Yesterday afternoon, while watching two "experts" on crypto make their bull vs. bear case for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc. I made the mistake of saying "what if" I tossed $1000 into Bitcoin back in mid 2010 when I was about a year out of college...
$50 million. Yes, that's right, $50 million is the rough value of the Bitcoin you would currently hold (assuming you didn't sell any which obviously is not realistic but you get my point). Needless to say, I was relatively depressed last night since I do have a close friend who was a big proponent of Bitcoin at that time and I thought he was nuts.
Also, a quick search of the forums brings up this article from 2013, and reading some of the comments is pretty funny given its current price of $4,600+.
Anyways. Given that I quite honestly am less educated than I probably should be on the space, does anyone have any good primers they can share with the group here? I know some have been posted, but was wondering if there was any good bank primers on the topic.
Hi Billy, You are right, it's almost unbelievable how the price of Bitcoin rose. I found out about Bitcoin about a year ago and it didn't even pop into my head that I should do something like buying it. Nevertheless, I am not certain I understand you correctly you are looking for what? Primers? Excuse me, but what is that? :D
I saw bitcoin at 0.35 cents and 7 dollars.
It was used to buy World of Warcraft gold and drugs off of the Silk Road. Nothing else. Literally is was some sketch project and people only used it b/c it was untraceable way to buy drugs through TOR that no one could track.
It would be the equivalent today of hoarding some weird currency expecting it to skyrocket one day.
This exactly. Hindsight is 20-20. Right now Bitcoin seems like a good investment because it went up so much and created some millionaires, but without that nice looking chart, bitcoin is just "some weird currency". If you throw $1000 at each weird thing that could increase in value, you'll probably run out of money before you get lucky enough to have invested in something that will skyrocket.
Powerhouse response right there. Hindsight bias runs rampant and is probably one of the most potent arrows in the marketing/advertising quiver. These would be good words for anyone involved with investing to read at least weekly.
Mark
That is the reason I bought into Bitcoins back in the day for their "Untraceable" method with TOR browser and Silk Road. Helped me buy my downtown Chicago apartment.
I wish I was more into internet drugs and I could have bought into bitcoin. Then again I probably would have sold them all when they were at $500 to be honest.
differentialequations12 do you think it might be Ethereum?
I always run this through my head but you just can't do it man. It doesn't work. This is why I am happy enough to get in on Ethereum early. I need to stop trading it and just hold onto it for 10-15 years.
Does anyone look at cryptocurrencies and think Tulip Mania? You have money that isn't backed by anything and from what I can tell is valued simply because of the hype.
Now say an Amazon accepting bitcoin would change the conversation but with China clamping down...I just smell a disaster looming in the horizon.
It's a commodity. Commodities aren't backed by anything other than those who desire it.
Commodities are products that offer inherent physical value.
Bitcoin offers absolutely no value, aside from the fact that it could, possibly, one day be a widely used currency. It's not a commodity, it's gambling.
Ethereum can be used to execute smart contract transactions, there's definitely a little bit of utility there.
ICOs and Bitcoin-type "currencies" are garbage beanie babies/tulips/railway mania.
What are fiat currencies backed by again? Taxes and only that. I personally like Bitcoin because it is deflationary. Coins themselves are so expensive to mine now in terms of hardware and electricity used, the prices are still high, but somewhat justified. Unless you have access to free power or hardware it will be very difficult to profitably mine for bitcoins at this point.
Overstock.com accepts cryptocurrency payments
Is the dollar backed by anything but the faith in the US government?
There's a pretty big difference between backed by nothing and backed by the US Government.
Most of today's currencies aren't backed by anything else that the believe other people will accept them as form of payment.
Eh, no sense in beating yourself over something you cannot change. Personally, I haven't touched cryptos much. Something just feels wrong with them. Can definitely see blockchain tech being used more extensively in the future, though.
Read Digital Gold. It's probably the best book out there about the key people/groups involved with Bitcoin from the early stages including Andreesen Horowitz, Fortress, the PayPal guys, etc. There is a lot more to the Bitcoin beginnings than Silk Road. There was a big fork in where people wanted to take Bitcoin but the key figures early on were opposed to Silk Road as it brought in a huge threat to the growing currency.
Huge difference between bitcoin and physical gold.
There's hundreds of other coins out there. Why feel the fomo when you can take a couple hailmary chances now? It's not like bitcoin is a one-time thing.
This thread would trigger Jamie Dimon so hard rn
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