OT Bitcoin and quick wealth

[ojingoh]

Originally Posted by Ozz

I wonder what the pizza shop owner did with those Bitcoin? Not sure how you convert to $$, but if he just hung onto them as a novelty....he could be sitting pretty flush right now!

Maybe, or he lost it. That happens quite a lot, and it's gone, like forever gone.

About 20 percent of mined bitcoins are presumed lost, due to crashed hard drives, forgotten passwords, lost thumb drives and other mundane accidents. I'd presume some of them are probably still there but unrecoverable for whatever reason.

Then there's unrecoverable theft, cold wallets getting stolen and other such calamities.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by Tony T

Best explanation of Dogecoin ever…
https://youtu.be/x5RCfQyTDFI

That was so true that it wasn't funny!

The Economist magazine, in an article on cryptocurrency and the amount of energy it consumes (Huh?!), described cryptocurrency this way:

"Bitcoin's hunger for energy stems from its design. It forgoes centralised record-keeping in favour of a "blockchain", a transaction database that is distributed among users. The blockchain is maintained by "miners", who validate transactions by competing to cracc mathematical puzzles with solutions that are hard to find but easy to check. Eash successfully mined block of transactions generates a reward, currently 6.25 bitcoins ($357,000).

The system varies the difficulty of the puzzles to ensure that one new block is created, on average, every ten minutes. High bitcoin prices make it worthwhile to spend more computing powerand therefore electricity-chasing mining rewards. But bitcoin's automatic stabilisers will ramp up the mathematical difficulty in response."

I say again-HUH?

What product or service is being provided? Who is the typical customer? What's the benefit to the consumer? If bitcoin has to do with money, how do I convert my real money to bitcoin, why would I want to, and how do I convert "my" bitcoin back to real money?

[PaMtbRider]

Can someone point me to a Dummy's guide to bitcoins or crypto-currency in general? Not looking to invest, just want to have a basic understanding of what all the cool kids are talking about.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by PaMtbRider

Can someone point me to a Dummy's guide to bitcoins or crypto-currency in general? Not looking to invest, just want to have a basic understanding of what all the cool kids are talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

[jimoots]

People that say Bitcoin is an “investment” are confused; it’s just a bet with a non-binary outcome.

Investments have underlying value, ie a business that generates revenue (and hopefully profit, or at least expectation of profit at future date), a house that is a house.

Having said that, Bitcoin is a bet with huge upside if you can go long (think 5-10 years). As others have said, if you have spare cash you won’t miss, it borders on sensible to tip some in to crypto.

[buddybikes]

Originally Posted by jimmy-moots

People that say Bitcoin is an “investment” are confused; it’s just a bet with a non-binary outcome.

Investments have underlying value, ie a business that generates revenue (and hopefully profit, or at least expectation of profit at future date), a house that is a house.

Having said that, Bitcoin is a bet with huge upside if you can go long (think 5-10 years). As others have said, if you have spare cash you won’t miss, it borders on sensible to tip some in to crypto.

> Couldn't the entire thing go crumbling down if there is no physical "thing" behind it? 10 years are we convinced this entire thing won't be destroyed by govt regulation?

[R3awak3n]

Yes anything can happen, high risk high reward

[Ozz]

Originally Posted by PaMtbRider

Can someone point me to a Dummy's guide to bitcoins or crypto-currency in general? Not looking to invest, just want to have a basic understanding of what all the cool kids are talking about.

Crypto is designed as "money"...which means it intends to become a medium of exchange. It sort of is now, but not many people/companies accept crypto....

Until they are widely accepted as a means of payment, they are sort of like ancient coins, valuable but using them to buy anything is a PITA.

Unless your are a drug dealer, human trafficker or arms dealer....

Basically, they need to be perceived as legitimate, and probably taxable.

It did not help that Musk called it (admitted?) a "hustle" on SNL.....

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by steveandbarb1

> Couldn't the entire thing go crumbling down if there is no physical "thing" behind it? 10 years are we convinced this entire thing won't be destroyed by govt regulation?

So could most things in the stock market or currencies. Why does tesla have a market cap so much bigger than ford?

[Tony T]

Originally Posted by .RJ

So could most things in the stock market or currencies. Why does tesla have a market cap so much bigger than ford?

Based on the projections/expectation that Tesla will have increasing market share and increasing profits, and supply and demand for the stock. The value of Bitcoin is only based on supply and demand for the ‘coin’

[R3awak3n]

Originally Posted by Ozz

Crypto is designed as "money"...which means it intends to become a medium of exchange. It sort of is now, but not many people/companies accept crypto....

Until they are widely accepted as a means of payment, they are sort of like ancient coins, valuable but using them to buy anything is a PITA.

Unless your are a drug dealer, human trafficker or arms dealer....

Basically, they need to be perceived as legitimate, and probably taxable.

It did not help that Musk called it (admitted?) a "hustle" on SNL.....

meh, doge went down like 30% and now its back up 20. Other major coins felt nothing, ETH is now over 4k...

Crypto will have some bumps, when it crashes and it will, everything does, it will crash hard but it will probably recover and keep going. The more big players get into it the more it will likely do well since they won't let it fail

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by Tony T

Based on the projections/expectation that Tesla will have increasing market share and increasing profits, and supply and demand for the stock. The value of Bitcoin is only based on supply and demand for the ‘coin’

From last year, and the split is even bigger now

vTesla Inc is close to achieving a $500 billion market capitalisation soon, making it higher than the combined market cap of nine carmakers - General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Honda Motor Company, Hyundai Motor, Daimler AG, Ferrari, BMW and Volkswagen.

Thats an awful big bet.

[Tony T]

But there is something there.
There is nothing in Bitcoin. Anyone can create a cryptocurrency at almost no cost. The history of the creation of Dogecoin is interesting.

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by Tony T

But there is something there.

I think its early days to know what that is, or which ones will emerge as the winners.

Eth seems to have a pretty real use/business case behind it, but, is that worth $4 or $4k or $40k or $400k? Who knows.

I guess time will tell. The whole market is skewed so its like shooting fish in a barrel and calling it marksmanship, its easy to think you're a savvy investor when everything is going up.

[Ozz]

Originally Posted by R3awak3n

meh, doge went down like 30% and now its back up 20. Other major coins felt nothing, ETH is now over 4k...

Crypto will have some bumps, when it crashes and it will, everything does, it will crash hard but it will probably recover and keep going. The more big players get into it the more it will likely do well since they won't let it fail

The problem is that crypto doesn't have much real-world "value"....it isn't anything tangible, and you can do very little with it.

The trading and prices are just speculation that at some point you will be able to something with it..

Right now it reminds be of Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch Kids, or Pokemon cards....it has value cuz someone is willing to pay what you are asking....but you can't really do anything with it....other than say "Oh look have a gazillion dollars worth of Bitcoin!"

So, you know...it's a hustle!