Too late to become a bitcoin millionaire?

[Senechal]

1 hour ago, Donaldo said:

As long as there are people gullible enough to buy and those greedy enough to sit on them, waiting for Bitcoin to reach even dizzier heights, the perceived value will go up.

The moment those rigging the system and those smart enough to cash in it's (value) will evaporate in a whiff.

 

And this btw, is the entire issue:  The illusion is that Bitcoin is widely held.

 

It isn't.

 

It's held by a handful of whales. The long-tail (as in many other cases) is millions of small players who perceive high demand because the large stakeholders aren't moving. But obviously, the game is to move when the price is right or when the downside exceeds the upside. Until then it's a game of chicken to see who blinks first.

 

I don't think it will crash any time soon though. The upward momentum is still great.

 

The only thing that ends this party in the medium term is unified international legislation -- if not directly against the currency, against ICO's and secondary markets.

 

Or someone announces a breakthrough in quantum computing that decrypts SHA256 in a couple days. (Not likely in the next few years -- but absolutely ,100% eventually going to happen given Moore's law and the amount of research going on in qc right now).

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2017 by Senechal

[mrfaroukh]

I do not trust Bitcoin. We hear many become millionaire with it, but this is a crazy idea somehow. Don't really know even if you will be able to sell what you buy. I think the USA will never allow something like this carry on and people use this instead of dollar. On the other hand all criminally earned money can be transfered via Bitcoin. Think of ISIS, other groups. Do you really think USA and other countries will really allow this to happen? 

[Suradit69]

On 5/29/2017 at 6:53 AM, KittenKong said:

The only reason that bitcoin goes up in value is because the number of them is limited and some people (currently the Chinese) are daft enough to see them as an investment.

I read an article recently that suggested some people were pushing to increase the supposed limit on the quantity of Bitcoins ... and of course in theory there's no limit on the creation of other cryptocurrencies. 

 

Also, while it's supposedly difficult to impossible for governments to end the existence of these pseudo-currencies, they can prohibit/restrict the use of them for actual commercial transactions.

 

On 5/29/2017 at 9:30 AM, williamgeorgeallen said:

only safe bet is owning your own home outright, well not in thailand but in your home country anyway, if you can handle living there.

A lot of people who owned their own homes & were feeling comfortable with rising real estate values got a shock when the the 2007/2008 financial crisis showed that that was a bubble. Of course if you owned your own home you had a place to live before and after prices plummeted, but a lot of people considered their homes as investments and planned to sell them, downsize to cheaper, smaller places, and retire in part on the capital gains.

 

As to backing currencies with metals,  gold is only worth what the market is willing to pay. It doesn't have much practical use. Silver and some other metals have industrial uses, but in a crisis both gold or Bitcoin could either be very valuable or, at least in the case of gold, make a pretty doorstop.

 

On 5/28/2017 at 6:54 PM, impulse said:

If I'm not mistaken (and I may be) Bernie Madoff was thriving longer than Bitcoin has been.

Depending on who you believe, he was operating his scheme from the 1990's or 1970's until he was arrested in 2008. You have to laugh at the supposed "protection" provided investors by the SEC who had been receiving tips about the fraud for nearly as long as it was operating. Of course the people who actually believed Bernie was generating those returns no matter what the markets did were extraordinarily gullible.

[uli65]

every stockmarket is more manipulated with phony money printed by the central banks than  bitcoin!

[jgarbo]

On 5/29/2017 at 8:56 AM, oxo1947 said:

As someone who knows zero about this----how do you cash them in...( into $$ if that's what you want to do) do you have to advertise for a buyer of them ??

There are ATMs and websites that will cash your BTCs for a tiny commission. Look around.

Blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin, is NOT a Ponzi scam. Banks are now grappling with it (they're always slow). Many businesses now accept BTC as payment for goods & services. just check out the net. The Chinese crackdown gives you a chance to BTC cheaply. 

[ghworker2010]

6 hours ago, Donaldo said:

As long as there are people gullible enough to buy and those greedy enough to sit on them, waiting for Bitcoin to reach even dizzier heights, the perceived value will go up.

The moment those rigging the system and those smart enough to cash in it's (value) will evaporate in a whiff.

