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Opinion: Here’s why you have to start taking bitcoin seriously
MarketWatch ^ | 2-19-2016 | Brett Arends

Posted on 02/19/2016 10:06:48 AM PST by Citizen Zed

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To: catfish1957

Don’t make this personal.


21 posted on 02/19/2016 12:19:33 PM PST by MeganC (The Republic of The United States of America: 7/4/1776 to 6/26/2015 R.I.P.)
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To: MeganC
I don’t have any Bitcoin, just saying that it’s less prone to debasement than is the dollar.

Bitcoin as a commodity it is a pure speculative play. I am not thrilled either with the state of our financial system (i.e $19T debt), but relying on bitcoin as your means of currency tender is rife with danger.

22 posted on 02/19/2016 12:26:46 PM PST by catfish1957 (I display the Confederate Battle Flag with pride in honor of my brave ancestors who fought w/ valor)
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To: MeganC

Sorry, didn’t mean to make it personal at all. Just trying to help. Have been serious investor for 35 years, and hate to see bad things happen to people.


23 posted on 02/19/2016 12:28:15 PM PST by catfish1957 (I display the Confederate Battle Flag with pride in honor of my brave ancestors who fought w/ valor)
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To: Citizen Zed

The amount of US Dollars, or saved money tied to US Dollars in the world equates to about 10.5 TRILLION dollars... Bitcoin WORLDWIDE estimates, according to this guy is 6 Billion.... So if you took all the bitcoin in the world and put it together, it would’t equate to .005% of all use currency...

Apply to the total amount of worldwide currency, and it becomes such a small percentage its statistically irrellevant... hell just compared to US cash its barely a rounding error.

No doubt 6 Billion dollars is a lot of money for a small group, but on a grand scale, its not even a hiccup on the monetary scale.


24 posted on 02/19/2016 12:28:50 PM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: catfish1957

Bitcoin went from 1200 to about 400 in 2 years.. sounds like a good investment to me </sarcasm>

Seriously, speculate all you want with Bitcoin, but don’t delude yourself into thinking its a safe play.


25 posted on 02/19/2016 12:30:59 PM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: HamiltonJay
Seriously, speculate all you want with Bitcoin, but don’t delude yourself into thinking its a safe play.

LOL...re-read my posts in this thread. :)

26 posted on 02/19/2016 12:32:18 PM PST by catfish1957 (I display the Confederate Battle Flag with pride in honor of my brave ancestors who fought w/ valor)
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To: MeganC
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.

Any artificial representation of value is totally dependent on people accepting its artificial value. I'm afraid the Mt. Gaack incident mortally wounded bitcoin, exposing the ease of stealing from the suckers.


27 posted on 02/19/2016 12:32:35 PM PST by 867V309 (Trump: Bull in a RINO Shoppe)
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To: catfish1957

Bitcoin is simply a decentralized electronic currency.

Euros and dollars are centralized electronic currencies.

And everything in life is a function of acceptable risk. For some people the benefits of Bitcoin outweigh the risks.

For you they don’t.

C’est la vie et vive la difference!


28 posted on 02/19/2016 12:33:05 PM PST by MeganC (The Republic of The United States of America: 7/4/1776 to 6/26/2015 R.I.P.)
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To: MeganC

Why would you think its less prone to debasement?

With each passing year the computing power needed to “mine” another coin reduces by a 1/3 to a 1/2... If suddenly quantum computing comes of age, mining bitcoin becomes little more than a printing press for anyone with one....

Enjoy speculating, because that’s all you are doing.


29 posted on 02/19/2016 12:34:57 PM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: ontap

Gold is a very scarce metal that has served as a store of wealth for thousands of years, and always will be a real asset.
Trillions of dollars of printed fiat money backed by promises is, unreal.
Nation’s currencies come and go through the ages, ravaged by inflation & devaluation, and eventually become irrelevant.

The world lives in a debt junkie economy, existing thru increasing doses of no-interest stimulus $mack, not caring how toxic each fix is in the long run.
A junkie thus addicted, is assured to crash and die.
What will the dollar and paper be worth then?

When Reagan left office in 1988, the National debt was approximately 1 Trillion dollars and most economic measurements indicated the economy was FAR healthier and diversified than it is now.
28 years later, our national debt is 19+ Trillion dollars, needing zero / negative zero interest rates.

