Crypto Investment for long term

[iminhell1]

LOL


https://www.google.com/search?q=El+S...hrome&ie=UTF-8

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by BRAKE!

If I buy bitcoin for $40k today, it's only worth $40k as long as new, eager ppl are willing to invest in it.

Originally Posted by iminhell1

Bitcoin is an investment.

There's investing, there's speculating, and there's gambling.

Guess which bucket Bitcoin belongs in – not that there's anything wrong with that!

----------------------------------

Here are a couple of thoughts from a well-known investor by the name of Warren Buffett:

"The answer is we will never buy anything we don’t think we understand. And our definition of understanding is thinking that we have a reasonable probability of being able to assess where the business will be in 10 years."

"Something like bitcoin, it is a gambling token and it doesn't have any intrinsic value. But that doesn't stop people from wanting to play the roulette wheel. The urge to participate in something where it looks like easy money is a human instinct"

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

[iminhell1]

Originally Posted by dradernh

There's investing, there's speculating, and there's gambling.

What bucket is stock in?
Commodities?
Land?


My definition of investing is tangible things. Land, commodities or the like. Stocks are gambling.

Buffet is a good gambler. He's done well to bet on things that people will need and need more of in the future, services, energy, etc.

[Monkey Throttle]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

LOL


https://www.google.com/search?q=El+S...hrome&ie=UTF-8

Crypto was at $16k when that was written.
It’s now at $44k and about to get a Spot ETF.

Old news is old news.

[Monkey Throttle]

Originally Posted by dradernh

Here are a couple of thoughts from a well-known investor by the name of Warren Buffett:

"The answer is we will never buy anything we don’t think we understand. And our definition of understanding is thinking that we have a reasonable probability of being able to assess where the business will be in 10 years."

"Something like bitcoin, it is a gambling token and it doesn't have any intrinsic value. But that doesn't stop people from wanting to play the roulette wheel. The urge to participate in something where it looks like easy money is a human instinct"

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

There are a lot of Bitcoin heavy hitters that flipped from being anti-Bitcoin as it normalized. Larry Fink is the CEO of Blackrock which has $10 Trillion under management. He was notoriously anti-BTC —- until he wasn’t.
Same with Michael Saylor.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

What bucket is stock in?
Commodities?
Land?

My definition of investing is tangible things. Land, commodities or the like. Stocks are gambling.

Buffet is a good gambler. He's done well to bet on things that people will need and need more of in the future, services, energy, etc.

Stocks? Which stock is the question, and Buffett's the prime example of how to answer it if you want to be a winner over the long term when investing in individual stocks.

Gamblers are not looking ten years out; ergo, Buffett is not a gambler. Those of us here who are looking ten and more years out are generally better served by index funds and the like. In that context, this calculator can be useful to see what the possibilities were during recent years and decades: https://ofdollarsanddata.com/sp500-calculator/.

I've known a number of gamblers on stocks, all very smart and professionally successful people. The stocks they gambled on – which were small parts of their overall portfolios – were nowhere near decade-long plays. They would've been much smarter gambling on Walmart, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, TSMC, and yes, Berkshire Hathaway, back before they became the monsters they are today. Not knowing how the world was going to turn out, however, they gambled on other stocks.

Commodities? Always speculation and often gambling. I favor gold as an example.

Land? It's another commodity and requires a high level of sophistication and, frequently, favorable connections to know a piece of it is a legitimate investment before you buy it. Been there, done that, and seen it successfully carried-off by those better than me.

Just my 2¢.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by Monkey Throttle

Crypto was at $16k when that was written.
It’s now at $44k and about to get a Spot ETF.

Old news is old news.

Your sell is a hard one. Behind every hard sell is self-interest. What is yours?

[Redd]

Upfront confession - I believe in BTC. I don't believe in any of the other cryptos or their associated trading methods/vehicles.

I got into BTC when it was 4k. Needless to say I've made some money. The way I treat BTC is like gold - as a store of value. And I only hold for long-term value appreciation. It's worked out very very well for me. No one talks about BTC being a currency anymore. That boat has long sailed.

At the same time, I've seen many many people - myself included - lose money on all the associated trading methods/vehicles, ICOs, NFT, whatnot that have come to be associated with crypto. Half of those are scams anyway.

