide ...... the frenzy of chasing past results never has worked for investments.
 
There are no assets to back up its value, no support.  It can easily Fall to $0.00 as fast as it has climbed
 
We have seen this type of investment activity before -- Bernie Madoff's Ponzi Scheme, Jordan Belfort - "Wolf of Wall Street", Housing bubble, 2000 Dot Com bubble, Enron, Pet Rocks
 
So, if you think it is an investment, buy it at today's rate - hold it for 10 years - comeback and tell us how it worked out

It really is all a gamble. You can't look at it any other way than gambling. Investing large amounts is stupid, but you want to have enough where the fees don't take too much of it when you cash out. As to what that threshold is, the individual has to decide. For me, I mine until I have around ~80-100 USD worth in coin then cash it out. Someone else may choose to have a different threshold. 

 
Anyone with the sufficient resources can 'create' a new crypto currency whenever they wish - and they have. The reason there is any 'demand' now is because of the current craze driven by greed of those who have no idea how it works, but previously because of its usefulness as an anonymous means of making illegal transactions. As soon as governments are able to track it to individuals (and you can bet they will) the 'market' will take a screaming dive and likely become next to worthless. It is also increasingly subject to hackers stealing bitcoin and you have ZERO recourse on that - and you will see that happen more and more now the value is so high relative to a year ago. There is no improvement over regular currency transactions - the fact that it has been so incredibly volatile only underlines just how unreliable it is as a form of currency. You might as well say Furbies are a improved means of transaction.
 
 

It all sounds dumb to make this other form of currency that seems so unsafe and unreliable.  The fact the you can mine it too seems weird.  Basically I don't get get of it and I want to to crash so I can just but a dang GPU

No bitcoin has No limit -- or even regulation
 
They do not even know for sure - who started it -- did you read my links ?
 
So, lets recap
 
No one knows exactly who is behind it
 
No one except the originator knows how much was "seeded" and how much was kept it their pocket
 
It is not regulated - well regulated - has been manipulated - "pump and dump"
 
Its not traceable - how much has been "found" ?
 
It has no Real  Value, yes speculation has whipped into a frenzy and crazy numbers.  So, it is "worth" what ever someone is willing to pay
 
Keep having at it if you want, but it is smoke and mirrors at best, Ponzi scheme at worst

Almost no one but criminals use cryptocurrency as a currency. Keep that in mind when forming your ideology. The rest is speculative buying and selling. There are powerful people, corporations, and governments buying it up, manipulating the price via their statements and powers of persuation, and buying and selling massive amounts to get rich off of all the people they are steamrolling as the markets rise and fall cyclically in response to their manipulation. Quite likely they are some of the same people who you may refer to as evil bankers or evil politicians. Two sides of the same coin. The wealthy and powerful seek the same money you seek. And when the whole charade is over and cryptocurrency no longer has a good reputation, they will exit, still be wealthy, and the remaining wreckage will come crashing down on the remaining "investors" in the general population.

 
Moved to Cryptocurrency.

Cool GTX
No one knows exactly who is behind it

This is technically true and kind of a cool story.  We do know the exact tech that is running bitcoin and the exact behavior of the mining, distributed consensus algorithm, blockchain, etc.
 

Cool GTX
No one except the originator knows how much was "seeded" and how much was kept it their pocket

I don't believe this is true.  It's well known which bitcoin addresses the founder has used and I last I read no withdrawals have every been made.  It is worth several billion dollars though.
 

Cool GTX
It is not regulated - well regulated - has been manipulated - "pump and dump"

Absolutely agree on this.
 

Cool GTX
Its not traceable - how much has been "found" ?

This is not true.  It 100% traceable because all transactions are in the public blockchain.  It's not anonymous, it's pseudo-anonymous because if you can ever relate an address to a real person or entity - either by analyzing the blockchain, doing transactions yourself, or scanning the internet where people publish them, then you can link them.  There has been research on this.  The government has seized and auctioned off bitcoin from criminals.  Monero and other alt-coins are specifically designed to be anonymous and solve this "problem" with bitcoin.
 