There's no one 'rigging the system'. Its de-centralised. No one has control except the owners of Bitcoin- millions of us

[Senechal]

8 minutes ago, ghworker2010 said:

There's no one 'rigging the system'. Its de-centralised. No one has control except the owners of Bitcoin- millions of us

 

That's a simplistic view of any commodity. (And BTC behaves like a commodity). Rigging occurs naturally when ownership is concentrated into a few hands. Your "millions of us" comment shows you don't understand how the ownership is structured. It is not wide and shallow. It's narrow and deep. Those "millions" of owners are the irrelevant long-tail. It's like saying oil prices are controlled by the millions of oil traders who buy and sell the futes. Except they aren't. The prices are controlled by the whales, ie: the Saudis. BTC is no different. Those millions of owners may be trading the commodity, but they are not in control. It takes a couple of players to reduce your investment by 50%. That's not rigged? It's all rigged. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2017 by Senechal

[ghworker2010]

4 hours ago, mrfaroukh said:

I do not trust Bitcoin. We hear many become millionaire with it, but this is a crazy idea somehow. Don't really know even if you will be able to sell what you buy. I think the USA will never allow something like this carry on and people use this instead of dollar. On the other hand all criminally earned money can be transfered via Bitcoin. Think of ISIS, other groups. Do you really think USA and other countries will really allow this to happen? 

"I think the use will never allow something like this to carry on....''    <deleted>. The U.S government are regulating the exchanges in the U.S now:

 

itbit exchange is a perfect example. 

 

Investment banks, e.g. Fidelity, are now linking bitcoin accounts to their funds. Do you think the U.S govt will suddenly take this away? No ways

[Senechal]

10 minutes ago, ghworker2010 said:

"I think the use will never allow something like this to carry on....''    <deleted>. The U.S government are regulating the exchanges in the U.S now:

 

itbit exchange is a perfect example. 

 

Investment banks, e.g. Fidelity, are now linking bitcoin accounts to their funds. Do you think the U.S govt will suddenly take this away? No ways

 

True. But "Suddenly take this away" is a straw man though. Governments are really efficient at extracting value from commodities without a "sudden" shutdown. 

 

It's like the goldbugs who say "Do you really think governments will confiscate gold again?"... but that's a red herring. They don't need to confiscate it. Extracting value from gold is a simple matter of taxing imports/exports and taxing all transactions. Set that pain threshold high enough, and governments can effectively put a damper on the gold market without a shutdown.

 

BTC is different from gold though. Gold can be sold anonymously and untraceably. It's actually a pretty great monetary substitute from a privacy perspective. BTC can't come close though. It's the world's most transparent, traceable transaction medium. It's not anonymous. It's a government's wet dream. Every transaction is preserved in perpetuity by the blockchain. 

 

Yeah.. government won't shut it down. But they can extract value from the marketplace, and directly benefit from it. And that's just as good in their eyes.

 

Anyone who thinks regulation, taxation and legislation isn't coming, is being willfully naive.

 

Edited September 24, 2017 by Senechal

[Farangdanny]

On 5/29/2017 at 9:17 AM, mjnaus said:

 

Every single currency that exists today is intrinsically worthless. The fact that you refer to crypto currencies as a "pyramid scheme" indicates you either do not know the first thing about these currencies, or you don't know what a pyramid scheme is (or both). 

Hear hear. well said. 

[hawker9000]

10 hours ago, Farangdanny said:

Hear hear. well said. 

Isn't there actually a certain logic to labelling bitcoin as a ponzi scheme?  Not in the sense that there's any party swindling investors and keeping the scam going by funneling just enough cash to "investors" to keep them interested and lure in more, but rather in the sense that there's nothing really tangible backing up the currency, only its baked-in "rarity", and newcomers are lured by the seeming absoluteness of that into paying greater and greater amounts for them - which comes about by "recruiting" new bitcoin buyers - for nothing more than some supposedly non-reproducible digits floating around in cyberspace.   How is the inflating value of bitcoin through the attraction of new "investors" that much different from traditional Ponzi schemes?

 

Pon·zi scheme

ˈpänzē ˌskēm/  

noun

noun: Ponzi scheme; plural noun: Ponzi schemes

1. a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors.

 

I suppose the counterpoint is that there's no actual schemer behind bitcoin who's controlling it for his own profit.  Just the early holders/investors.   But in my mind, that just makes it perhaps a Ponzi scheme on "automatic pilot", or perhaps even an "unintentional" Ponzi scheme, with no real villain in the picture. 

 

Governments should take a lesson.  The digital age DOES provide attractive alternatives to the promiscuous money-printing to which they've become so addicted...   I'm guessing their predictable attempts to reign in crypto-currencies will prove a cat & mouse game, though some "investors" may get caught in the "better mouse-trap".  

 

The "whales" mentioned above are at one serious disadvantage IF they're holding bitcoin because they think it's a tax dodge:  the moment they either use their bitcoins for a "large transaction" (house, car, yacht, aircraft, business, etc.), OR convert their bitcoins back into regular currency,  they're likely back "on the radar" with their handsome profits, at least for citizens of most western countries.