The problem with crypto is that the layman lumps them all together. If one ICO is a scam, then all crypto is a scam. I'm way past trying to convince anyone that BTC is good or whatever. When prices are up it's the next great thing in global finance. When it's down BTC is the work of the devil. Rinse and repeat.

As far as I am concerned, only BTC and ETH are worthwhile investments, and only if you take a very long view. Why do I say that? Well, there are a total of about 400 million BTC wallets in the world today, against a global population of 8 billion. Only 5% of the world have got into BTC. What happens when the other 95% slowly wake up and join the party? Anyone expecting to get rich quick on crypto is either going to be very very lucky or very very poor.

[Monkey Throttle]

Originally Posted by dradernh

Your sell is a hard one. Behind every hard sell is self-interest. What is yours?

Bragging rights 😉

For real though. I believe in it. And I want to share my research/knowledge. If someone buys cause I share my education and it hits and they throw me a, “thanks that was awesome” I’ll be fulfilled.

I’ve always found newsgroups like this to be extremely helpful/beneficial. An awesome place to exchange ideas/help/information.
I just wanna give back.

[xander_g]

Nobody wants to get rich slowly.

So far the only things crypto seems to be consistently used for is money laundering, fraud and other illegal activities.

Things may change in the future but as of today, I do not believe it to be an worthy investment vehicle.

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by Monkey Throttle

I’ve always found newsgroups like this to be extremely helpful/beneficial. An awesome place to exchange ideas/help/information.
I just wanna give back.

To speculate, only use money that you don't need. Sound advice of Feb 2002 by Warren Buffett: "After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out." (https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/20...001letter.html).

If also NFTs used to get your interest in the past, read for example this (spoiler: NFTs didn't age well):
"Are NFTs really dead and buried? All signs point to ‘yes’" (October 2023):
https://theconversation.com/are-nfts...-to-yes-214145

Excerpt:

"As with Bitcoin and similar speculative tokens, the primary driver for buying NFTs was greed. Seeing the initial price rises, people hoped they too could make huge profits. NFTs are essentially a superficially sophisticated form of gambling. Like Bitcoin, they have no fundamental value.
Generally, one would only profit from buying an NFT by finding a “greater fool” willing to pay even more for it. So there was never a shortage of people – including some quite famous ones – talking them up and hoping to instil a fear of missing out. (...)
For a while there were large increases in the prices of many NFTs. But like all speculative bubbles, it was likely to end in tears. Although it’s almost impossible to predict when a bubble for a speculative asset will burst, we have seen this process play out before.
Centuries ago there were the Dutch tulip, South Sea and Mississippi bubbles. Around 1970, there was a speculative bubble in the shares of nickel miner Poseidon. Then came the Beanie Baby and dotcom booms of the late 1990s – and more recently, meme stocks and Terra-Luna cryptocurrency. (...)
A recent report covering about 73,000 NFTs estimated 70,000 are now valued at zero. This leaves 23 million people holding a worthless “asset”.
One high-profile example is an NFT of the first tweet by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi bought this NFT for US$2.9 million in March 2021. When he tried to sell it a year later the top bid was US$6,800."

February 1637: speculative tulip bulb trade collapsed abruptly in The Netherlands:

[BRAKE!]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

What bucket is stock in?
Commodities?
Land?

My definition of investing is tangible things. Land, commodities or the like. Stocks are gambling.

Buffet is a good gambler. He's done well to bet on things that people will need and need more of in the future, services, energy, etc.

Any of those things you mentioned can be a means for gambling if you behave as a flipper (buying something for the sole reason to sell it to someone else for a profit).

Stocks are an excellent way to invest your money (if done through a broad market, no-load, low turn over, low expensive ratio, tax efficient index fund) - investing at its core foundation is pouring capital into companies to help them produce good/services which benefits the world; thus, by growing the economy as a whole (increase in GDP), you then end up with your share of the profits in the form of capital gains and dividends. It's worked FABULOUSLY well as a long term investment for over a century. I struggle to name something else where you can simply put money into, do absolutely NOTHING, and then get an inflation adjusted return of ~7-8% (Not to mention the magic of compound interest...)

Also, idk if I would categorize Warren (and Charlie) as a 'gambler.' They are/were true investors. They buy good companies in sectors they understand which have an 'edge' against their competitors and hold onto them for decades, if not eternity. Warren and Charlie's favorite holding period for the S&P 500 index fund is, forever. In other words, they are not speculators (which is why they don't dabble in commodities like Bitcoin).

