Investing

[digibum]

8 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

Buy a hardware wallet and don't leave anything on exchange. Problem solved. Cryptocurrencies require more responsabilies but gives more freedom. If someone can't be bothered to buy a hardware wallet then they better stick with a nanny bank. 

 

Well, at least I find that answer far more honest than most people are about crytpocurrencies.  Most people are better off not having them. 

 

[Tayaout]

8 minutes ago, digibum said:

 

No mutual funds went to $0. 

 

You don't seem to understand traditional investing so it's probably not a good idea to try to make parallels to cryptocurrencies. 

 

For instance, shares can go to $0 but most of the time they don't unless a company gets into so much debt that the value of the assets is less than the amount owed.  That would be somewhat like what happened to the brokerage firms that got crushed. 

 

But, Apple isn't going to $0.  You can look at Apple's financials and see how much it owes.  You can also look at the value of their real estate holdings, their intellectual property, etc and that value is far more than their debt so someone will always pay more than $0 for Apple. 

 

I did not say they lost all but my father compained he lost a good chunk of his retirement funds just before he retired so it's not risk free. Companies goes bankrupt all the time especially the most lucrative opportunities like penny stocks in the oil and gold prospecting business. Apple won't go to $0 and it's a very safe but low return type of investment. 

[Tayaout]

5 minutes ago, digibum said:

 

Well, at least I find that answer far more honest than most people are about crytpocurrencies.  Most people are better off not having them. 

 

Yes most peoples only focus on the price then buy high and sell low, get liquidated on leverage or leave their funds on a exchange that goes bust. 

[digibum]

2 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

I did not say they lost all but my father compained he lost a good chunk of his retirement funds just before he retired so it's not risk free. Companies goes bankrupt all the time especially the most lucrative opportunities like penny stocks in the oil and gold prospecting business. Apple won't go to $0 and it's a very safe but low return type of investment. 

 

I don't think anybody ever claimed mutual funds are risk free.  In fact, it's illegal for any mutual fund to even make that claim. 

 

Yes, the market goes up and the market goes down.  If your dad held onto his mutual funds that he had in 2008, he would have recovered all of his losses and made quite a handsome profit. 

 

The problem with mutual funds or any other kind of risk-based investment is that for people like your dad that are retiring, it can be a bit of a kick in the junk.  He should have been moving money into safer investments in the years leading up to his retirement.  That's basic Retirement 101 advice. 

 

And yes, companies go bankrupt all of the time, but very seldom do bankruptcies ever come as a complete surprise.  If you're investing in penny stocks, well, that's one sign right there.  If you're investing in companies that are in prospecting, well, that's another red flag tight there. 

 

But, at the same time, I think your comment is very informative about your outlook on cryptocurrecnies.  If you think penny stock in oil and gold prospecting companies is "investing" then your view of crypto is going to be that it has a similar risk profile. 

 

But if you are someone that invests in large-cap mutual funds, penny stocks in gold and oil prospecting companies seems like pure gambling. 

[Tayaout]

@digibumyou like to twist other peoples word to make your argument but I will let you win this one. 

 

I get it. You are a cryptocurrencies expert and it doesn't fit your risk profile. That's perfectly fine. People should stick with what they understand and are comfortable to risk. 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Tayaout

[digibum]

16 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

@digibumyou like to twist other peoples word to make your argument but I will let you win this one. 

 

I get it. You are a cryptocurrencies expert and it doesn't fit your risk profile. That's perfectly fine. People should stick with what they understand and are comfortable to risk. 

 

Well, here's the deal, I don't go into cryptocurrency Reddit subs or forums and try to convince people that crypto is a bad investment.  If you're there, you (hopefully) understand the risks and have some basic knowledge of what you're getting into.  More power to you. 

 

But when someone like OP asks a question, which based on the context implies he doesn't know much about the subject, and people start jumping in recommending investing in cryptocurrencies without ever asking the person about their risk tolerance, level of technological sophistication, etc, I find that to be completely irresponsible and potentially harmful. 

 

To be honest, if someone came to me and said, "Hey, I've got about $1 million in savings, I was thinking about putting $5K or $10K into crypto," I would say, "Sure, why not?  You can afford to take a flyer." 

 

But here is a quote from the OP:

 

Quote

Am I being a bit naive here or am I the typical sort of person who desperately need a bit more money to get a better life??

 

That does not sound like a person that should be taking flyers or investing in an extremely risky asset class. 

 

And not one person that recommended crypto even bothered asking what he meant by "desperately" and "get a better life."

[freeman01]

42 minutes ago, digibum said:

But when someone like OP asks a question, which based on the context implies he doesn't know much about the subject, and people start jumping in recommending investing in cryptocurrencies without ever asking the person about their risk tolerance, level of technological sophistication, etc, I find that to be completely irresponsible and potentially harmful.