 

 

 

 

 

[Senechal]

13 hours ago, Farangdanny said:

Hear hear. well said. 

Not well said at all. Take the world's reserve currency: Anyone who says its "unbacked" is a wounded goldbug hoping for the glory days to come back. The USD is backed by the oil market and that relationship is enforced by world's most powerful military. (I'm not touting that like I'm a fan, btw. Just pointing out geo-political truth).

 

You're playing with a playbook from the 1950's that says only hard assets back a currency. The US goes to war to protect its currency -- all the time. Whenever the petrodollar is threatened, a war happens. That's called "backing your currency".

 

Is it any wonder why the current axis of evil consists of oil producers willing to skirt the petrodollar system? Iran, Venezuela, Russia, etc.? 

 

Stop reading your ridiculous sites that say "fiat is unbacked currency".   Not all fiat is the same. If you've got bigger guns, you've got better fiat. I'm not saying it's right, but it's the way it is.  If and when the US military faces an actual challenge over an oil producing area, then all bets are off and the USD is toast. But that hasn't happened yet. WIll it? Eventually, yes.  But is the USD "unbacked"? Hell, no.

 

Bitcoin isn't without interest, but it has a long way to go before it's important in any way. It's total capitalization is less than $50B. (Which in the global scheme of things is microscopic. Hardly a "replacement currency").  

 

To put this in perspective: All the BTC in the world isn't even close to being worth what Tesla is worth. So if all the BTC owners in the world pooled their money, they could buy a majority stake in just that one company (but not own it).  The level of self-importance among BTC holders is really amazing.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2017 by Senechal

[impulse]

14 hours ago, Farangdanny said:

On 5/29/2017 at 10:17 AM, mjnaus said:

Every single currency that exists today is intrinsically worthless. The fact that you refer to crypto currencies as a "pyramid scheme" indicates you either do not know the first thing about these currencies, or you don't know what a pyramid scheme is (or both). 

Hear hear. well said. 

 

They may be intrinsically worthless, but one has a 200+ year history and the full force of government to protect its stability and the other has, well, none of that.  Just some computer code that's going to be cracked some day by someone smarter -with better tech- than the guys today.  

 

Not to mention a pretty low barrier to entry that could see kiosks on Sukhumvit selling new crypto-currencies freshly mined in Pantip or Fortune Town.

 

There can only be 200 or so government issued currencies.  There is no limit to the number of crypto currencies, just like there's no limit to the number of Paypal knockoffs.

 

Don't get me wrong.  I'm a big fan of the concept.  But not of the speculative bubble that has rendered it more a lottery (Ponzi scheme) than a currency.

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

2/3 of the world Bitcoin are Made in China. Look at the scale of this madness:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/business/bitcoin-mine-china.html?mcubz=3

[dutchberliner]

On 5/28/2017 at 1:54 PM, impulse said:

Yup.  

 

Too late to get in on the top level of this pyramid scheme.

 

Besides, what's to stop an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos from launching a competing currency that's actually backed by someone and an organization whose name we know?  (Edit:  Other than the risk of prison time for launching an unsanctioned currency)

 

Unless, of course, you have a few hundred million in drug money (or ransom money) you need to hide and you have no safe alternative.  

 

If I'm not mistaken (and I may be) Bernie Madoff was thriving longer than Bitcoin has been.

 

Maybe study up on the subject before having an opinion? 2 years from now this comment will still be online and you will look pretty stupid.

 

Would you think differently of bitcoin if you knew that the republic of georgia will be (the first of many nations) securing their entire land registry using the bitcoin blockchain as the backbone? This will happen in 2018!

Bitcoin is not just a coin. the coin exists to secure the immutable global asset ledger. This ledger can't be altered, censored or controlled. Anyone can use it and/or audit it. It allows anyone to transact with whomever, without the use of a trusted third party. 

 

Ransomware and darknet markets are a necessary evil. They prove that bitcoin can't be stopped, that nobody is in control. 

 

Sorry but if you don't see the value in such a system then I don't know what to tell you.

[dutchberliner]

On 5/29/2017 at 3:56 AM, oxo1947 said:

As someone who knows zero about this----how do you cash them in...( into $$ if that's what you want to do) do you have to advertise for a buyer of them ??

https://coins.co.th/

 

This is the most popular one but there are others in thailand.

You can just cash out via your local thai bank.

 

[hawker9000]

32 minutes ago, dutchberliner said:

Maybe study up on the subject before having an opinion? 2 years from now this comment will still be online and you will look pretty stupid.

