Cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, Litecoin etc. - do you have any?

[mwgdrwg]

Just making a poll as there is some discussion about how mainstream owning cryptocurrency has become (not that Urban is a true representation of the mainstream!). It's increasingly being advertised as an investment on the tube and all over the place. Are you in, or are you out?

 

[Pickman's model]

Let me check under the sofa

 

[bimble]

i think maybe you should've made it anonymous.

 

[joustmaster]

I work in the computer industry, and have been part of the bitcoin world since they were worth a couple of pence. I've been trying to get people interested in it for years. People mostly ignore me.

But over the last 2 or 3 months I've seen loads of friends who have virtually zero computer knowledge or skill start asking about it and some even "investing" 50 - 200 quid

 

[mwgdrwg]

i think maybe you should've made it anonymous.

Umm. It is?

e2a: Can you see who voted for what?

 

[bimble]

mwgdrwg it is, sorry (looked like it wasn't at first).
Anyway from these results I'm clearly right, 57% of the population are already in.

 

[danny la rouge]

how mainstream owning cryptocurrency has become

Not at all, if my experience is anything to go by. People never know what it is whenever I try to discuss it.

 

[DotCommunist]

I know one person who knows what it is irl and he uses it to buy drugs, bit of a faff if you ask me.

 

[Whagwan]

I used loads to buy drugs over the last five years. Now I wish I just bought the drugs and saved the BTC, expecially when I was mining litecoin and converting to BTC and then buying drugs.

Oh well, still got about a grand (worth) of 'em. Every month I round my weed order up and store it as BTC.

 

[bimble]

According to this it's less than 0.1% of the global population involved so far. Also says that the number of new people is probably what's making the bubble get so big.
Bitcoin nears $10,000 mark as hedge funds plough in

 

[Dr. Furface]

Got a few hundred quids worth a few weeks ago, but I'm kicking myself for not bothering earlier.

I was going to get some about 5 years ago when I was working with a guy who bought £30 worth and said he was just going to hold them and see how they went - if he's still got em, they'll be worth fucking thousands now.

 

[lefteri]

Probably will, not Bitcoin though

 

[ChrisFilter]

Had £4 left in an account from a couple of years ago. Now worth £180. Stuck another £50 in today. Might buy £50 a month and see what happens.

 

[mauvais]

Whatever bitcoin is, it is very much not an investment in any sense. It's a straight speculative gamble with no defined odds. Buy some if you like but be aware of what you're doing.

For balance, I said much the same several years ago. You would have made a lot of money by ignoring my advice. However it was high risk then, and is high risk now. Good ideas are good ideas at the time, not just in retrospect.

Edit: some things that are bad investments:

- imaginary things that have no value
- things that everyone and their gran are investing in
- things where hedge funds can fuck you
- pyramid schemes

 

[J Ed]

no officer

 

[bimble]

What ’investment’ is not a speculative gamble then? (Apart from tinned fish obviously)

 

[mauvais]

What ’investment’ is not a speculative gamble then? (Apart from tinned fish obviously)

Nothing. But the post wasn't about what is or isn't a gamble, it's about what is or isn't an investment.

If you were to invest in, say, oil, or the FTSE100, there's an associated bell curve, or something resembling one. At a push, oil might halve or double within a year, but it's extremely unlikely that anything will happen to it by a factor of ten. You could probably come up with a dozen real world scenarios that would result in a rise or fall of the price of a barrel of oil, and rate their likelihood. Some of that relates to market speculation & sentiment but a fundamental chunk of it relates to tangibles like supply and demand, e.g. the possibility of extra production or of war. Going long or short on oil would be a gamble but it would be one backed by some kind of hypothesis. With a strong enough hypothesis, it constitutes an investment, even if you're ultimately wrong.

You couldn't do this for Bitcoin. Bitcoin could be worthless (in dollars) in a matter of days for no good reason. The primary reason for an increase in price is other people wanting to buy Bitcoin. Thus a total collapse in value can be driven and self-perpetuated by a collapse in confidence. As kabbes points out on the other thread, it has no relation to economic activity or anything concrete in the real world. Any bet on Bitcoin is pretty much a pure gamble with unknown odds, and total gambles aren't investments.

 

[bimble]

Yes, understood. The money (not much) that i bought bitcoin with came to me unexpectedly and before doing it i had to be sure i was fine with completely losing it, as in a total gamble. I'm clueless but fascinated by the role of emotion / contagious sentiment in the whole of economics (gold prices going up when people are frightened etc) and in a way bitcoin is pure emotion, the madness of crowds distilled and uncoupled from any real world factors, as you say.

 

[mauvais]

Aye. Almost everything you can do wrong in trying to get a return on money - be it something resembling investment or actual gambling or anything in between - relates fairly directly to emotions, psychology and sociology.

 

[bimble]

Or as a result of meeting a charismatic long haired young bitcoin evangelist

 

[Brainaddict]

So, I bought a small amount of Ethereum last year and it's doing rather well. I understand that currency speculation in general and crypto speculation in particular is gambling rather than proper investment, and that you should only put in what you can afford to lose. That being a given, it's quite an interesting game to know when to take it out in a bull run. If I get it right it will be my post-pandemic holiday fund Anyone else doing the same?

 

[mauvais]

Why don't you withdraw some of it - e.g. your original stake - so that it's not all or nothing? Even better, have a plan to incrementally draw it down to satisfy your aim without leaving yourself fully exposed until the last minute.

 

[Serge Forward]

WWKDD? - what would Ken Dodd do?

 

[Throbbing Angel]

So, I bought a small amount of Ethereum last year and it's doing rather well. I understand that currency speculation in general and crypto speculation in particular is gambling rather than proper investment, and that you should only put in what you can afford to lose. That being a given, it's quite an interesting game to know when to take it out in a bull run. If I get it right it will be my post-pandemic holiday fund Anyone else doing the same?

I meant to do the same with Dogecoin, didn't, would have made a bit too

 

[Throbbing Angel]

WWKDD? - what would Ken Dodd do?

Fall off the roof?

 

[Serge Forward]

That was Rod Hull.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

That was Rod Hull.

I KNOW!1!!!1!

 

[Brainaddict]

Why don't you withdraw some of it - e.g. your original stake - so that it's not all or nothing? Even better, have a plan to incrementally draw it down to satisfy your aim without leaving yourself fully exposed until the last minute.

Yeah, I do aim to do something like that, just not quite ready to make the first withdrawal yet (which obv I may regret...).

There must be people on the boards with bitcoin - which has gone even wilder than ethereum. No-one wants to admit to crypto investment/speculation?

 

[strung out]

Yeah, I do aim to do something like that, just not quite ready to make the first withdrawal yet (which obv I may regret...).

There must be people on the boards with bitcoin - which has gone even wilder than ethereum. No-one wants to admit to crypto investment/speculation?

A few people on this thread.

 

[bimble]

I sold my bit of bitcoin a couple of years ago, would be worth loads of money now wouldn't it, never mind.