Bitcoins as an investment

markwho

What does anyone think of the idea as Bitcoins as an investment at the moment?
Is it far too volatile. I have €4,500 at the moment to invest. Thought I might chance it with Bitcoins, the risk is very very high as it is very volatile. Although the payoff could become very high. Or has it hit its peak?

If i bought €100 worth of bitcoins a year ago, I would have €300,000 worth of bitcoins now.

Like the sound of that.

https://mtgox.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin for more info

Blisterman

From what I've heard it's likely a bubble, and has no future as a currency.

It can't work as a proper currency, as for a currency to work, its value must gradually decrease. Otherwise everybody will hold onto it, rather than spending it.

Capt'n Midnight

it a legal grey area only because they haven't leglislated against it yet. Governments aren't too happy about currencies that could be used to avoid tax and stomp on them hard if they feel they are loosing revenue.

look at the % of notes issued that the early adopters hold

mravaya

markwho wrote: »

What does anyone think of the idea as Bitcoins as an investment at the moment?
Is it far too volatile. I have €4,500 at the moment to invest. Thought I might chance it with Bitcoins, the risk is very very high as it is very volatile. Although the payoff could become very high. Or has it hit its peak?

If i bought €100 worth of bitcoins a year ago, I would have €300,000 worth of bitcoins now.

Like the sound of that.

https://mtgox.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin for more info

I just could not resist bringing this post back to life, These Bitcoins are now worth €20 each today so that original €100 that become €300,000 is now worth €1,800,000. Bitcoin is getting very popular especially with the black economy

bridgepeople

mravaya wrote: »

I just could not resist bringing this post back to life, These Bitcoins are now worth €20 each today so that original €100 that become €300,000 is now worth €1,800,000. Bitcoin is getting very popular especially with the black economy

It's amazing how history repeats itself. Anyone considering bitcoin as an investment should google Tulip Mania and go from there (see also wiki entries for South Sea Company and Irish property bubble).

mravaya

bridgepeople wrote: »

It's amazing how history repeats itself. Anyone considering bitcoin as an investment should google Tulip Mania and go from there (see also wiki entries for South Sea Company and Irish property bubble).

Yep history does repeat it self, if 10 years ago you had invested the price of an ipod then into Apple shares do you know how much you would be better off today? about $25,000. Same with Microsoft, if you had invested the price of their first Windows OS at the time it was released. that would be another $50,000 I see Bitcoin in the same way as those History repeating itself yet again, but not from 500 years ago when tulips were difficult to handle and store. Bitcoin I see as something revolutionary, simply its going to do to money what email did to snailmail or what twitter and facebook have done to social networking. Their is no Bitcoin Inc, No Government can regulate it, Its limited supply (unlike tulips). Oh and the Irish property bubble, that was limited to a very few people who happend to have some kind of connection with Ireland. Bitcoin has no geographical limitations

Blisterman

How many Beenz is a bitcoin worth?

mravaya

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

it a legal grey area only because they haven't leglislated against it yet. Governments aren't too happy about currencies that could be used to avoid tax and stomp on them hard if they feel they are loosing revenue.

look at the % of notes issued that the early adopters hold

From what I see, the governments are going to have to start worrying about Bitcoin. Because they have no way of finding out who owns bitcoins or if a person even owns bitcoins

mravaya

Blisterman wrote: »

How many Beenz is a bitcoin worth?

right now 20 euros worth of Beenz, www.mtgox.com

srsly78

You guys are missing the most important thing - bitcoins are actually useful. People are using them to buy stuff.

The recent spike in price correlates with a certain article involving Silk Road and an arrest in Australia.

Governments would love to shut this down because they can't control it, this will not be easy for them however. Most likely they will target the brokers instead, to stop people converting "real" money into BC.

Blisterman

mravaya wrote: »

Yep history does repeat it self, if 10 years ago you had invested the price of an ipod then into Apple shares do you know how much you would be better off today? about $25,000. Same with Microsoft, if you had invested the price of their first Windows OS at the time it was released. that would be another $50,000 I see Bitcoin in the same way as those History repeating itself yet again, but not from 500 years ago when tulips were difficult to handle and store. Bitcoin I see as something revolutionary, simply its going to do to money what email did to snailmail or what twitter and facebook have done to social networking. Their is no Bitcoin Inc, No Government can regulate it, Its limited supply (unlike tulips). Oh and the Irish property bubble, that was limited to a very few people who happend to have some kind of connection with Ireland. Bitcoin has no geographical limitations

Your argument makes no sense. I could just as easily argue that if you put money into Bank of Ireland or Enron shares they'd be worth nothing.