 

Would you think differently of bitcoin if you knew that the republic of georgia will be (the first of many nations) securing their entire land registry using the bitcoin blockchain as the backbone? This will happen in 2018!

Bitcoin is not just a coin. the coin exists to secure the immutable global asset ledger. This ledger can't be altered, censored or controlled. Anyone can use it and/or audit it. It allows anyone to transact with whomever, without the use of a trusted third party. 

 

Ransomware and darknet markets are a necessary evil. They prove that bitcoin can't be stopped, that nobody is in control. 

 

Sorry but if you don't see the value in such a system then I don't know what to tell you.

When you say "This ledger can't be altered, censored or controlled.", you're saying it can't EVER be "altered, censored or controlled".   That's a pretty tall order...   Some might find this article interesting.

 

 

[seancbk]

6 hours ago, dutchberliner said:

https://coins.co.th/

 

This is the most popular one but there are others in thailand.

You can just cash out via your local thai bank.

 

How do you figure that is the most popular one?

Everyone I know in Thailand doing crypto uses https://bx.in.th/ 

Either way very easy to use in Thailand (unless you are an American, as they won't allow US account holders)

[ThailandLOS]

36 minutes ago, seancbk said:

How do you figure that is the most popular one?

Everyone I know in Thailand doing crypto uses https://bx.in.th/ 

Either way very easy to use in Thailand (unless you are an American, as they won't allow US account holders)

Correct , Bx.in.th is the place to go for local cash in/out at the moment - but first half of next year OmiseGo will provide this by bypassing the bank system totally.

 

Apart from that some blockchain projects - like TenX - are working on connecting crypto to Visa/MC.

 

2018 will be the year when blockchain will really start demonstrating it's true potential to the general public - and defuse stupid 'Bitcoin is only a string of numbers' discussions.

[dutchberliner]

13 hours ago, hawker9000 said:

When you say "This ledger can't be altered, censored or controlled.", you're saying it can't EVER be "altered, censored or controlled".   That's a pretty tall order...   Some might find this article interesting.

 

 

First of all, security is always probabilistic. 100% secure does not exist but bitcoin is the closest we ever got to 100% and nothing else even comes close.

 

That article lists a lot of attack vectors on the secondary layer. the only one that is on the protocol level is the 51% attack. 

The author made a mistake in claiming that a 51% attack allows the attacker to roll back transactions. This is not the case. As soon as a transaction has more than 7 conformations the chance of a roll back or double spend only exist on a theoretical level (again, 100% does not exist in security).

 

Furthermore a 51% attack would immediately erode trust in the network and it will crash the price. So there aren't many scenarios where it is a good idea for an attacker to spend billions to reach 51% only to mess with the chain for a short time. The attacker also knows that he won't really kill the chain. At best the attacker would force a POW change and bitcoin would just chug along leaving the attacker with a bunch of worthless hardware.

 

a better decentralised ledger might come along and when that day comes i will invest in it and projects that now use the bitcoin blockchain for anchoring can just switch over. Point is that a decentralised ledger like bitcoin will play a vital role in our future economy. No company, bank or state can create something like it because it would be centralised and controlled by them. This would kill cryptos most important selling point of censorship resistance through decentralisation.

[dutchberliner]

8 hours ago, seancbk said:

How do you figure that is the most popular one?

Everyone I know in Thailand doing crypto uses https://bx.in.th/ 

Either way very easy to use in Thailand (unless you are an American, as they won't allow US account holders)

Oh thanks I will check that one out.

[Xaos]

Buy at https://bx.in.th/ 

Trade at bittrex.com or poloniex.com

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[ThailandLOS]

On 9/27/2017 at 2:50 PM, Xaos said:

Buy at https://bx.in.th/ 

Trade at bittrex.com or poloniex.com

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk
 

Bittrex yes - but stay away from Polionex. Reddit and other places are full complaints of their customer service and there are quite a few examples of something resembling outright fraud - e.g. tokens being withdrawn that never arrive and exchange records of those withdrawals being...eh, 'altered' by Polionex subsequently.

 

[markcm19]

On 24/09/2017 at 11:25 AM, speedtripler said:

 

 a chart like this would probably look the same for most high St banks too.... A few billionaires own the largest accounts and the other 95% of the people are sharing the other 5%

 

Basically, every valuable or desirable  commodity is mostly hoarded by the rich and greedy  and I don't expect bitcoin to be any different 

 

 

Fortunately for bitcoin holders, millions of the rich list coins are permanently lost. Btc had so little value for so long they were not secured and forever lost.