Cool GTX
It has no Real  Value, yes speculation has whipped into a frenzy and crazy numbers.  So, it is "worth" what ever someone is willing to pay

 
Kinda of agree here, but kinda not.
 
I highly recommend the Princeton bitcoin/blockchain course that is available for free on Coursera.  It's 3-4 years old, but very informative.
 
 

 
Every few days I read about another bitcoin-related hack or scam. Here's another one today:
Glitch on Bitcoin Exchange Drops Prices to Zero Dollars, User Tries to Make Off With Trillions
 
"A cryptocurrency exchange in Japan reportedly experienced a temporary glitch last week that suddenly offered investors their pick of coins for the low, low price of zero dollars. Several customers took advantage of the opportunity, but one really ran with it. According to Reuters, it was possible to buy cryptocurrencies for free on the Zaif exchange for about 20 minutes on February 16th. The exchange reportedly revealed the problem to reporters on Tuesday."
 
They managed to get most of it back, but are still negotiating with one person. It could have been much much worse if that one greedy person hadn't tried to 'buy' $20 Trillion worth of cryptocurrency for $0, which is more than the actual market cap for all bitcoin.
 
This follows a recent theft where $400 Million Goes Missing From Japanese Crypto Exchange Coincheck
 
"Through means currently unknown, approximately 500 million NEM tokens were exfiltrated from leading Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, valued at approximately $400 million. Bloomberg reports that, aside from Bitcoin, all trading on the platform has been suspended."
 
A couple of days ago, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said cryptocurrencies "could drop to near-zero at any time" and warns people from 'investing' in it.
 
 
 
 
 
 

bcavnaugh
"This is not true.  It 100% traceable because all transactions are in the public blockchain"
If this was true then how are the Ransoms being paid not getting nailed and going to jail?
Meaning Ransomware.

Some entity has to be motivated enough to do an investigation and link the address to a real person.  This typically happens when the user tries to convert bitcoin to real money or spend it on a real transaction.  However, if the ransomware is driven out of Russia where they literally encourage this behavior, then yeah, nothing will happen.
 
For example, the guy running silk road had millions in bitcoin, but because the US government knew the bitcoin address and could monitor movement via the blockchain, he couldn't access it without giving himself up.  He did that anyway via other means.
 
There are "mixing" services that can hide the source / destination but users have to trust the mixing service.  These may have gotten more viable in the last few years, so my info may be old.
 
FYI, I'm not arguing bitcoin is perfect, it's far from it.  However, it very well may have long term value because of the rules that are enforced via technology.  For a cryptocoin to have "value" there must be consensus around three things:
1. Consensus around the rules - How are new coins created? How are transacations recorded? How are transactions deemed valid?
2. Consensus around history - What is the complete history of transactions and are they unalterable (ie can't change history).  people have to trust the history.
3. Consensus about value - Do people view it as having value.
 
1 and 2 are solved via the blockchain system.  Those two make #3 much more possible.
 
The bitcoin "system" requires some method where miners are motivated to honestly process and agree on transactions (really blocks).  That system is the monetary gain created by mining new blocks and the transaction fees that they contain.  It's a fascinating technical and social solution to distributed consensus.
 
To me, ethereum is far more interesting technology with a ton of work being done on it.  It's fascinating technology, but that's no guarantee that ether actually has value.  But that's another story.

ty_ger07
One of the lead engineers for the Bitcoin Foundation -- the organization which Satoshi Nakamoto gave Bitcoin responsibility to -- has said that Bitcoin is a failed experiment, has been very key to the developement of the technology but ultimately Bitcoin has too many problems and design limitations and won't be used as a currency, and has said not to invest any more into Bitcoin than you are willing to throw right into the garbage. I hope that most people know for a fact that Bitcoin will ultimately be worthless, are using the craze as a way to make a quick buck, and will get out at the right time without being upside-down financially.