Like someone warning them about the high risk of losing it all ? that kind of "irresponsible and potentially harmful" right ?

be honest here, you just like to jump on people who talks positiviely about bitcoin, you have spent way too much time doing that and now you dump your <deleted> against bitcoin at the first opportunities, what a wonderful being you are, a real heroes.

[sanemax]

3 minutes ago, freeman01 said:

Like someone warning them about the high risk of losing it all ? that kind of "irresponsible and potentially harmful" right ?

be honest here, you just like to jump on people who talks positiviely about bitcoin, you have spent way too much time doing that and now you dump your <deleted> against bitcoin at the first opportunities, what a wonderful being you are, a real heroes.

Do you have bitcoin and are you hoping that more people buy into bitcoin so that your bitcoins value rises ?

[Peter Denis]

2 hours ago, digibum said:

...

The only way for you to make money is for more people to adopt Bitcoin, so you need to evangelize Bitcoin in order to get others to help drive the price up.

 

1 hour ago, digibum said:

...

Are we now going to require people to get a degree in cybersecurity in order to avoid losing their life savings?  Do have have any idea how many people are successfully phished every year?  Or the number of people that still use 123456789 as their password? 

 

No world currency is going to happen that is not easy to understand and use, period. 

You can go on and on about fungibility and peer to peer, stuff all day long but until a crypto currency is as easy to use as PayPal (which is also too complicated for a lot of people), it has zero chance of it being anything other than a niche payment method.

 

Thanks a lot for your sensible, clear and sound responses to the Bitcoin-hype.

I selected 2 quotes you made, which very well summarize the actual reality of the situation.

This against the desperate attempts to try convince every gullible person with money to 'invest', that Bitcoin is the future and that they are foolish not to step into this easy-money scheme.

 

 

[Why Me]

5 hours ago, freeman01 said:

Ok well that's where there is a misunderstanding, there is almost nothing else that displays all those properties together. Spend a bit of time on this and you'll realized it is a pretty big deal, remember we are talking about currency here, there is no precedent in history.

 

Now the actual value is determine the exact same way the value of gold is, except the market cap of gold is in the trillions and bitcoin in billions hence the current volatility. There is supply and demand in bitcoin, there is actual use case and there is speculation.

 

This first paragraph is not an answer to my question about where bitcoin gets value.

 

The second paragraph is nonsense. Because bit coin's total worth is billions vs. gold in the trillion, bit coin is volatile? You're kidding right?

GMs net worth is around 50 billion but the stock isn't pinging up and down like bitcoin. The reason it's assets are clear and present and tangible, not faith-based.

[freeman01]

6 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Do you have bitcoin and are you hoping that more people buy into bitcoin so that your bitcoins value rises ?

Certainly not, bitcoin is much more than that, that's the whole point. The value of bitcoin isn't going to rise significantly simply because of people adoption in the short term, it far more complicated than that.

I get you don't understand it and don't want to spend time learning about it, that's perfectly fine and without an IT background I probably wouldn't have as well, but hey that goes both ways don't go around talking non sense making vague assumption about it like that, understand that your comment could very well applies to gold, the recent price increase of gold isn't due to the supply and demand mechanism but purely on people simply speculating about the price.

[digibum]

18 minutes ago, freeman01 said:

Like someone warning them about the high risk of losing it all ? that kind of "irresponsible and potentially harmful" right ?

be honest here, you just like to jump on people who talks positiviely about bitcoin, you have spent way too much time doing that and now you dump your <deleted> against bitcoin at the first opportunities, what a wonderful being you are, a real heroes.

 

Weren't you just lecturing me on being polite?  LOL. 

 

I'm not here to dump on anyone.  I'm here to present facts, to counter the hype.  If you have counter-points, I would love to hear your counter-points. 

 

But, like others have also noted, it seems like the standard conversation with a crypto-enthusiast goes something like:

 

P1:  Bitcoin is valuable because it's open source. 

 

P2:  How does being open source give something value?  That sounds absurd.

 

P1:  You don't understand crypto, it's a very difficult topic to understand. 

 

P2:  I just asked a simple question.  Why can't you explain how open source gives something value? 

 

P1:  Why are you trying to bad mouth crypto?  You obviously have something against crypto.

 

[freeman01]

10 minutes ago, Why Me said:

The second paragraph is nonsense. Because bit coin's total worth is billions vs. gold in the trillion, bit coin is volatile? You're kidding right?

the similarities between gold and bitcoin are many in regard to the price action, that was my point. if gold had a low market cap as bitcoin, the volatility would be the same.

[digibum]

6 minutes ago, freeman01 said:

Certainly not, bitcoin is much more than that, that's the whole point. The value of bitcoin isn't going to rise significantly simply because of people adoption in the short term, it far more complicated than that.

