Does that apply to the guy who bought at $1700!!!
Posted on 02/19/2016 10:06:48 AM PST by Citizen Zed
For years the conventional wisdom in finance has been that bitcoins are a silly technological game, a bubble, and a fad.
Today: Not so much.
Bitcoins have just gotten serious, and people are going to have to start paying attention to this digital currency. That means investors, governments, and those trying to fight crime as well.
This was already true even before the news out of California that criminals just used bitcoins to extort $17,000 in blackmail from a hospital and make, so far, a clean getaway.
Bitcoins are booming. They have doubled in price in the last six months. Indeed bitcoins were actually the best performing currency in the world last year. I ran an exhaustive screen on FactSet, making sure to include everything from the Afghanistan afghani (down 16% against the U.S. dollar DXY, -0.19% ) to the Zambian kwacha (down 42%). Bitcoin trounced them all. The dollar value of each bitcoin jumped 40% during 2015, from $310 to $434. (The currency in second place, the Gambian dalasi of all things, was nowhere near: It rose just 9% against the U.S. dollar.).
At current prices, the total value of bitcoins in the world now tops $6 billion. That's quite some "fad."
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Gold will probably outperform this year.
The gold thing is a scam.
Is the point of this article that I have to take Bitcoin seriously because the price is going up? Isn’t that the definition of a bubble?
It’s no more of a scam than is any other commodity. Just like any other commodity, the price rises and falls. Traders who don’t know how to trade typically think markets are “scams,” or are “manipulated,” when they can’t trade their way out of a paper box, or because they think the only trade is to go long.
Grow up.
Is your comment missing a /s sarcasm mark?
Holding physical gold is one means of preserving wealth. Nations and individuals have commonly used precious metals holdings as insurance in case of serious economic downturn.
China and other countries have been loading up on gold in advance of an expected global economic market / currency crash.
Kitco.com provides precious metals trading news, long term trends in case your interested in researching further.
Admittedly I don’t think anyone is sure if we’ll see deflation or inflation ahead, both of which can affect the price of gold.
RE: “The gold thing is a scam”
Don't sell. Diversify and get both (like I have). People might laugh at bitcoin, but it is a very important and serious innovation. Especially when the western central banks are talking about eliminating cash and imposing negative interest rates, bitcoin is an arrow in your financial quiver against the fiat currency statists.
However, Like I said earlier, significant position in electronic currency is very dangerous, as with no sovereign tying benchmark, a rapid decline would not be hard to envision. Hedging it as a guard against negative interest rates is highly not recommened.
“It’s no more of a scam than is any other commodity. “
If gold was better that money, only a scammer would part with it. (for money) smh
I wonder why these companies aren’t daily backing up their hard drives???
Yes, there certainly is risk in btc. Don’t put in more than you are willing to lose. Btc is undergoing growing pains right now, with controversy over the so-called block size, a parameter built into the code.
That said, there are really talented developers in btc, and there is a lot of silicon valley VC money pouring into btc. With this concentrated effort by really smart guys, I analogize it to the beginnings of the internet in the early 90s. I think its worth the risk to tag along with the smart guys. But that’s just me.
Does that apply to the guy who bought at $1700!!!
“They have doubled in price in the last six months”
And yet are still worth only one third of what they were worth two years ago, which mean six months ago they were worth ONE SIXTH of what they worth 18 months prior to that!
And the rest of the article is complete gibberish as well, with not a single sentence to support the article’s contention that: “Bitcoins have *JUST* gotten serious”.
Having some PM in reserve is not a bad idea. I don’t think it replaces “money” as we currently know it, but the indicators are all over the place that NIRP is coming along with a possible monetary debasement. Couple that with louder and louder talk of becoming a cashless society, gold will become very precious as a way of keeping your transactions quiet and off the radar.
The drop was due to a couple reasons: A) the Chinese locking down their citizenry from trading in BTC. B) The thefts of wallets by trading sites (only a few, but significant). The Chinese are slowly getting back into the game and are also trading in LTC now (which really took a nose dive but seems to be slowly recovering).
What is in your bank account and your investment account but electronic currency?
Bitcoin is safer than the US dollar because unlike the dollar the US Federal Reserve can’t just generate Bitcoin when they feel like it.
Last I saw, I could write a check, take it to my broker or bank, and put my hands around the green. What's the portability of bitcoin?
Bitcoin safer than US Dollar?
Considering your currency has a Jekly/Hyde side as a commodity....... You might want to reconsider that statement.
Tell that to Megan. Since she is calling this a currency, this is equivalent of taking out a 2 Year CD and getting a -33% (negative) interest rate.
No thanks.
I don’t have any Bitcoin, just saying that it’s less prone to debasement than is the dollar.
My family has gold, silver, guns, and ammo saved up for a rainy day. We also have dollars, but we don’t trust in a government that no longer Trusts in God.
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