I think the better person to categorize as a gambler would be someone like Ray Dalio who ran the world's largest hedge fund and constantly (in his words) "played the markets."

[Monkey Throttle]

Originally Posted by Artemis

To speculate, only use money that you don't need. Sound advice of Feb 2002 by Warren Buffett: "After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out." (https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/20...001letter.html).

If also NFTs used to get your interest in the past, read for example this (spoiler: NFTs didn't age well):
"Are NFTs really dead and buried? All signs point to ‘yes’" (October 2023):
https://theconversation.com/are-nfts...-to-yes-214145

Excerpt:

"As with Bitcoin and similar speculative tokens, the primary driver for buying NFTs was greed. Seeing the initial price rises, people hoped they too could make huge profits. NFTs are essentially a superficially sophisticated form of gambling. Like Bitcoin, they have no fundamental value.
Generally, one would only profit from buying an NFT by finding a “greater fool” willing to pay even more for it. So there was never a shortage of people – including some quite famous ones – talking them up and hoping to instil a fear of missing out. (...)
For a while there were large increases in the prices of many NFTs. But like all speculative bubbles, it was likely to end in tears. Although it’s almost impossible to predict when a bubble for a speculative asset will burst, we have seen this process play out before.
Centuries ago there were the Dutch tulip, South Sea and Mississippi bubbles. Around 1970, there was a speculative bubble in the shares of nickel miner Poseidon. Then came the Beanie Baby and dotcom booms of the late 1990s – and more recently, meme stocks and Terra-Luna cryptocurrency. (...)
A recent report covering about 73,000 NFTs estimated 70,000 are now valued at zero. This leaves 23 million people holding a worthless “asset”.
One high-profile example is an NFT of the first tweet by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi bought this NFT for US$2.9 million in March 2021. When he tried to sell it a year later the top bid was US$6,800."

February 1637: speculative tulip bulb trade collapsed abruptly in The Netherlands:

Attachment 3359167

I wish I was as good as articulating Bitcoin as some of the people I follow. The more you learn about it the more you learn its comparison to tulip bulbs, magic beans or think it only has use as a Ponzi scheme or money laundering is completely dismissive of the the truth of what Bitcoin is and how important it will continue to be in our future.

Regardless if you like Tucker Carlson or he makes your skin crawl,
He did a fantastic, comprehensive interview with Michael Saylor who speaks incredibly intelligently about Bitcoin. I highly recommend everyone watches it.
(I do not watch Carlson but caught this and was impressed about the information delivered.)

Also, I do not preach NFTs. I don’t know enough about them and I don’t like ‘em. At least not yet. So let’s seperate them in the convo of Bitcoin.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by Monkey Throttle

I just wanna give back.

How so, as it's not particularly clear yet.

Can you be more specific?

[BRAKE!]

^ so looked up Michael Saylor and he left his main job to focus on bitcoin and through his holding company he owns 140,000 bitcoins. Sounds like he has some intrinsic motives to ensure Bitcoin's continued investment.

If this is so awesome, why is Michael Saylor so generously wanting others to join in? Is he doing this out of charity and the goodness of his heart to benefit the lives of others...? Or could it be that he's looking out for his best interest to keep Bitcoin prices high?

What would the world look like tomorrow if Bitcoin disappeared? Beside the investors losing money, would the world change in any measurable way? I do not think so. What would become more dangerous/not get done because bitcoin is no longer in existence?

So then, what is its actual worth and NEED for this in the world?

BTW, inflation is a natural part of an economic cycle. It has existed since the dawn of time and will continue to do so. Plus, The Federal Reserve exists to resolve the issue already.

[Monkey Throttle]

Originally Posted by dradernh

How so, as it's not particularly clear yet.

Can you be more specific?

Same reason why we might come onto a forum like this and share why others might want to try a particular tire or coilovers or tune for their car.
For whatever reason, we like to exchange information with one another in newsgroups.

Are you suggesting that I get some benefit of the minimal numbers of people who read these threads? Tbh, if everyone who ever visited this OT lounge bought multiple Bitcoins it wouldn’t move any needles. Wall St. is coming into the space. Wall St. is knocking down the door. And this happens to be a time when retail investors can front run the banks.

So again, I’m sharing with all of you in the same way I share with my friends IRL. It’s fun to win together. It’s fun to talk about.
I also used to teach so I have an inherent trait to want to articulate/share knowledge. I apologize if this has offended you.