In what way is Bitcoin now similar to how Microsoft and Apple were at those times?

mravaya

Blisterman wrote: »

Your argument makes no sense. I could just as easily argue that if you put money into Bank of Ireland or Enron shares they'd be worth nothing.

In what way is Bitcoin now similar to how Microsoft and Apple were at those times?

I ask you the same question what way is Bitcoin similar to Tulips and Irish property? I am just comparing history, you are Bearish whilst I am Bullish, thats what makes investment go up or down is'nt it. the trick is being bearish or bullish at the right time with the right investment which make you richer or poorer

mravaya

srsly78 wrote: »

You guys are missing the most important thing - bitcoins are actually useful. People are using them to buy stuff.

The recent spike in price correlates with a certain article involving Silk Road and an arrest in Australia.

Governments would love to shut this down because they can't control it, this will not be easy for them however. Most likely they will target the brokers instead, to stop people converting "real" money into BC.

So governments are going to try and make crypto currency illegal to trade., can,t see how they can legislate against it. If they did then every Government in the world would have to adopt similar laws. As for the arrest in Australia, that just was a person detected by customs importing illegal substance bought via a silk road dealer, had nothing to do with the integrity of BITCOIN

Blisterman

Apple and Microsoft shares increased in value because the company was successful and released products which made them a lot of money.

Bitcoins do nothing. There is no benefit in owning bitcoins, other than the fact that you hope somebody will pay more for them in the future.

They don't even work as currency, because nobody wants to spend them, as the expectation is that they will rise in value. People prefer to hold on to them.

srsly78

mravaya wrote: »

So governments are going to try and make crypto currency illegal to trade., can,t see how they can legislate against it. If they did then every Government in the world would have to adopt similar laws. As for the arrest in Australia, that just was a person detected by customs importing illegal substance bought via a silk road dealer, had nothing to do with the integrity of BITCOIN

You have managed to completely miss the point. I said nothing about it's integrity. Rather, the PUBLICITY is what caused the spike.

The poster above thinks "bitcoins do nothing". If this poster and other people read the article about Silk Road then a cartoon lightbulb would appear over their heads. This is what happened when other people read the article, and this has caused a surge of interest.

Blisterman

Yeah you can buy stuff with them, thats the whole point. I was addressing the idea that they're an investment.

If you buy land, rent it out for 10 years, after ten years you not only have the original land, but the rent you received from it.

If you bought shares in a small company, if all goes well, after 10 years you have shares in a larger company, plus any dividends etc.

You buy a bitcoin, after 10 years you still have a bitcoin. It's the equivalent of keeping money under a mattress and calling it an investment.

srsly78

It works as an investment right now because most people don't realise they are useful. This is a classic example of exploiting an information deficit.

As more people realise they are useful demand goes up. You could have doubled your money in the last month alone, the effect is huge.

As a long-term thing maybe not so wise.

thunderdog

markwho wrote: »

What does anyone think of the idea as Bitcoins as an investment at the moment?
Is it far too volatile. I have €4,500 at the moment to invest. Thought I might chance it with Bitcoins, the risk is very very high as it is very volatile. Although the payoff could become very high. Or has it hit its peak?

If i bought €100 worth of bitcoins a year ago, I would have €300,000 worth of bitcoins now.

Like the sound of that.

https://mtgox.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin for more info

Please tell me that you actually invested 4500 in bitcoins back then and are now sitting on a potential gold mine!

Capt'n Midnight

srsly78 wrote: »

It works as an investment right now because most people don't realise they are useful. This is a classic example of exploiting an information deficit.

It's got to the stage where the easiest way to make big money on them is to bet the price will drop and then launch a denial of service attack against one of the markets.

Uses a lot less CPU power than bit mining.

12 element

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Uses a lot less CPU power than bit mining.

Yon can't use CPU power for DDoSing though!

BTC has dropped $170 in the last hour.

frozenfrozen

I was about to make the point about the prices being so easily influenced but I've been beaten to it.

Bitcoin was a fabulous idea. But only for the makers, brokers, and the people behind mt.gox.

Capt'n Midnight

12 element wrote: »

Yon can't use CPU power for DDoSing though!

and the best bit is you don't even need to use your own CPU

Need an army of killer zombies? Yours for just $25 per 1,000 PCs

Capt'n Midnight

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/10/bitcoin-crash/

The Tokyo-based exchange said last week that hackers are engaging in a strategy to manipulate the price of the currency: “Attackers wait until the price of Bitcoins reaches a certain value, sell, destabilize the exchange, wait for everybody to panic-sell their Bitcoins, wait for the price to drop to a certain amount, then stop the attack and start buying as much as they can. Repeat this two or three times like we saw over the past few days and they profit.”

