Posted on 02/01/2024 8:27:45 AM PST by Victor
Do any Freepers have experience with Crypto/Bitcoin? Anybody been scammed?
Hype is not an investment plan.
Very true.
However, as attested above- it appears that people can and do realize profits from it.
My question is...what's the mechanism?
Cryptocurrencies are pointless to consider without first doing analysis on the EBDITA components for cryptocurrency miners.
Is cryptocurrency a minefield filled with scams and bad investments? Yes. Does that mean people should avoid it? No. The USD world is filled with scams and bad investments as well. Diversification and prudence and good investment strategies apply in both worlds.
I always tell people not to get involved with cryptocurrency out of greed. Do it out of fear. The fiat, government-controlled world of currency is coming to an end. On the one end is profligate government debt spending, endlessly devaluing the government currencies. On the other end is the call of private, decentralized currencies free from central bank (or other leadership cabals) manipulation, however well-intentioned as it picks winners and losers. The most established cryptocurrencies will relentlessly gain converts until we reach a tipping point in 5 or 10 years and the old fiat currencies start to collapse, at which point you _don't_ want to be a late adopter.
There's no "advantage" to being "government-backed" as commonly assumed, apart from the sheer threat of violent force being applied to dissidents. And if that's the best argument for government fiat, then government fiat is toast. In practical terms being linked to governments just means a currency is inflated (devalued), and you never know how much they will print next year. This makes it inferior to provably scarce cryptocurrencies that are constantly being refined and improved, with the improvements adopted by decentralized concensus rather than bureaucratic fiat.
Do your homework, avoid "moonshots" (the Buffet rule is a good one for cryptocurrency) and start gaining experience, is my advice. The notion that a new asset class (the first in 400 years) that has gone from literally nothing to $1.6 Trillion in 15 years is going to die off or suddenly plateau is unlikely in the extreme IMO.
There's much to understand here, but what are you referring to here in regards to crypto investment?
Why would I need highly sophisticated computer gear in order to be a "miner"....which begs the question what is a miner in the first place.
However, my ignorance of the subject is on full display here....
FR is not really the place where you are going to
get objective, reasoned discussions about this.
*******
That applies to a lot more things than just Bitcon
Family members are in BTC with no ill effects thus far. I’m skeptical though. I think it could be the forerunner of only digital currency, brought about by globalists for the control of all transactions of all individuals and the loss of sovereignty of countries and their citizens.
Pure speculation. Its legal gambling and you dont even have house rules.
Thank you
I don’t expect it to die off suddenly.
It will die off gradually accompanied by the ongoing screams of its victims.
Unless they can control its existence. Then they love it unconditionally.
How are any profits realized from Bitcoin transferred/converted into dollars that can be used for normal purchases, etc.?
1. I've lost track of the number of exchanges I've used over the years that have subsequently gone bust, taking any customer funds on the exchange with them. I dodged at least 8 or 9 bullets (not leaving funds on an exchange that subsequently went bust) before being caught by the Bitgrail debacle at the end of 2017/early 2018. In that case a small exchange basically run out of some Italian's basement became hugely popular overnight due to the explosion of interest in NANO and it being one of the few exchanges offering it, but the lone operator had pre-existing security flaws and was completely in over his head when problems emerged. "We have suffered a stolen" still makes me cringe.
2. ~2018 the US government bureaucracy decreed that Americans shouldn't be able to earn crypto by lending to margin traders. There are many ways to lose money in crypto but this was not one of them. Exchanges have done a great job with circuit-breakers that close out positions before a margin trader becomes unable to pay back a lender, and in the few cases where that didn't work in my experience the exchange always covered the loss, rather than get a reputation as a risky place to lend.
In the aftermath of the decree from Washington a gaggle of companies sprang up offering crypto investors the chance to earn a yield with their crypto. I naively assumed they had either found a way around the rules or were politically-connected types who'd lobbied for an exemption, and that they were just middlemen to get back into lending to the margin traders. Instead, there was no transparency, no government requirements or oversight, and they were actually doing things like lending to Chinese loan shark operations that couldn't get regular banking access. Every one of these companies has now gone bankrupt. I lost heavily in the first two before pulling out. Americans remain 2nd-rate citizens on the world markets due to this malicious interference by the SEC and other bureaucratic regimes in Washington.
3. If you invest in cryptocurrency, particularly smaller projects, you need to pay attention. Sometimes they will enact upgrades that are not backwards compatible, with only a limited window to update your own wallet. Any decent project should avoid this, but there are too many out there that just assumed everyone investing with them is a hyper-obsessed techie who is paying close attention to their project. So I've had the experience of being told "sorry, there's no way to convert your coins now, you missed the window." Again, that shouldn't happen with any decent well-run project with a more centralized team, but beware the smaller cryptos.
That’s easy - there are innumerable exchanges where you can trade bitcoin for dollars if you wish, if you find a need to transact in dollars still (more businesses than you might think take bitcoin directly anyway). Or you can just move to El Salvador where it is legal tender nationwide. I was there recently on a missions trip and it appears to be booming, largely due to crypto.
“In fact, there is code that lets you start up your own cryptocurrency, in very short order.”
I was going to do this as a joke with the guys, but it was going to cost $1k to set it up. If I could do it for just a few bucks, I would, but I won’t spend that much for a gag. If you know of a quick and easy way I’m in.
I suppose, because I dont own BTC, that you rely on being able to ‘cash in’ with participating merchants. Otherwise, you have to ‘sell’ your BTC on the market.
I can sell my mutuals and IRA investments through my broker just the same as selling BTC, except everything is according to the law and not really secretive or untrackable, which to the best of my understanding is the selling point of BTC. This is also why its so popular in money laundering and tax avoidance.
I am not for govt prying into my affairs, but I do want to stay within the laws and not on the IRS radar.
In 1990’s, Beanie Babies were all the rage for “investors”. They deflated overnight.
The problem with that viewpoint is that most of the crypto world is not a scam, while the government fiat currencies are, by their very nature, one big meta-scam. So I think you are right, but in the opposite direction.
You can create cryptocurrencies for free now, which is why there are tens of thousands of them. Obviously many are no more meaningful than a kid making “money” with crayons. The trick is to find a meaningful financial niche and optimize for it. If you do that you create value and the market will judge it accordingly if your product is best-in-class.
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