I make my living managing money, so I'll chip in on bitcoin. I'm also old, so I remember my share of bubbles.
As far as I understand, bitcoin is designed to be a currency, a method of payment, anonymous, untraceable and with strict rules to avoid its dilution. As such, it is admirable. A fantastic idea.
It would have made life so much easier for Pablo Escobar and the like.
However, it wasn't designed to be an investment. Not even a speculative one. And that is what it has become.
That creates a number or problems. First one: "How do we value this?" You can't value it like a company or like a tangible asset. Currencies tend to be valued around their purchasing power. But there isn't anything that is referenced directly in bitcoins, in terms of goods and services (except maybe the "work" of mining the bitcoins themselves and probably not even that).
So it turns out that the value is based the expectation of the demand of bitcoins. The reason to buy it is that someone else will be willing to bid it higher. (Or need it to pay a ransom or a drug deal).
You can play that game, sure. You're betting that you won't be the last man in. And there is still a good chance you won't be. Alan Greenspan warned about "irrational exuberance" in the dot com bubble in 1996. The market didn't top out until 2000. If you listened to Alan, you missed out on a lot.
So, by all means, enjoy the game, ride the wave. But keep in mind what you are really doing. Don't be stubborn if the tide starts to turn. Just my .02 (or 0.000002 BTC).
(BTW a bitcoin ad just popped up on this site. LOL).
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
http://dalmady.blogspot.com
BuckeyeRed27 (11-29-2017),Redsfaithful (11-29-2017),Rojo (12-20-2017)
Oh, I agree. I'd definitely not be "investing" in bitcoin. Much more of a "gamble" so to speak. I also feel there's a bubble here, but I just don't know where it's going to pop, so to speak. I'm up tens of dollars over the last week on my bitcoin and ethereum buy! I'm feeling rich. Maybe I'll sell tomorrow and treat myself to lunch on my profits.
I think BuckeyeRed has good advice here. As someone who is just starting out I like the idea of Dollar Cost Averaging to get your start. You can create a mix that you want, and put a certain dollar amount in each week or month, whatever you choose. I think its the easiest way to get your start, and judging by your ideas, you don't have 5K sitting around to pour into investments right now.
Now you got me started, I am a PC fan for computing. I have been on PC's since I first started school years ago. I know how to operate PC's, like the ease of PC's, and do like the price point. But other than that, I love the integration of Apple products. I love the integration between iTunes-iPhone-iWatch-iPad and am really interested to see what the HomePod is like. When the devices all sync together rather easily, its great for the technologically limited, or the people who just hate technology (like my parents.)
But one thing you are doing with Apple (besides being stubborn) is your are letting emotions make an investment decision. Be careful of that. If you put $2000 in Apple and two years later had $4000, wouldn't you be happy?
Would this be a bad time to mention that I converted all my computers to Linux in the past 16 months?
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -- Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot)
No. I wouldn't be happy in that Apple investment because I'm a psychopath. I won't let good feelings (re: good will) change my investing. But I absolutely won't invest in a company that I can't stand.
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As long as you are able to dual boot and still use Windows, no.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -- Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot)
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -- Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot)
WrongVerb (11-29-2017)
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -- Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot)
The math on returns going forward for bitcoin is pretty ugly. You can still do well, but I think we're in "sell to some other sucker first" territory.
https://wealthyaccountant.com/2017/1...achilles-heel/
This means the total value of BTC is approaching $200 billion in value. If BTC climbs 400% in the next year, as some suggest, the total value of BTC will approach $800 billion and the market cap of Apple!* When all 21 million BTC are mined, if the price is $40,000 to 1 BTC the total value of all BTC will reach $840 billion. Then it gets absurd.
The Insane Logic
If you bought BTC seven years ago (early 2011) for $1 per BTC I salute you; you are a genius. Unfortunately, schmucks buying today will never see those kinds on return in seven years or a thousand! The starry-eyed fools jumping in today looking for similar returns will need BTC to climb another 10,000 times. Okay. Let’s add all the zeros. BTC is at 10,000. Add four more zeros and you get $100,000,000 per BTC!
Well, it could happen!
Of course when you multiple $100 million by 21 million BTC you get, well, more money than currently exists by a very large margin! ($2.1 quadrillion if I calculated it right. You have to forgive any errors. Other than my own investment account, I’m not used to playing with such large numbers.)
I can hear you already. It doesn’t have to climb another 10,000 times to turn a tidy profit. I agree. However, name anything that rose so far so fast without ending in tears?
...
As with every bubble, this time is different. The tulip bulb mania of the early 17th Century (1636-7) was different. In all honesty, tulip bulbs always had value and best I can tell are still around. I can pick up a large bag at my local garden center for a few dollars. Tulip bulb prices ended up where they started. There was always value, just not the insane valuations. This is our first lesson. There is a grain (or bulb) of truth in every bubble.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
If you use your PC mainly for surfing and home productivity, there are probably equivalents for just about anything. But if you use it for work in a business environment, I can think of dozens that are not compatible and never will be. I won't bore you with a list of all of them, but the biggest one that comes to mind is SQLserver. Yes, Microsoft finally came out with a version this year that will run on Linux, but that doesn't do any good to the millions of installations using 2005, 2008, etc.
Besides, windows works just fine. It's easy, and does what it's supposed to do. If my parents who are in their late 80s can handle it, I don't see the problem.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -- Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot)
Nothing can touch Lightroom for Photography right now. Nothing can touch the combo of Premiere and After Effects. I've never used GIMP, but I've heard enough to say it's not quite there with Photoshop, especially over the last few years. For simple stuff, it's probably good enough, though.
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