Buffett and Gates are becoming frightened of Bitcoin. Tell people to stay away.

[Illini Trader]

ok

if 95% of the space is doggie crap, then do you see the correlation between them and BTC/LTE? what would be the scenario where BTC/LTE can sustain their prices while only the doggies go to zero? so far everything has been moving together... and you saw in 2000 when pets.com went to zero, the blue chips like AMZN EBAY YHOO didn't stay up there... so the bubble is not only in the doggie crap, it's in the entire crypto space... and the reason that they move together is at the infant stage of this technology, you never know someday when DOGE may actually become the dominating player! back when YHOO was THE engine, who'd know today it's no longer there and Google is the engine.

if you are ready for a 75% drop then I can say nothing more..

but regarding the economic crisis... we already had one in 2008! and what happened to gold? DOWN! and what went up in 2008? USD!

regardless how the gold/silver/btc pushers tout as the go-to asset in a crisis, the reality is whenever there is a flight to safety, the destination is the USD... this is the true gold, backed by the nuclear missiles and carrier battle groups, and more importantly the productivity and innovation and the political system of the US of A... and that is not going to change in the foreseeable future.

The gold/silver/btc pushers keep refer to Venezuela and Argentina and what not 'lookie here, fiat can go to zero'... but they never talk about the true backing behind the USD, that is something that Venezuela and Argentina doesn't have.

Good luck.

Our discussion boils down to one basic premise. You put your faith in USD, a fiat currency with 20 Trillion debt and growing rapidly, knowing that not a single fiat currency in history has failed to crash. And, I put my faith in BTC and LTC, despite their volatility, for the long term because they are outside the system. Even you used the word "forseeable future" in regard to the USD. The USD will probably still be King for my remaining years but you young pups will see something that you never dreamed could happen.

 

[dozu888]

Our discussion boils down to one basic premise. You put your faith in USD, a fiat currency with 20 Trillion debt and growing rapidly, knowing that not a single fiat currency in history has failed to crash. And, I put my faith in BTC and LTC, despite their volatility, for the long term because they are outside the system. Even you used the word "forseeable future" in regard to the USD. The USD will probably still be King for my remaining years but you young pups will see something that you never dreamed could happen.

ONE OF the basic premises - yes you summed up well.. my rebuttal is 2 fold:
1) what has gold done in past crisis? 1929 - flat, 1987 - down, 2000 - down, 2008 - down.. the track record ain't great... yet you are putting faith in something that hasn't even been tested in a crisis.
2) Not to mention gold cannot be replaced by other physical substance, while any digital currency can be replaced by technology advancement... tomorrow we may have quantum computing that can crack the entire block chain as we know it and that blows btc out of water; tomorrow we may have some hash graph protocol that is several magnitude faster and safer than block chains... who knows

The other premise is the value proposition - why hold some non-producing assets when it is probably in a bubble, while in the mean time we are in one of the biggest economic boom and the SP500 is yielding 6% on forward earnings.

You may be a creative person, but your arguments for btc is nothing original... $20t in the debt, so what - on the way from 0 to $20t, every number probably looked big at the time, only to be diminished with more debt and more productivity... the pie is getting bigger as we speak.. as long as the missiles and the carrier battle groups are there, it can be $200t and we can still print more.

Your arguments for BTC are exactly what the pushers have tried to sell to the public.. but why is the house so short... https://www.dailyfx.com/sentiment

And in your many decades of investing... has the house ever lost? equities, metals, currencies, oil, now bitcoin.. Wall Street will game anything... when have they ever lost, to the retail traders?

Good luck.

 

[Illini Trader]

You represent your position well and sound like you could be an officer at the Federal Reserve. I don't think they could have said it better. The missiles and battle groups can destroy our enemies but they will be worthless when an economy that is built on debt and held together by historically non normal zero interest rates, finally collapses under its own mismanagement.

I really hope it can hold together as my retirement is based on it. Bitcoin is my hedge and should it goes to zero it will have zero effect on my well being.

Thanks for the wishes of Good Luck and back to you as well. ET is a great place to hang out.

 

[NeoTrader]

Our discussion boils down to one basic premise. You put your faith in USD, a fiat currency with 20 Trillion debt and growing rapidly, knowing that not a single fiat currency in history has failed to crash. And, I put my faith in BTC and LTC, despite their volatility, for the long term because they are outside the system. Even you used the word "forseeable future" in regard to the USD. The USD will probably still be King for my remaining years but you young pups will see something that you never dreamed could happen.

Very well said...

 

[dozu888]

Very well said...

this is not directed personally... but I want to take a slight turn on this topic.

Beware of popular feel good stories.

Go on youtube (or the net in general for that matter). search for 'stock market crash', or 'gold and silver'... you see lots of results...and notice the like/dislike feature in youtube, an excellent gauge of sentiment... you will find lots of gold/silver salesman videos, with extremes of 100:1 like/dislike ratio.. this shows you how crowded retail is on the long side.

Seems the same thing is happening to BTC.