The usefulness of bit coins is as an investment and as a medium to trade with.

The US 1c coin costs more than 1c to make, but it is very useful for lubricating the economy by allowing transactions to take place and that is it's real value.

What % of bitcoins are traded as opposed to being speculated on ?


Also there is the risk
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/05/why-do-vcs-care-about-bitcoin/

The six biggest hacking, theft and fraud incidents involving Bitcoin exchanges, wallets, or investment vehicles have resulted in a total 1.2 million Bitcoins being stolen, out of a total of 11 million Bitcoins in existence. This means that more than 10 percent of all Bitcoin has been stolen, and this does not include many smaller thefts and losses from individual wallets.

Capt'n Midnight

Nearly got back to $200 , now back to $165


http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/

tadcan

Was thinking about a possible long term play for Bitcoin. Once they have all been mined and presuming the amount being exchanged rises, then since it can be divided into .05 = $10. Then buying bitcoins at $20 will be worth it over time. I've probably got the maths wrong!

Roonbox

tadcan wrote: »

Was thinking about a possible long term play for Bitcoin. Once they have all been mined and presuming the amount being exchanged rises, then since it can be divided into .05 = $10. Then buying bitcoins at $20 will be worth it over time. I've probably got the maths wrong!

Steer Clear

Ruxjit

tadcan wrote: »

Was thinking about a possible long term play for Bitcoin. Once they have all been mined and presuming the amount being exchanged rises, then since it can be divided into .05 = $10. Then buying bitcoins at $20 will be worth it over time. I've probably got the maths wrong!

Wondering did you buy them? 1 BTC = $2000 now

Thargor

Closer to $3000.

Ruxjit

Thargor wrote: »

Closer to $3000.

Yeah I see that now, I was going to buy some last year but I couldn't (still can't) get Coinbase to verify my ID, so i gave up.

They reckon it will climb to $10000 but's it gone out of my league now.

ED E

Ruxjit wrote: »

Yeah I see that now, I was going to buy some last year but I couldn't (still can't) get Coinbase to verify my ID, so i gave up.

They reckon it will climb to $10000 but's it gone out of my league now.

If you were going to buy at 2000USD yo can just buy 0.6BTC now. You can even buy 0.000001BTC if you want, doesnt have to be a whole.

Ruxjit

ED E wrote: »

If you were going to buy at 2000USD yo can just buy 0.6BTC now. You can even buy 0.000001BTC if you want, doesnt have to be a whole.

Ah yeah I know that. What's the best alternative to Coinbase?

Brussels Sprout

Kraken. You can transfer money on from your bank account via SEPA payments.

nuac

mravaya wrote: »

Yep history does repeat it self, if 10 years ago you had invested the price of an ipod then into Apple shares do you know how much you would be better off today? about $25,000. Same with Microsoft, if you had invested the price of their first Windows OS at the time it was released. that would be another $50,000 I see Bitcoin in the same way as those History repeating itself yet again, but not from 500 years ago when tulips were difficult to handle and store. Bitcoin I see as something revolutionary, simply its going to do to money what email did to snailmail or what twitter and facebook have done to social networking. Their is no Bitcoin Inc, No Government can regulate it, Its limited supply (unlike tulips). Oh and the Irish property bubble, that was limited to a very few people who happend to have some kind of connection with Ireland. Bitcoin has no geographical limitations

Sorry, may be a stupid question, but how is supply limited?.

Who or what is regulating Bitcoins?

What is there to stop anybody pumping out more Bitcoins?

Brussels Sprout

nuac wrote: »

Who or what is regulating Bitcoins?

What is there to stop anybody pumping out more Bitcoins?

There's a finite supply of Bitcoins. Something like 2/3 of which are not currently available as they have yet to be "mined". There's an algorithm governing the laws of it and all of the transactions are recorded on a distributed ledger. There's plenty of information out there explaining the ins and outs of it.

wonk

two weeks now waiting for Kraken to verify my account. any other recommended alternatives please?

Thargor

Coinbase takes a few minutes.

Supercell

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

Kraken. You can transfer money on from your bank account via SEPA payments.

I must be blind, on the deposit page I dont see an option to deposit euro?



I've been funding Poloniex by buying either BTC or ETH on Coinbase and then transferring but it's fairly expensive to do so in my opinion when sending small amounts regularly (i send some over monthly on payday). I would far rather fund the exchange directly if possible.

/edit nevermind, figured it out, I am only "Tier 1" verified despite filling out the forms weeks ago, frustrating, have to say it concerns me about the platform if full account creation alone takes months.