I get you don't understand it and don't want to spend time learning about it, that's perfectly fine and without an IT background I probably wouldn't have as well, but hey that goes both ways don't go around talking non sense making vague assumption about it like that, understand that your comment could very well applies to gold, the recent price increase of gold isn't due to the supply and demand mechanism but purely on people simply speculating about the price.

 

I've spent 30 years working in IT, why not explain it to me?  There are tons of IT people that read TV.  Please, explain this to us.  You would think that in 10 years, and all of the supposedly brilliant people involved in crypto, someone would have come up with an easy to understand explanation. 

 

I mean, I can explain actual cryptography fairly easily.  Why not crypto currencies? 

[digibum]

2 minutes ago, freeman01 said:

the similarities between gold and bitcoin are many in regard to the price action, that was my point. if gold had a low market cap as bitcoin, the volatility would be the same.

 

No it wouldn't, but please explain the economics behind that. 

 

For a large part of Bitcoin's history it has less than a 50% correlation to gold.  The correlation has only recently tightened up which has led people to suddenly start claiming that there's correlation. 

 

But nobody knows exactly why that is.  People are just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.  If it helps make the case for Bitcoin, then suddenly that's the reason, gold = bitcoin.  If it hurts the case against Bitcoin, then Bitcoin is obviously so unique and difficult to understand that it can't form 1:1 correlations with existing commodities. 

 

 

[digibum]

17 minutes ago, freeman01 said:

Certainly not, bitcoin is much more than that, that's the whole point. The value of bitcoin isn't going to rise significantly simply because of people adoption in the short term, it far more complicated than that.

 

First off, you do benefit if more people start putting their money into Bitcoin.  It's an obvious fact.  The more demand for a limited amount of Bitcoins dictates that the price of Bitcoin rises.  Econ 101.

[Airalee]

2 hours ago, Tayaout said:

exciting opportunities

That is all I need to hear to make me want to run from any “investment” pitch.

[freeman01]

  

10 minutes ago, digibum said:

 

 

I am not here to play the little game of cat and mouse with you, i couldn't care less if people invest or not, as far as I am concern they are just missing out, that's on them.

I believe people should put a tiny percentage of their investment portfolios into bitcoin and the likes, nothing more and certainly not put their "life saving" or significant money into it. Hell who is stupid enough to invest in whatever just after reading a discussion on a forum between anonymous people ? Short answer : NOBODY ! stop taking people for morons.

Btw, who here is providing financial services to others and making money out of it ?

 

My stance from the beginning here is factually sound and wise and I am certainly not trying to mislead people. You on the other end are shutting the door down for everyone with false claims of fraud and people will just miss out on opportunity cost long term by ignoring this revolutionary technology that is Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Edited February 24, 2020 by freeman01

[Airalee]

“I get you don't understand it and don't want to spend time learning about it”

 

“as far as I am concern they are just missing out, that's on them.”

 

Again, more of the same kinds of comments that I frequently hear from bitcoin advocates.  It doesn’t instill confidence.

[digibum]

32 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

 

 

Thanks a lot for your sensible, clear and sound responses to the Bitcoin-hype.

I selected 2 quotes you made, which very well summarize the actual reality of the situation.

This against the desperate attempts to try convince every gullible person with money to 'invest', that Bitcoin is the future and that they are foolish not to step into this easy-money scheme.

 

 

 

Thanks! 

 

I will have to say that I've had multiple people come to me over the years to help them design a crypto-based solution to something and once you get done with all of the crypto-specific security (i.e. because you can't reverse a transaction) and other implications you end up with something that is 10x more complicated than it needs to be and only half as useful as currently existing solutions. 

 

If you can't move money easier than PayPal, you've already failed.  And this, of course, is illustrated by Bitcoin's failure to become a widely used mechanism of payments.  And it also explains why Venmo (and similar person-to-person payment platforms) and stuff like Transferwise have taken off.  You don't have to join a cult to use them. 

 

And to add some additional context, PayPal was founded in 1998.  By 2008, PayPal had 57 million active customers compared to Bitcoins 7.1 million active customers.  PayPal had more active customers after 10 years than the total number of people that have ever owned Bitcoin after 10 years. 

 

[freeman01]

5 hours ago, gargamon said:

Warren Buffett has called Bitcoin (the first and largest cryptocurrency) as "probably rat poison squared" and a "delusion." He has also stated that he would "not be surprised if it's not around in 10 or 20 years." His business partner and Berkshire Hathaway's vice-chair has called Bitcoin "worthless, artificial gold."