But I literally have nothing to sell you. This isn’t a sales pitch where I have some product im hacking. I’m telling you the same style of information I would share with a someone who just bought a sports car and I’m trying to encourage them to do a track day. I don’t get anything out of it other than a friend at the track.

[Monkey Throttle]

Originally Posted by BRAKE!

^ so looked up Michael Saylor and he left his main job to focus on bitcoin and through his holding company he owns 140,000 bitcoins. Sounds like he has some intrinsic motives to ensure Bitcoin's continued investment.

If this is so awesome, why is Michael Saylor so generously wanting others to join in? Is he doing this out of charity and the goodness of his heart to benefit the lives of others...? Or could it be that he's looking out for his best interest to keep Bitcoin prices high?

What would the world look like tomorrow if Bitcoin disappeared? Beside the investors losing money, would the world change in any measurable way? I do not think so. What would become more dangerous/not get done because bitcoin is no longer in existence?

So then, what is its actual worth and NEED for this in the world?

BTW, inflation is a natural part of an economic cycle. It has existed since the dawn of time and will continue to do so. Plus, The Federal Reserve exists to resolve the issue already.

The reason I refer to Saylor is because he proselytizes Bitcoin extraordinarily well. He also puts his money where his mouth is. He has hundreds of millions of dollars of his personal wealth and exponentially more of his corporate treasury invested in Bitcoin. But that doesn’t negate the quality of his arguments. I suggest you listen to him. Just give him a chance and hear what he’s saying before you dismiss it.

Don’t like him? Okay, listen to Raoul Pal or Cathie Woods or Mark Yusko. These are all Wall St or technology based venture capitalists, analysts, etc. and they articulate Bitcoins importance and future really well.

If you’re willing for a second to consider Bitcoin might not be tulip bulbs, I’m happy to direct you to material that explains it further.
- it might just be a once in a lifetime generational wealth building tool that protects assets against treasury and banking interference with your money.

Also, what we are experiencing now is widely considered not to be inflation but rather currency debasement. Inflation in classic sense is a change in supply and demand. But in reality, there hasn’t been a drastic change in supply and demand. What has been happening since the pandemic is over printing of FIAT. In the last 4 years there has been an equal amount of new money printed to the entire total of money that had ever been printed prior in the history before the pandemic.
Your buying power has decreased because so much new money has been printed… all over the world. And this printing of money has no end in sight. We keep printing more to service the debt interest let alone the principal. It is a stealth tax on your wealth.

Because Bitcoin has a finite number of maximum mined coins, it works in the opposite manner. It is scarce. And the amount of new bitcoins that can be mined, the rewards, they get cut in half every 4 years. So as your FIAT becomes less valuable because of over printing, Bitcoin becomes more valuable as it becomes more scarce.

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by Monkey Throttle

Same reason why we might come onto a forum like this and share why others might want to try a particular tire or coilovers or tune for their car.
For whatever reason, we like to exchange information with one another in newsgroups.

I understand that you are enthusiastic about promoting bitcoin.

But, as a word of caution: do beware of echo chambers as ideal breeding grounds for 'followers', confirmation bias and hype. Those may blind you for the downsides and dangers of the possibility of (very) bad experiences.

If a forum member over here shares his experience about a particular tire, a set of coilovers, a tune or some experience, others may chime in to express a different point of view. That's more balanced.

[Monkey Throttle]

Originally Posted by Artemis

I understand that you are enthusiastic about promoting bitcoin.

But, as a word of caution: do beware of echo chambers as ideal breeding grounds for 'followers', confirmation bias and hype. Those may blind you for the downsides and dangers of the possibility of (very) bad experiences.

If a forum member over here shares his experience about a particular tire, a set of coilovers, a tune or some experience, others may chime in to express a different point of view. That's more balanced.

Tbh, I think a balanced view of BTC is what I shared in the first thread. It’s a volatile, relatively new technology with extremely high reward potential but also has its challenges as it’s politicized. Simultaneously a lot of people have previously bought high and sold low and lost a lot wealth. There are black swans that can derail it and no one should over invest in it.

I only recommend having some. Don’t sell your house. Don’t liquidate your retirement account. But the risk/reward balance is so favorable right now that it’s a smart time to dip in. The next 12-18 months should be very exciting with Blackrock, Fidelity and Vanguard all getting ready to push their corporate clients into their new ETF product

[Llarry]

If only I didn't have my portfolio totally tied up in tulips...

