Bitcoin.
- Thread starter Duff Miver
- Start date
Want to do a side bet?
By March 1, 2018:
Over $25,000 +180
Under $25,000 -200
Over $9,000 -140
Under $9000 +120
I'll take whatever action you want. :0corn
Wait til this goes mainstream x34:
This is just the beginning, IMO...only issue I have is tax implications how that plays out
This is just the beginning, IMO...only issue I have is tax implications how that plays out
Not hating. I have no position in Bitcoin, long or short, never will. Too tough for me.
But if I were in, I'd grab my profits @ $19K and run like Hell.
Your money, your choice.
Be careful out there. This is more dangerous than gambling in Deadwood 150 years ago.
Anyone who didn't want to get out at $18,000, or 17, or 15, or 10, or 5, or....
Kinda like getting out of the stock market in 2011 when everybody was saying to short it. Okay.
Comparison to the stock market is apples/oranges.
Bitcoin price is 100% speculation. It's hot now, no way to forecast the future. A year from now a single Bitcoin might buy a nice house, or an apple.
Stock market prices are partly speculation and partly underlying value - sales, profits, holdings, land, factories, natural resources, intellectual property, etc. A year from now they could be up or down maybe 25% at the most.
This is not inaccurate. If bitcoin goes to zero and this is definitely possible it will be replaced by another crypto. It is good to be diversified in the crypto space.
It is inaccurate to bash the whole space as having no value. It certainly has value, just not the kind you are used to.
Please enlighten me. I know how to value corporations - assets, sales, profits, forecasts
I know how to value commodities - cost of production establishes a floor.
I know how to value one spin of a Roulette wheel, one roll of the dice.
I even know how to establish approximate values for art and antiques.
But cryptocurrencies? Enlighten me. How do YOU value Bitcoin, and what is it's floor value?:shrug:
There are different ways to consider the value of Bitcoin. The major source of the value is the costs of running a very secure means of value transfer that is decentralized, borderless, and permissionless. If you want to transact on this network, then you have to have some Bitcoin. To obtain Bitcoin, you can either buy one or you can mine one. Mining bitcoin requires a lot of equipment and energy. This is proof of work and in some ways forms the floor for the price. If the price of bitcoin went below what it cost for well organized/powered miners to mine it, that would be a problem, as they would mine other things.
I'm not sure on the exact numbers for USD to mine a bitcoin but it is high and getting higher (especially due to the increasing difficulty requirement and when considering needs to continually maintain and update equipment). The current cost to buy a bitcoin is over this, but that also assumes that you don't have to do the mining AND that you see a future for this network as a means of value transfer. There is certainly speculation in that aspect.
So the "value" is in this network as a means of value transfer. If you consider that there are 16-17 million BTC in circulation with conservative estimates of 3-4 million outright lost and 1 million in Satoshi's wallet that don't move then there are 11 million available BTC. In addition, there are many ideological holders of BTC who do not use it to transact regularly. As the amount of transactions and value increases on the network, the value of each BTC (in terms of USD or whatever) will increase to accommodate the amount of value being transferred. With few BTC available, the price could become high - if the network is used. In reality, the unit of value transfer should really be regarded as the satoshi as the btc is impractical for most transfers when the value is high.
Certainly, there are major advantages to a means of value transfer that is outside of governmental control and manipulation. With a finite number of units, the currency is deflationary. It also is borderless and does not require permission. One original benefit of the network was that you could transfer huge sums for low prices. While this is still true, higher transfer fees (which have scaled with the price) make smaller transactions impractical. i.e. the secure transfer of 1 million USD for 15 USD is nice, but transferring 45 USD for 15 USD is not. Speed is also an issue. Transactions can take longer now (although not as long as the FUD in the media) but they are not as instantaneous as the were previously. There are technological advancements that can be employed to solve some of these issues but they require consensus among the nodes running the bitcoin software to implement them. I would expect that bitcoin will attempt to evolve to solve these problems and how that goes will depend on whether it persists.
There are many threats to Bitcoin, but to dismiss the whole crypto space is hugely naive. If Bitcoin falls, it will likely be because users abandon it for another currency, but there are market forces (and the hugely secure nature of Bitcoin) that make this unlikely. How will this play out? I have no idea. I do think if you like the idea of decentralized systems of value then investing is a good idea. I would not, however, invest only in Bitcoin. There are many hedges and other competitors who could coexist with Bitcoin and be very valuable or supplant it in terms of use.
So in essence, I believe in the concept of a decentralized very secure transfer of value, and would like to be a part of that system. Many other people, including a huge percentage of young people, distrust the current financial machinery and also find this appealing. This is a very nascent area and there will certainly be bumps along the way. But I think it has a bright future and I would like to participate.
