Is anyone else starting to become a bit excited?

Bob24 wrote: »

Fair enough.

Just my two cents, but if it is not included already and the intend is edging and diversification, the good old shining yellow metal should probably have a space in your strategy ;-)

That shine metal you speak of is nothing like what it's cracked up to be, if you are talking physical metal you hold yourself. Once you factor in all the fees, charges and commissions hung on the buying and selling, you are left with needing a really big shift in value to see any gain yourself. You are better off buying shares in gold producers, IMO.

Bitcoin is better than gold, IMO.

Gold as a 'protection' in case of economic catastrophe is a gigantic steaming pile of economic dung. It's in the same class of loony bin admission criteria as US survivalism with underground bunkers, cached weapons and ammunition and years worth of MRE's and canned goods that have all been stored so long they are well past their best before dates.

The last major economic collapse was about 89 years ago - the great depression. Guess what? The US government made owning/hoarding gold illegal and forced people to sell theirs.

So much for owning gold. The only time I can think of when it generally was probably of last-resort benefit was the dark ages - over a thousand years ago.

Have you ever bought and sold physical gold yourself?

No, buying gold producer shares is not like buying shares in a bitcoin miner because bitcoin mining relies a lot on transaction fees and the potential resource is finite with increasing costs. New gold resources are found regularly.

In the last 6 months, the price of gold has risen 15%. The share price of Northern Star - a quality Australian gold producer - was up 36% for the 6 months Mar 4 to Sep 4.

Be my guest - go buy physical gold - been there, done that - but I'll take shares in a quality gold producer any day if I want exposure to gold in my investment portfolio.

I still have a memento of my shiny days - before I copped on:

If you want to buy gold in quantities an average individual investor would be considering, you could start ordering coins or small bars online from a reputable seller today and have them at your home before the end of the week without moving from your chair, not exactly hard (or if you don’t trust the mail service and live let’s say in Dublin, you will have no problem getting it in person from a reputable seller). Buying is easy and storage is what requires a bit of planing, but nothing too hard either. And while crypto storage is cheaper for large amounts, a lot of people don't understand it and still do it wrong (how many people have encryption keys stored on a piece of paper in an insecure location or in an electronic form on a device which is connected to the Internet? - which is no safer that storing gold coins in the same insecure location).

Also in terms of making it illegal/confiscating, being gold or bitcoin if a strong government really wants to make it illegal it can not completely prevent ownership but can make it underground and greatly reduce circulation. But in terms of edging/insurance we are not just talking catastrophic situation anyway: someone who had hood before the 2008 financial crisis and still has it today did protect their wealth better than keeping euros, even including storage cost, and took very little risk compared to the stock market.

At the end of the day, the rational most people tend to have for holding gold and bitcoin in the long term is pretty much the same: distrust of the current financial system and feel that fiat money is losing value/credibility as since the 2008 crisis we entered a new era whereby central banks can’t stop to print money and maintain artificially low interest rate to keep the economy on life support. And consequently turning to an asset with fixed supply and out of the control of financial instituons.

I find it interesting that if you put a crypto maximalist and a gold maximalist on a TV set they can agree on this, but then they have to trash the other person’s position and can’t admit that both asset classes have advantages and drawbacks and can both intelligently coexist in a financial portfolio.

Bob24 wrote: »

If you want to buy gold in quantities an average individual investor would be considering, you could start ordering coins or small bars online from a reputable seller today and have them at your home before the end of the week without moving from your chair, not exactly hard (or if you don’t trust the mail service and live let’s say in Dublin, you will have no problem getting it in person from a reputable seller)...

If you were to buy 1Kg of gold from Bullionbypost.ie and then sell it back to them the minute you got it, you will have lost 4% of the value due to their spread. €1773 down the drain, all from the comfort of your own chair.

Personally I am not interested in losing money that fast.

The ECB just announced another interest rate cut AND the restart of QE later this year.

Bad news is that it is quite telling about how bad the economy and financial markets are really doing, good news for BTC holder is that it is probably bullish for BTC.

Arrival wrote: »

Feels strange to have part of yourself kind of hoping for a recession for once. This is basically why Bitcoin was created, as a result of the '08 crisis, so if it's successful during the next downturn, which could happen during/spanning the next two halvenings, it'll probably be wilder than we imagine.

Yes, if you look at the infancy of Bitcoin, I think the blockchain and the technical aspects were almost secondary. The main driver was politics and economics theory. The next crisis will indeed be a major test!

seannash wrote: »

Has there been any correlation between how the traditional markets are doing and bitcoin growth in he past?
I feel like when the economy isn't doing well bitcoin doesn't gain any more popularity. I could be wrong on that

There has been periods when it was the case but it’s been hit an miss and data is limited. I think more time is needed to make a call on this.

But anecdotally, when the ECB made the interest rates and QE announcement yesterday both gold and BTC spiked at the same time.

Anyone here get involved in Chainlink?

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Anyone here get involved in Chainlink?

I bought at $1.78
Sold most of it at $3.xx - so I done OK.

Even with the pump and dump scam, it is still has potential?

If it drops to $1.40 I will buy again.

Thargor wrote: »

Whats ETH up to?

Being a ****ing legend!

Waiting for funding to hit my kraken account to buy some more. In for a penny in for a pound i suppose!

had 150 from all the free giveaways, just logged in as it hit 100+% increase today. Sold them and 2 mins later it collapsed and got 340 back