Bitcoin - Yes or No?

If you invested $1,000 in Bitcoin in 2011, you would now be worth over $27 million dollars.

It's no longer asymmetrical enough. Even in a best-case scenario the risk/reward doesn't make any sense. I'm not a believer in allocating cash towards activities that yield no learning either...

Market neutral position in crypto and investing in truly promising ICOs. You can do a 2/3x if you invest in the first round of ICOs if you have done proper due diligence over 3-6 month. Considering the fees/futures commissions you probably have a 1.5-2.5x over 3-month. This is what 'crypto VCs' do. Great thing is that you can do the same with small amount of capital and diversify a lot.

However trading is to me as successful as playing blackjack - you probably can do your research and have your odds in your favor, but its still pretty random - if a platform announces it has been hacked the market is down 5%...

Simply put, its a no for me, dawg.

I include crypto in my investment portfolio as a high risk asset class given my age. I've put in a relatively modest amount of money that wouldn't change my life either way today, and on the off chance it has another run, then there is potentially life changing wealth creation down the road. I think there is a real value proposition in terms of serving the non and underbanked populations of the world, as well as streamlining cross-border transactions.

However, to prior posters' point, there is an adoption and regulatory risk element, as well as a pretty steep education cycle. I used to think crypto was pure hogwash, then I started doing research to better understand the applications as a currency / store of value and the benefits of blockchain technology. It's also just an intellectually stimulating activity to learn about something new.

Long XRP :) haha

I think you're a bit late to the party fam...

There has been numerous posts on this topic but I'd suggest spending sometime and learning about the technology, the power of decentralization, other cryptos, ICOs, cryptography, and hashing. I learned a ton from the blog http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower/</a">here. Its a three part audio documentary with the leading active hedge fund managers in the field, and with investors who are both optimistic and skeptical.

https://medium.com/john-pfeffer/an-institutional-investors-take-on-cryp…

I think the above article really does a good job laying out the potential for bitcoin. Essentially, the asymmetric payoff argument is still in play. Assuming everybody knows that it's in play, then everyone has an incentive to allocate a little bit of their investment portfolio. Given the finite supply, the increase in demand will push the price higher as many of the current holders are LT focused. Eventually LT holders will sell some of their positions to diversify/consume, which will create a cascade of selling and another crash. Then the process will repeat. This will continue for a while, but at some point, I think it replaces gold as "the store of value". The finite supply and the resiliency/anti-fragility(?) of the system should play a meaningful part of this transition. Once it is recognized as the best way to store wealth long term, then it's relative value will plateau.

In the meantime, I think everyone is right in that the biggest threat to it is government. It probably will even get blamed for the next economic calamity. It’s an easy boogeyman for politicians….However, I think what we're witnessing, at least in America, is political comedy at the moment, which could be a catalyst for a shift in political ideology away from big government. Education reform/disruption will have to play a meaningful role however.

Finally, even if we go the route of big government, I don't think "the government" has the ability to completely stop it given the system's resilience/anti-fragile properties. Additionally, banning it will only piss off some unknown proportion of voters by banning the use of private property. But who knows.

If you have a fraction of your portfolio allocated to high risk investments, I see it as a reasonable allocation to consider.

Do you like throwing your money away?

I think crypto currencies and the Blockchain Technology will reach the mainstream sooner or later and I think this technology provides many advantages! But I think because of 2017 there has been this hype about them and so many people seem to think (or did at that point) that it would be so easy getting rich by investing in cryptos. And they all forgot that just like with other investments you should really educate yourself before you buy and should not give in to FOMO... I would also consider it a rather risky investment but it can be lucrative if you are well educated in that area :)