Bitcoin Forum

When I look at all the effort that is being poured into bitcoin, the various services being developed for it, and the crazy ideas that people are throwing around, in my mind at least, the bitcoin revolution has just begun, and the $20/BTC mark that were approaching right now is NOTHING of where it will be several years from now. Lets face it, bitcoin is barely known right now, Lady Gaga is 500 times more popular online (based on google search results)

There is a lot of speculation going around for sure, but I don't think those people have quite considered the implication of bitcoin for the future... IF bitcoin works and becomes mainstream, it... is... going.. to.. be... HUGE! The only place bitcoin is going is up, up, and up (with some corrections along the way)

I have been learning about bitcoin endlessly for the past two weeks now. I feel that I understand bitcoin and it's implications far more than I do the US Dollar (and thus I have more confidence in BTC than the USD), and so I have made the decision to go all in. All my savings are being moved over to bitcoins, all my paychecks will immediately moved over to bitcoins. I will still be keeping a small amount of dollars just so I can buy food/gas/etc without having to wait for the transfers each time I go to the supermarket/gas station.

I understand that there are risk associated with this. What if I wake up tomorrow, and bitcoin has collapsed? What if bitcoins become illegal? What if you loose your wallet file? What if this what if that, you know what? FINE i will take those risks, because its very easy to go back to mediocrity. I may lose everything tomorrow, but that is a risk I'm willing to take for the possibility of a FAR better future that bitcoin is trying to create.

Bitcoin IS the future, END of story.  ;D

How do you really feel?

Woah there fella, let's not start talking crazy talk of the End Of History variety.:D

kudos to your commitment, nonetheless, stay diverse.

The best advice I've seen is: Don't invest more than you can afford to completely lose.

Excited! I will rise from the ashes if I have to!

guess what, as long as I'm still alive I can always get back what I lost.

Holding on to the dollar is not exactly staying diverse  :P

You're in good company: http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-savings-into-bitcoin/

(That's Rick Falkvinge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Falkvinge), founder of the pirate party movement.)

I like your enthusiasm, and I like that fact that you're enthusiasm stems from weeks of dedicated research and learning. The more I've learned about it, the more exciting it becomes. It is excitement bred from knowledge, as opposed to ignorance. A great way to tell a scam - if the more you look into it, the more convoluted or uncertain it seems, that's a problem. With Bitcoin, the more I learn about it, the more I understand how revolutionary it could be. Or it will collapse and I'll drown my sorrows in a bottle of booze =)

I would recommend you keep some wealth in gold/silver if you're going to bail on the dollar entirely. Many risks exist in Bitcoin.

Be careful, you'll still have to pay food/etc.

Also, I would keep a relative small amount of your savings in dollars for the case that bitcoins plummet... so you can buy cheap a lot of them!

My thoughts EXACTLY! I understand the risks and I accept them as a possibility for a bitcoin failure, but those risks wont stop me, just as the risk of a death from a car crash wont stop me from driving a car.

:D

I'd like to know how well you do in Casinos. Remember there's a fine line between risk and reward.

That's not a bad idea, but I feel relatively confidant that there wont be any major price fall due to bitcoin's current growth (in terms of more and more people learning about bitcoin and using it).

I second the gold/silver suggestion. I'm slowly diversifying into Bitcoin, but I am keeping the bulk of my savings in precious metals, as well as a solid store of dry foods.

Bitcoin IS revolutionary and I am also very optimistic about its future, but it doesn't yet have the millennia-long history of being a store of value that gold and silver do.

Best of luck!

I always have a tough time calculating how much I really can afford to lose.

I might get diagnosed with cancer tomorrow and then I might need every penny of my savings.  When I think about it that way, even $100 seems to much to invest in Bitcoin.

On the other hand, if I lose $10,000 on Bitcoin, perhaps I won't be able to afford a few luxuries for a few months.  Not that big of a deal.

I bet you don't have a wife or kids.  Maybe not even a girlfriend to support.  My finance would kill me if I went all into bitcoins.  You are in a good spot...good luck to you!  ;D

You may call bitcoin a gamble, but I call it a long term investment into an amazing idea. When someone comes up to you and explains an amazing idea that they are working on, and then later they bring you all the development plans and projections, you cannot help but to start feel confidant about it. Sure there may be risks, but you research the risk and determine that the risks are worth it. I consider this an investment into an amazing project, and all that I am putting into it is to show my confidence in what is taking place here!

lol. Freudian slip.

I do not have a wife and kids, and never will. But I do have a gf and I convinced her to put a portion of her savings into it as well.