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.investopedia.com/crypto-founder-wins-auction-for-lunch-with-crypto-skeptic-warren-buffett-4689303&sa=Uved=2ahUKEwj20dPTOjnAhXdyzgGHabdAJEQFnoECAUQAg&usg=AOvVaw1MaF_6-lJ7pvD3Oac_JusP

 

Warren Buffett's Advice on Choosing an Index Fund

GuruFocus.com

October 22, 2019, 10:57 PM GMT+7

Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) has advocated index funds as an investment for many years.

He believes that most investors would be better off buying index funds rather than single stocks because, over the long-term, individual investors tend to be pretty bad at picking stocks.

Note that Warren Buffet completely missed out on the internet stock hype that has turned into actual value company. Today Warren Buffet company has 30% of it's investment porfolio into Apple that he bought in 2016 at a high price.

Don't be like warren Buffet and invest early on new technology.

[digibum]

13 minutes ago, freeman01 said:

My stance from the beginning here is factually sound and wise and I am certainly not trying to mislead people. You on the other end are shutting the door down for everyone with false claims of fraud and people will just miss out on opportunity cost long term by ignoring this revolutionary technology that is Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

 

But it's not factually sound, that's my point.  I've even used crypto news websites to refute some of the claims you've made.  It's not like I'm picking biased sources. 

 

How am I shutting the door down?  If you had an intelligent answer for every question myself and others have brought up, we could differ on opinion but at least I knew you were being factual.  But you're not being factual.  You say things that they repeat a gazillion times in the crypto world but it doesn't make those things true. 

 

I find it funny that you refuse to ever explain anything.  You constantly tell people it's too complicated and that they don't understand and that only because you have a background in IT can you understand but you never actually answer anybody's questions.  Have you linked to even a single website where people can learn for themselves?  No.  I've provided tons of links to various sources, many of them very pro-crypto to back up everything I've said. 

[sanemax]

6 hours ago, Tayaout said:

He doesn't know what he is talking about. There is more than one easy to short bitcoin and at least one way in the US that is regulated and it's called https://www.bakkt.com

 

The truth is that it has been the best performing asset since it's creation and you need to be a fool to short it. The average return per year is 390% since 2009.

 

These are the price on 31 October of each year aka bitcoin birthday. 

That is quite misleading , looking at that you would think that Bitcoin has been continually rising .

  The figure of when Bitcoin went to $22 000 and then lost 60 % of its value within a few weeks is missing from the list above 

[freeman01]

7 minutes ago, Airalee said:

“I get you don't understand it and don't want to spend time learning about it”

 

“as far as I am concern they are just missing out, that's on them.”

 

Again, more of the same kinds of comments that I frequently hear from bitcoin advocates.  It doesn’t instill confidence.

That's perfectly fine, nobody is forcing anyone into this.

If this pick your interest then trust your guts and go learn about it, plenty of contents available everywhere.

otherwise just ignore it, there are many other investment opportunity.

 

The reason why people get passionate about Bitcoin is because it is a new revolutionary technology that could potentially change society for good and for everyone's benefits, not at all because people want to get you into a ponzi like some are claiming here ...

[digibum]

2 minutes ago, freeman01 said:

Note that Warren Buffet completely missed out on the internet stock hype that has turned into actual value company. Today Warren Buffet company has 30% of it's investment porfolio into Apple that he bought in 2016 at a high price.

Don't be like warren Buffet and invest early on new technology.

 

He also missed a ton of stocks that went bankrupt. 

 

Also, you do realize that he bought Apple in 2016 and the highest Apple traded in 2016 was $118.  Today Apple is at $315. 

[digibum]

1 minute ago, freeman01 said:

not at all because people want to get you into a ponzi like some are claiming here ...

Says a guy where 80% of his posts are about crypto.  LOL. 

[freeman01]

3 minutes ago, digibum said:

 

enough of your little game please, i'll gladly take time for people who are curious with genuine question about it, I have no wish to get into a stupid debate with a heavily polarized person.

take that as a win if that make you feel better, I couldn't care less, I am not here to get popular or whatever.

[freeman01]

5 minutes ago, digibum said:

Says a guy where 80% of his posts are about crypto.  LOL. 

Quote

The reason why people get passionate about Bitcoin is because it is a new revolutionary technology that could potentially change society for good and for everyone's benefits, not at all because people want to get you into a ponzi like some are claiming here ...

 

[Tayaout]

34 minutes ago, sanemax said:

That is quite misleading , looking at that you would think that Bitcoin has been continually rising .

  The figure of when Bitcoin went to $22 000 and then lost 60 % of its value within a few weeks is missing from the list above 

Yes it's a volatile asset. Don't buy on media hype. Wait that they annonce bitcoin is dead for the 380th times. Meanwhile watch conference from from here https://www.youtube.com/user/aantonop

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Tayaout

[Tayaout]

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/