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Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
app103:
Don't let the glare of the potential gains dazzle you to the extent that you are unable to see the potential losses (statistical history: there's already been one relatively major deflation, don't forget), and be aware that fear is likely to be a primary motivator in your behaviours - fear of potential loss of an unrealised potential and intangible gain. This is or would be absurd/irrational. As well as being irrational and acting as an amplifier for our innate greed under these circumstances, fear is one of the most destructive of human emotions, and it is extremely difficult to remain rational whilst in a state of fear - and therefore easy to make mistakes.
Money can make a very good servant, but a dreadful master.
-IainB (April 08, 2013, 07:22 PM)
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What you said agrees with what I had said before, elsewhere, about not investing in objects to which you can easily become emotionally attached, or are symbolic (investing huge sums on an engagement ring for your bride is the first that comes to mind). That attachment reduces the value of the object to $0, because the attachment will stand in your way of ever selling it. You can't cash in on sentimental value. The only thing you can buy with it is regret.
There is no room for emotions of any kind in investing. Good investing is done cold, without feeling, nothing like love or fear to misguide you or stand in your way.
Tinman57:
Well....I'm no financial genius or stock market expert, but I think I'll just keep my cash in a money market account, even if the interest rates are for crap. Thanks once again Uncle Sam. >:(
But I do know that I just popped open a bottle of Samual Adams Alpine Springs Ale, and it's just soooooo good it very well may lead to another. If nothing else it will at least make me forget all about this head cold I have and the for-crap finances the U.S. is sweltering under. But then again, this isn't the forum for that..... :beerchug:
40hz:
It seems to bother you a lot it not being backed by anything, yet you seem accepting of the same thing with the dollar (or am I misunderstanding your position there?)
-tomos (April 08, 2013, 03:14 PM)
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Not misunderstanding. More me not making myself clear. Which comes from not sufficiently elaborating because I was trying to do a post on a smartphone. ;D
By "not backed by anything" I meant anything - as in nada.
There is no government enforcement, no sanctioned exchange system with any regulatory clout behind it, no specie or standard of valuation - and above all, no legal status protecting it.
If somebody cleans out my bank account I have several very direct avenues of legal recourse. If somebody swipes my bitcoin wallet, who am I supposed to call?
Although many who are into the whole "pirate" thing are quick to dismiss (or simply diss) government, it still has its uses. One is that it possesses the means (legal and physical) to enforce its will. And that's significant. Because bitcoin does not.
If you burn bitcoin, what can bitcoin actually do? Threaten a civil suit? And because of its decentralized P2P structure - who exactly has legal status to file a suit anyway? And for what? Since bitcoins have little if any legal recognition (so far) it may be very hard to establish they actually have any genuine value.
And therein lies the fundamental problem with crypto-currencies IMO. Currencies are only as good as your ability to make them (emphasis on make) mean something. In the case of the US dollar, it's backed by Uncle Sam's promise to tax US citizens unto the umpteenth generation to make good on what the dollar is said to represent. Behind that pledge is the full productive capacity, labor force, natural resources, and military might of the United States - which the government holds a great deal of control and influence over.
That's what I mean by "backed by something" as opposed to bitcoin which strikes me as primarily being a small mutual admiration society attempting to do an end run around government backed currencies. Unfortunately, short of a complete economic collapse of the world monetary system - it just isn't going to happen.
Bitcoins could (in theory) fill a vacuum in places where the legal currency did collapse. (But so could a lot of other things like cigarette packs.) However, an attempt to create a parallel monetary system in places where it hasn't is simply not going to be allowed - both for bad reasons - and also for some extremely good ones. And that will remain the case no matter how many people and places sign on to accept bitcoins as a form payment.
f0dder:
The initiator of the Bitcoin experiment went under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Towards the end of 2010 Satoshi apparently left the project saying he had moved on to other things.-IainB (April 08, 2013, 07:22 PM)
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* Come up with a processing-intensive alternative currency.
* Write efficient botnet code.
* ...?
* Profit!
SKA:
Another guess on bitcoin future:
http://www.naturalnews.com/039830_bitcoin_bubble_crash.html
Ska
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