Should You Buy Bitcoin Right Now? Don’t Be Stupid

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dealmaker

Should You Buy Bitcoin Right Now? Don’t Be Stupid
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May 12, 2017
Bitcoin has rallied 175% in the past five months.

Should you jump on board for the ride?

Early this week, I offered my take on the subject in a Twitter post. It garnered a lot of interest and comments from Bitcoin fanatics.

My take on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general? It might make you angry… but hear me out.

Bitcoin has rallied 175% in the past five months.

Should you jump on board for the ride?

Early this week, I offered my take on the subject in a Twitter post. It garnered a lot of interest and comments from Bitcoin fanatics.

My take on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general? It might make you angry… but hear me out.

Bitcoin was initially designed to be a digital currency and a store of value. It was going to be a key component in the global commerce system, seen to many as owning Bitcoin was a way to reserve a slot on the Internet’s ledger. Many people believed it would revolutionize the online financial world.

Guess what?

It didn’t happen.

Right now, there is no meaningful amount of global commerce being transacted with Bitcoin. There’s some niche retail, but that’s about it.

https://katusaresearch.com/buy-bitcoin-right-now-dont-stupid/
 
Bitcoin missed their window. Their time to go mainstream was before apple pay came out. Once apple pay came to market, I knew bitcoin would never go mainstream.

Only reason to buy bitcoin is for the bigger fool theory. Buy it and hope a bigger fool will pay more for it later.
 
peilthetraveler said:
Bitcoin missed their window. Their time to go mainstream was before apple pay came out. Once apple pay came to market, I knew bitcoin would never go mainstream.

Only reason to buy bitcoin is for the bigger fool theory. Buy it and hope a bigger fool will pay more for it later.
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I think a lot of people (myself included) are betting on cryto as a way for people around the world to park money due to economic or political turmoil (refer to China preventing citizens from moving money). I feel it's like gold but w/the advantage of deregulation, so if someone wants to move freely elsewhere and retain their wealth, they can.

Coupled to that is a booming gray and black market of goods sold through the internet, and the wish of many to not be tied to a single company (apple w/apple pay) controlling the way the system works and I can see a decent future for bitcoin and others.

People also underestimate the value of anonymity. Why do billionaires go through such lengths to have offshore accounts and do all this other nonsense that keeps them from paying taxes? While bitcoin is far from perfect in this regard, there are plenty other coins that make it much harder to track transactions.

Now, knowing which will live or die is the tricky part to me; I'll be honest in saying that I'm just throwing money and tracking what sticks; and everyone (including myself) should get more informed.

PS: while I haven't been doing it long enough to report taxes, I'm betting on the like-for-like provision of the IRS code and the fungibility of crypto to keep me from doing so until I exit into fiat.
 
peilthetraveler said:
Bitcoin missed their window. Their time to go mainstream was before apple pay came out. Once apple pay came to market, I knew bitcoin would never go mainstream.
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Huh, what? Bitcoin and ApplePay are completely different products and are competing for totally different market segments. I would think that bitcoins main competitors are various money-transfer companies like a la PayPal or WebMoney as well as payment networks (e.g. Visa).
 
sle said:
Huh, what? Bitcoin and ApplePay are completely different products and are competing for totally different market segments. I would think that bitcoins main competitors are various money-transfer companies like a la PayPal or WebMoney as well as payment networks (e.g. Visa).
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What I meant was that bitcoin was ready to be implemented in a way that you could pay for items in stores before apple pay was ready. Everyone knew what a cool idea it was to be able to pay for items with your phone. Just as some people were starting to accept bitcoin in stores, here comes apple with apple pay now there was no reason to store bitcoin on your phone.
 
peilthetraveler said:
What I meant was that bitcoin was ready to be implemented in a way that you could pay for items in stores before apple pay was ready. Everyone knew what a cool idea it was to be able to pay for items with your phone. Just as some people were starting to accept bitcoin in stores, here comes apple with apple pay now there was no reason to store bitcoin on your phone.
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Ah, I see. I was and still am sceptical about ApplePay - with their market share being under 40%, they can't expect too many people to adapt it quickly.

Personally, I think where bitcoin could shine is micro-payments on the web - all of the infrastructure is there already. This said, I have little conviction and very little invested - I own 5 coins at the moment.
 
sle said:
...- I own 5 coins at the moment.
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You are stuck on an island with no internet reception. Your phone got soaked. The natives want payment for providing you with food and shelter. You had nothing of worth on you except your bitcoins, on your internet phone. But your phone is dead. The natives want tangible value for the trade. The person next to you has gold coins, not bit coins. He pulls the gold coins out of his pocket and pays them. He gets the trade.

Where do you pull your bitcoins from if your phone is not working, and the natives do not accept bitcoins?

You see the problem? Virtual currency, especially one that is fixed in amounts, cannot work in a physical world. Gold will ALWAYS work, as it has for 10,000 years. Cryptos cannot...in our lifetime.
 
Overnight said:
You are stuck on an island with no internet reception. Your phone got soaked. The natives want payment for providing you with food and shelter. You had nothing of worth on you except your bitcoins, on your internet phone. But your phone is dead. The natives want tangible value for the trade. The person next to you has gold coins, not bit coins. He pulls the gold coins out of his pocket and pays them. He gets the trade.

Where do you pull your bitcoins from if your phone is not working, and the natives do not accept bitcoins?

You see the problem? Virtual currency, especially one that is fixed in amounts, cannot work in a physical world. Gold will ALWAYS work, as it has for 10,000 years. Cryptos cannot...in our lifetime.
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In such a ridiculous scenario, coconut shells might work better than either choice...
 
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