Doom and gloom sells.. it captures your attention and make seek protection. This is programmed in the human DNA.

Yet you look at the gold performance in recent years.... crowded trades rarely work out. The house, aka the smart money, never carries the dumb money to heaven.

After years of consolidation, the next big move for gold will be down, because the crowded retail will be the panic sell fuel.

And you already know my opinion on BTC.

 

[sss12]

You represent your position well and sound like you could be an officer at the Federal Reserve. I don't think they could have said it better. The missiles and battle groups can destroy our enemies but they will be worthless when an economy that is built on debt and held together by historically non normal zero interest rates, finally collapses under its own mismanagement.

I really hope it can hold together as my retirement is based on it. Bitcoin is my hedge and should it goes to zero it will have zero effect on my well being.

Thanks for the wishes of Good Luck and back to you as well. ET is a great place to hang out.

With all due respect, did it collapse under the debt burdens of any of the world wars ? No. Economic expansion exploded afterwards. My point is that is the beauty of the capitalistic/democratic system..it adapts. Crypto may have a place, but it is not replacing anything. I hope you live to 120 yrs old in good health, betcha you still have a couple of benjies in your wallet for the ladies !

 

[sss12]

I started buying bitcoin in 2013 (which may sound like a great time to get long, it wasn't). My first buy, the price was $100 and btc had sharp upside move then to $1200 and then experienced a bear market for over 1.5 years bottoming at ~$165 in 2015. My last purchases of btc was in the $1000's area.

My cost-basis was around $650/btc, but since I've taken more than my initial investment, my cost-basis is negative. Let's just say bitcoin/cryptos are my biggest winning trade and I used to trade options and had some wild times there.

When I see bitcoin at above $8,000, I don't see a price that is depressed, I see a price that is amazing and didn't think would hit until 2020. It was a long-term trade as mentioned by Hoi

I saw Nvidia when it was ~$6 back in late 2008 and thought it was a bargain (no debt and about $300M cash, this was from what I remember looking at the Yahoo Financials). Back then, there was no crypto mining but Nvidia was being used in tablets, cell phone gpu's and starting to be used as tablet and cell phone cpu's. I thought it was way, way undervalued.

It's currently at $250+ and I'm still making a lot more on cryptos than I would have made in NVDA

You should stop thinking that I'm a loser in this cryptos trade and focus on your trades.

A lot of needless commentary ..so what is your realized and Unrealized gain/loss ?

 

[NeoTrader]

And you already know my opinion on BTC.

I don't care about your opinion(or anyone else's)... Nothing personal too...

And, in case you didn't understand the guy's post I complimented(which seems the case), the idea here is that cryptocurrencies are not "a trade"... There are much more suitable instruments for trading...

Cryptocurrencies are simply a better alternative to government issued currencies... The points made by the guy are extremely valid. Personally, I'm not that optimistic about bitcoin in particular, but I really don't care which cryptos get through... As in any free market, the great majority will fail miserably and the one's who took a chance with these will lose money. But the very few cryptos that pass the "market's test" will be the one's who will be used. And given the possibilities that they open to regular people(when it really gets widespread acceptance, which will take time), the substitution of government issued currencies will be a simple matter of time... At which point, some really socioeconomic experiments will naturally take place...
When governments finally lose their most valueable and efficient method of control(their currencies), freedom will work it's wonders...

This will happen, I just hope I live long enough to see it.

 

[sss12]

I don't care about your opinion(or anyone else's)... Nothing personal too...

And, in case you didn't understand the guy's post I complimented(which seems the case), the idea here is that cryptocurrencies are not "a trade"... There are much more suitable instruments for trading...

Cryptocurrencies are simply a better alternative to government issued currencies... The points made by the guy are extremely valid. Personally, I'm not that optimistic about bitcoin in particular, but I really don't care which cryptos get through... As in any free market, the great majority will fail miserably and the one's who took a chance with these will lose money. But the very few cryptos that pass the "market's test" will be the one's who will be used. And given the possibilities that they open to regular people(when it really gets widespread acceptance, which will take time), the substitution of government issued currencies will be a simple matter of time... At which point, some really socioeconomic experiments will naturally take place...
When governments finally lose their most valueable and efficient method of control(their currencies), freedom will work it's wonders...

This will happen, I just hope I live long enough to see it.

So let's play your scenario out. So no one has any idea which which will be the flavour of the day when it comes to crypto. Question one..the Italian bakery hedging wheat prices out of Nebraska in the futures market, which do they use ?
Question two.."some really socioeconomic experiments" will....care to be more specific ? Or is this just more anarcharistic hype that this time "it will bring the man down" ? Oh, and also the Italian baker.

 

[johnarb]

A lot of needless commentary ..so what is your realized and Unrealized gain/loss ?

It's inappropriate to ask that kind of question on a public forum unless the person voluntarily discloses it (i.e. a journal listing the numbers).

I have disclosed in one of my posts that I will hold and not sell the equivalent of 20 bitcoin in cryptos no matter what until next year so that information is public.