Posted on 12/18/2017 7:02:41 AM PST by Enlightened1
Would you rather own 100% of Wal-Mart or every Bitcoin in existence? At one point such a question would have been completely absurd, but now things have changed. As I write this article, Wal-Mart has a market cap of 287.68 billion dollars. Wal-Mart is the king of the retail industry in America, and nobody else is even close. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is an entirely digital creation that did not even exist until 2009. No government or central bank in the entire world recognizes it as a legitimate currency, and there are very, very few retail establishments that are willing to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. And yet at this moment, Bitcoin has a market cap of 310 billion dollars.
When the year began, Bitcoin had just crossed the $1,000 threshold, and now it is selling for more than $18,000. Of course other cryptocurrencies have been rising at an even faster pace. We have never seen anything quite like this before, and some are warning that this is a giant bubble that is about to burst…
Axel Weber, the board chairman of big bank UBS, has warned of a possible Bitcoin currency crash. With increasing numbers of small investors jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon, it is time for regulators to intervene, he says.
Bitcoin has surged from $1,000 (CHF990) at the start of the year to above $16,000.
The risks are due to a design fault, which leads to huge currency swings in both directions, Weber said in an interview with the NZZ am Sonntagexternal link.
(Excerpt) Read more at theeconomiccollapseblog.com ...
Their employees can’t be all bad if WM is so valuable. I haven’t had any issues with the employees. Ever. I’m nice to them, and they respond in like manner. They’re always working, too. Never saw one standing around (except at the fitting room).
Not fighting any war.... Bubbles are Bubbles.... great ride up... hell of a ride down... Just hope you wind up on the right side of the slope
No electricity, almost all current currencies will be worthless.
Bullets and food will be worth more than gold.
The Internet is much tougher than most governments, so bitcoin is likely to outlast most government currencies.
If you can physically possess a key drive, you can possess bitcoin.
You must live in the North. I’ve been in Walmarts up North that had flowers in the bathrooms. In the South they’re usually in severe need of cleaning. And lots of attitudes need adjusting. And don’t even think about ordering something online to be shipped to a local store. You might get it.... someday.
I saw a piece the other day predicting the eventual collapse of “bitcoin”.It said,among other things,”try buying a car...or a house...with bitcoin”.
“Bullets and food will be worth more than gold.”
And bitcoin will be absolutely worthless.
It’s the perfect scheme for greedy speculators.
“Bullets and food will be worth more than gold.”
And bitcoin will be absolutely worthless.
So? Cash will be worthless too. Credit cards.. worthless.
When society boots back up, Bitcoin would come back up. Cash... not so much.
Last week I converted $4000.00 of BTC & LTC to USD and bought a TV this weekend paying cash. At my US$ cost basis the TV cost me ~$300.00.
What percentage of bitcoin actually gets used as currency?
Can you carry it in a wheelbarrow to buy bread?
Try doing the same with gold.
You are describing the Etherium network.
About $700 each.
Bitcoin’s popularity shows the worlds great mistrust of government backed currencies.
I haven’t checked recently but I believe you can use bitcoins to buy games on Steam, buy products on Amazon, without converting it to a govt currency first — they have contracted out that role. You probably are better off converting it to a govt currency first however.
A popular web browser here, Brave, is experimenting with using bitcoins to make very small donations to websites you support. Micro transactions are a big attraction of bitcoins. A very neat idea.
Bitcoins biggest danger comes from the usual suspects...government intervention, manipulation, competition, and fraud.
Bitcoins should be supported on this website because it increases personal liberty. Why does a currency have to be subordinated to a govt ...that certainly screws you left and right manipulating its own currency to its benefit.
I would not be surprised to see an official US Govt backed version of bitcoin in the future.
I agree that Walmart is a stock. It has assets and earnings.
Bitcoin is not a stock. It is more akin to a commodity or currency. The value is based on an agreement of value between two parties.
A dollar used to be a dollar based on its weight in Gold and/or silver. That is not the case any longer.
Value is ALWAYS determined between two parties. You might not like the valuation, but that is how it works.
And the dollar is backed by the Full Faith and Credit of the US.
What does that mean today? I means it backed by a government that is $20 trillion in debt and who owns the world biggest printing press.
I am not sure who is living in “make-believe” land.
Exactly correct. Value is entirely subjective.
And what is the expectation that the electric grid will go down? All over the world. All at once.
Your argument is ridiculous. You have to do better than just repeating the same old BS arguments from two or three years ago.
My final comment today is that if you think you are living in a world where digital currency is “in the future” you really need to get a grip on how transactions occur every day: About 95-97% of ALL transactions these days are done electronically. And they are done in a way that is horribly insecure, and subject to surveillance by both the government and the bad guys. (Sometimes the gov is the bad guys, but we all know that!)
Bitcoin is a method for moving value from one to place another without regard for borders or interference from the IRS or the NSA. Nor is there a bank picking off a little bit of every transaction, every step along the way.
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