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by Monkey Throttle

The next 12-18 months should be very exciting with Blackrock, Fidelity and Vanguard all getting ready to push their corporate clients into their new ETF product

Better be cautious with "very exciting" economic markets predictions.

Off-topic: FWIW, from hindsight, the 'yield spread' has been interesting to spot recessions over the past 70 years.

Posted this in July 2019:

Originally Posted by Artemis

Fasten your seat belts for 2020, folks. Looks like storm is coming.






(source: here, here and here)

Evolution of the 'yield spread' ever since (Nov-Dec 2023):




Today (Jan 2024):

• https://journal.firsttuesday.us/usin...coveries/2933/
• https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y3M
• https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y

And about the jinxed year 2020:

"Each time since 1960 that the yield spread went negative we were in a recession approximately 12 months later.
Going into 2020, the likelihood of a decline in general business and real estate activities over the next 12 months was already high as the spread dipped below zero in 2019. However, the added pressure of the global pandemic and financial crash pushed what was to be a normal recession into one of larger significance. The potential devastation was too much for the government to bear, and so an unprecedented level of stimulus was injected into the economy, ultimately pushing inflation to rise rapidly, setting up the economy for the next recession."

[BRAKE!]

Originally Posted by Monkey Throttle

The reason I refer to Saylor is because he proselytizes Bitcoin extraordinarily well. He also puts his money where his mouth is... I suggest you listen to him. Just give him a chance and hear what he’s saying before you dismiss it.

Also, what we are experiencing now is widely considered not to be inflation but rather currency debasement. Inflation in classic sense is a change in supply and demand. But in reality, there hasn’t been a drastic change in supply and demand. What has been happening since the pandemic is over printing of FIAT... And this printing of money has no end in sight.

Because Bitcoin has a finite number of maximum mined coins, it works in the opposite manner. It is scarce... they get cut in half every 4 years... Bitcoin becomes more valuable as it becomes more scarce.

Monkey Throttle, I do applaud your stance on Bitcoin and recognize that you were put in a difficult place of defending it since the first post. I also want to acknowledge that, you may be right about making $ in Bitcoin in the next few years - it certainly can go up exponentially.

But, I have formed my opinions about it precisely because I have listened to those ppl you mentioned above. I even listed to Michael Saylor redefining inflation multiple times in that video to fit his rhetoric. To me, the fact remains that this is a novel, but unnecessary tool for speculators to make a lot of money in a quick period. It is, in essence, the most high tech, highly advertised get-rich-quick scheme in today's world. It also comes with an aura of legitimacy because it uses blockchain as its secure store. But there are A LOT of red flags that just aren't addressed.

What we are experiencing right now is inflation. This occurred because of the pandemic where Gov't and The Fed took drastic measures to prevent a catastrophic depression that could have occurred due to the WORLD economy shutting down. It engineered a false sense of profit and safety in an effort to prevent further decline in human life amidst a virus that was causing millions to die. Now, did they over do it? Absolutely. It makes no sense that ppl are out of work and businesses are making less, selling less and yet cars/houses/etc were being bought $50-200k over asking price. The Fed did print too much money.

However, they did NOT print this money in an effort to devalue or debase the US currency. They did it to help ppl, and the inflation that occurred was an unfortunate side effect. This is now being curtailed with significantly less money being printed, The Fed selling off government backed securities to reduce money in circulation, and raising Fed Funds rate to curtail consumer consumption and borrowing of money. This has worked in the past year and they will continue to chip away at it until they get back to their target inflation numbers. Have patience, they are trying to do this gently to "engineer a soft landing" so that we don't fall on our faces too hard into recession.

As I mentioned, Bitcoin runs on the greater fool theory. In order for Bitcoin to continue to increase in its value you need new investors to constantly pay into its system. It produces NOTHING and does NOTHING on its own otherwise. So, yes, it can be a fabulous way to double your money as long as you have new 'fools' willing to pay whatever cost to keep its 'magic' going. However, it can just as easily go the other way - when Bitcoin is not accepted universally as currency and ppl stop investing into it - then what is it worth? Nothing. Just look at what happened to Sam Bankman-Fried.

Regardless, I genuinely hope you do make $ in Bitcoin just consider these alternative views for yourself too.