Cyptocurrency prpbably has a future. Blockchain technology definitely has a future. Bitcoin has a short-lived future. Once it all settles, I think there will be a winner cyptocurrency which emergences but a lot of loser currencies which drop to nothing; including Bitcoin.

Maybe true, maybe not.  Hard forks allow a current holder to have the same number of coins in the new coin, but the new coin moves forward with a different set of rules.  Yes, Bitcoin would die, but BitcoinReallyReallyWorksNow (ridiculously stupid name for emphasis and that it may be 10 forks from now) may work well.
 
In the end, who knows.  But it's fun to discuss, because for me, that's where real learning and understanding happens.
 
FYI for full disclosure, I own some bitcoin and ether as a very small diversification play.  Definitely not betting my life savings on it.  I also recently sold my two mining rigs because I think mining doesn't have a long term future.  That may have been premature, but oh well.

ty_ger07
One of the lead engineers for the Bitcoin Foundation -- the organization which Satoshi Nakamoto gave Bitcoin responsibility to -- has said that Bitcoin is a failed experiment, has been very key to the developement of the technology but ultimately Bitcoin has too many problems and design limitations and won't be used as a currency, and has said not to invest any more into Bitcoin than you are willing to throw right into the garbage. I hope that most people know for a fact that Bitcoin will ultimately be worthless, are using the craze as a way to make a quick buck, and will get out at the right time without being upside-down financially.

Cyptocurrency probably has a future. Blockchain technology definitely has a future. Bitcoin has a short-lived future. Once it all settles, I think there will be a winner cyptocurrency which emergences but a lot of loser currencies which drop to nothing; including Bitcoin. Which one will be the winner? Who knows. Maybe one that exists, or maybe a new one. I think most people would agree that the rate of cryptocurrency growth is not sustainable, it will crash as a whole, and something will emerge after. I think that the dotcom bubble analogy will become very applicable.

https://blog.plan99.net/t...experiment-dabb30201f7

Very interesting read.  Thank you for sharing it.

ty_ger07
One of the lead engineers for the Bitcoin Foundation -- the organization which Satoshi Nakamoto gave Bitcoin responsibility to -- has said that Bitcoin is a failed experiment, has been very key to the developement of the technology but ultimately Bitcoin has too many problems and design limitations and won't be used as a currency, and has said not to invest any more into Bitcoin than you are willing to throw right into the garbage. I hope that most people know for a fact that Bitcoin will ultimately be worthless, are using the craze as a way to make a quick buck, and will get out at the right time without being upside-down financially.

Cyptocurrency probably has a future. Blockchain technology definitely has a future. Bitcoin has a short-lived future. Once it all settles, I think there will be a winner cyptocurrency which emergences but a lot of loser currencies which drop to nothing; including Bitcoin. Which one will be the winner? Who knows. Maybe one that exists, or maybe a new one. I think most people would agree that the rate of cryptocurrency growth is not sustainable, it will crash as a whole, and something will emerge after. I think that the dotcom bubble analogy will become very applicable.

https://blog.plan99.net/t...experiment-dabb30201f7

the thing about BTC is that yea its practicality has no real maret but when it becomes a standard that everything else is compared to it will always have value. why else do you think that the USA is still using the WAY outdated imperial measurement system? because we have always used it and it works, that's why. being the historical 1st gives it a lot of clout in the crypto world and yea you are right to assume that BTC will not be #1 forever due to its rudimentary beginnings, but as long as it functions (doesn't mean function well) it will be valued. but trying to predict this value is only for those who play with markets.

I do not find that article informative at all as nearly all of it is outdated and not applicable. And out of any crypto BTC is the most decentralized of them all, not BCC. Yea there may be people with millions to throw at it but that will not be enough to manipulate the market as say "fake news". But hey, people always love to find things that fit their conformation bias.