It’s obvious where we’re heading...


30 posted on 02/19/2016 12:36:56 PM PST by MarchonDC09122009 (When is our next march on DC? When have we had enough?)
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To: Ghost of SVR4

“gold will become very precious as a way of keeping your transactions quiet and off the radar.”

Now, THAT makes sense.


31 posted on 02/19/2016 12:37:12 PM PST by Lower55
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To: 867V309

Prior to the FDIC depositors lost their money when banks were robbed. The Bitcoin bank got robbed.

Oh, and now the FDIC only insures up to a certain amount and then they settle with depositors for pennies on the dollar.

So you may only get $10K for $100K in losses.

So dollars in banks are only somewhat safer than Bitcoin for most people.

Still, the risk is worth it for some people just like how capital once flowed to the risky US dollar from the then-safe British Pound.


32 posted on 02/19/2016 12:38:39 PM PST by MeganC (The Republic of The United States of America: 7/4/1776 to 6/26/2015 R.I.P.)
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To: HamiltonJay

There’s a finite number of Bitcoins to be mined and an infinite number of dollars to be ginned up by the Fed.


33 posted on 02/19/2016 12:41:07 PM PST by MeganC (The Republic of The United States of America: 7/4/1776 to 6/26/2015 R.I.P.)
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To: MeganC
So dollars in banks are only somewhat safer than Bitcoin for most people.

If your coins in Mt. Gaak had all vanished, you might see the significant difference in safety.


34 posted on 02/19/2016 12:42:43 PM PST by 867V309 (Trump: Bull in a RINO Shoppe)
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To: MeganC

Megan....

Lets play a hypothetical.... The caldera volcano has blown its lid... the world is thrown into a 2-3 year cycle where there will be no summer.. the breadbasket of the united states and most of the rest of the world is fallow....

You need something, without it you will die.... Which do you think the person you find that has what you need is going to perceive has value? Gold or Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a speculating play, they laud their success with 200k transactions a day using it world wide? My Grandmother lives in a town of a few thousand people in the backwoods of ALabama... that single town has more than 200,000 transactions a day within its borders.

Bitcoin is a find a bigger fool investment, as long as the bigger fool shows up, you can bail out and be okay, but sooner or later the bigger fool doesn’t come along.

I am glad you are happy to invest in something that lost 2/3 of its value in the last few years, and see that as a buying opportunity, but if you think its anything more than daytrading tech stocks circa 2001, then well, we are just going to disagree.


35 posted on 02/19/2016 12:53:43 PM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: MeganC

Oh, and now the FDIC only insures up to a certain amount and then they settle with depositors for pennies on the dollar.

So you may only get $10K for $100K in losses.

Nope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDIC_insurance

Since the passage of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2011, the FDIC insures deposits in member banks up to US$250,000 per ownership category.

Deposit Payoff, as soon as the appropriate chartering authority closes the bank or thrift, the FDIC is appointed receiver. The FDIC as insurer with insured funds the full amount of their insured deposits.


36 posted on 02/19/2016 12:58:43 PM PST by 867V309 (Trump: Bull in a RINO Shoppe)
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To: HamiltonJay

If you had bothered with reading what I wrote you’d see that we do not have any Bitcoin. Attacking me as if we do is nonsensical.


37 posted on 02/19/2016 2:09:58 PM PST by MeganC (The Republic of The United States of America: 7/4/1776 to 6/26/2015 R.I.P.)
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To: bkopto

Are you ever worried you can lose your Bitcoins?


38 posted on 02/19/2016 2:39:10 PM PST by Citizen Zed ("Freedom costs a buck o five" - Gary Johnston, TAWP)
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To: Citizen Zed

No. I use a Trezor hardware wallet. If I lose my bitcoins, its my own fault. However, no one will be able to steal them if I use this device. No one.


39 posted on 02/19/2016 2:46:21 PM PST by bkopto
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To: Lower55

So if a house were better than money, only a scammer would part with it? And if a filet minion meal were better than money, only a scammer would part with it?

I recommend a good book on economics, and the subjective theory of value.


40 posted on 02/19/2016 3:58:04 PM PST by sourcery (Without the right to self defense, there can be no rights at all.)
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