I’m sure I’ve said this on here somewhere…maybe even the first page, didn’t check.
Fun story: The first btc transaction was for two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. $100,000,000 pizzas. Better not have been Papa Johns.
I have little knowledge on these coins and Blockchain tech, but I do somewhat understand the value in blockchain and the utility of the coins. What I don’t understand is how these coins are deriving a price. As you all know an asset is priced based on expected future cash flows in profit. I get all the hype on these coins. The tech sounds amazing but how is it possible to invest in a currency that has no gross production behind it? If I had a positive long term view of China’s economy I would invest in the currency CNY. Where will the tangible returns from these crypto coins come from? regarding on the utility of the coin itself. This tech can be replicated in another coin and fairly easily (thoughts?), so what happens when a small group of people own all of the bitcoins? What happens when the cost for gen pop to USE the bitcoins goes up. Wouldn’t then people just use another cheaper coin to do transactions?
I’m not sure if I make any sense up there but basically what im saying is i think the tech and utility is great but i don’t get how an individual coin is gaining sooo much value without having any tangible returns
The guys who value the pure currencies like block chain often reference the amount of money transferred from one country to another. The crypto currencies allow this to be much cheaper and convenient, if they have stable prices.
If you are interested, listen to Patrick O’shaughnessy hash power podcasts series.
Anyone else sick of hearing about bitcoin? I mean I ignore this stuff, but it’s just everywhere, such that I can’t ignore. Bitcoin futures, mega run-up, then a 20% crash yesterday.
Can it just go up 10,000%, and then crash the global economy, so we can be done with it already. 
How do you value gold?
I will short for half a year with one month increments whenever a fairly liquid put options becomes available before the bubble bursts. I spend 2 hours googling it when it hit 11k… unfortunately nothing available yet via Interactive Brokers…
I love that we can see the bubble frenzy play out right in front of us. If you take a step back its becomes so rediculous how everybody is getting caught up in this. I see all the cliches, all the emotions, fear of missing out, etc.
Actually I’m going on a limp here and call 11k the top. We will see it pop in 2 days.
top isn’t here yet. i haven’t seen any bitcoin-themed license plates yet.
Gold has value because it can be made into jewelry also governments back the value of gold. Go back to cave man years and one nugget of nice looking gold can get you some food etc… I know with bitcoin you cant go back to “cave man years” but today if i wanted food i can use fiat currency with no transaction costs and as you know fiat is backed by a gov that has GDP unlike these coins.
But governments can devalue these currencies by printing money while there is a finite amount of BTC available and thus more can not just be created to my knowledge and would require the majority of BTC miners/nodes accepting such a change to do it.
buy oil. shit’s finite too. lol
Let’s see, the definition of investment is "after thorough analysis it offers safety of principal and satisfactory return "
so based on that op bitcoin is not an investment but a speculation
Neither of these are true. The industrial uses of gold are much lesser than cheaper metals. And governments don’t back gold?
Every government has gold reserves in case their currency goes through a crisis. If the governments don’t back gold then why would every single developed country hold huge amounts of it? They all definitely believe its value to be stable into the future and would all trade large amounts of goods and services for it.
^its a good point. 75% of us forex reserves are gold. and everyone uses the usd to back their currency. so gold is the real deal in terms of forex reserves. but gold does not determine us currency so its all a moot point. us gdp performance, productivity, amount of printing or level of credit (aka inflation). is probably a better measure of currency strength.
honestly. if i was govt. id unload the gold for real assets like stocks, real estate. why people hold gold is beyond. we dont need jewelry. waste of faqin $$. https://www.sbcgold.com/blog/top-6-common-uses-for-gold/
I think bitcoin still is a really good investment. and probably will be a for a very long time period. I am not certain how much yet it can grow, but it most certainly will.
You have it backwards. Governments don’t back gold. Gold backs governments.
That’s why gold has value.
You at least have long-term historical relationships with currencies, the money supply, other commodities, etc. With gold, you can also look at the cost of producing it. Public companies report cash cost per ounce of gold produced, as well as sustaining capex per ounce. It varies widely by mine but if I remember correctly, $900-$1,000/oz is kind of an important range for the miners (its close to an average of all-in sustaining cost of gold per ounce). The price of gold can obviously go lower than cost (*probably* not in the long-term), but it is another relevant reference point when looking at the market cost of gold. You can use a blend of reference points to get to an estimated fair value for gold.
We don’t have any of that with bitcoin. It is kind of anybody’s guess on what fair value should be.
i’m balls deep in bitcoin right now… got in a US$3k…
^
atta boy
That was a very literal, good answer. bchad would be proud. Not exactly my point but I enjoyed the reply.
We can estimate the costs to mine btc too. I haven’t ever thought of trying, but the marginal cost of creating an additional bitcoin has become extremely expensive. Not apples to apples with mining gold, but it’s something that should probably be considered that I haven’t heard anyone talk about.