Great to see people just as committed as oneself. Bitcoin needs people who believe in the system, help its development as good as they can and not panic-sell at the first indication of a price drop because they're just in for a quick buck!

Possible Freudian? If so it's a good one :D

This is called pot odds.

Long term investments into amazing ideas are also gambles. You've got to remember that some amazing ideas look good early but fall flat on it's face in the real world. I'm not saying bitcoin will meet the same fate, it's just that there's a chance it could. Hence, the gambling risk.

I like the excitement and I'm not imploring you to do this or that, just be cautious.

I only see bitcoin going up, even with any corrections. I believe that it will eventually stabilize once it is mainstream and is widely accepted. Might as well well keep my money there if it's going to grow and stabilize.

Bitcoin is exciting, thank you for sharing your energy.  :)

As I stated before, I believe I understand the risks, and I'm willing to take them even if there a is a chance of being burnt. For all we know, the dollar could crash and burn tomorrow as well, and in fact, it IS crashing and burning as we speak (It's just at a fairly slow pace right now)

Good on you Sir. I too am contemplating to quit everything and dedicate all my time to bitcoin.

The biggest risk to bitcoin comes from the US government, which may criminalize and ban it. In fact I am pretty sure they will do that once it gets into their radar.

I'm not too worried about that one, because even if it is illegal, the underground efforts will still keep it afloat. Is downloading music and movies using torrents illegal? absolutely! is it still around? its stronger than ever!

How sad is it that in the so-called "land of the free" we fully expect the government to take steps against a free market innovation as amazing as Bitcoin?

IMHO, if we can bring a massive number of people into the Bitcoin economy, we can help prevent such laws from taking hold.

Even in the land of the free, the free man is a criminal.

I'm all in as well. I've gone so far as to carry a balance on my credit card so that I can buy more BTC. I think we are witnessing the start of a dramatic change in the way humans do commerce. Three years from now, bitcoins will be ubiquitous.

I'm kinda hating myself right now for not getting a credit card earlier, tho I will be getting one shortly to purchase mining equipment.

But... I like the part where the oceans turn into lemonade and lions present themselves to be ridden by people and roasted, boneless chickens fly into our mouths.

You can always move to St. Petersburg and leave behind any backwaters that ban bitcoin.

Whoa, I typed that?!?!?!  Good catch!

Or become an uber hacker and stay down low.

I think almost everyone is committing felonies or misdemeanors every single day lol You can't do much without breaking some sort of "law".

I just want to share a story with you.

Back in 1998 a family friend died and left me 10,000 to invest.  I opened a stock market account and started buying and selling stocks.  Soon that 10,000 had turned into 41,000.  (at this point i'm a 20 year old kid)  I'm so thrilled with my easy money that I over purchase stocks that I don't even have money with because the trading company will let me do that.  Cant remember what the term for this is now.  Thinking this "dot com" rise will last for ever, I make increasingly more risky stock purchases and money keeps going up. 

Make a long story short, around Jan 2000, the stock market crashed, and my stocks value dropped hard core.  Right about then, the company who was so willing to let me over extend, called back the debt since my actual value to borrowed value ratio was too low.  They auto sold the rest of my stock to pay for the over extending that i did at the full price. 

At the end of the day, that 10,000 was gone.  It can happen that fucking fast.  Luckily, I got the money for free, and I look at it as a life lesson.   No matter how awesome an investment opportunity looks, don't get greedy.  It will bite you in the ass.   Greed caused the tech dot com bubble, the housing bubble, and probably every other bubble ever... There is certainly a lot of speculation built into the current price.  Just take that into consideration before betting the farm. 

+1

Thanks for the advice. I am looking at this long term, the bitcoin may or may not be overvalued at this point, but it is irrelevant because ultimately, as long as the network works the way it is expected to work (and i am trying to keep myself as informed as possible) I believe that this is only the beginning. If it goes down in shambles, thats ok too, because I'm ready for whatever it brings. I will not just stand by and watch something this amazing just pass me by. 

I was so expecting a Nigerian scam story to come after that ;)

Anyway, there's wisdom in your words... Don't invest what you can't afford to lose and get your initial investment out ASAP.

But most importantly: don't let greed get the better of you!

I think that's the best way to put this. I'm shooting myself in the face for not buying bitcoin like a month ago. It may well all be over tomorrow, but hey, there is a good chance BTC will grow huge.

I'm 99% certain that your prediction will happen.  The Government hates competition, they love forcing you to use their counterfeit money.

However - and I am not joking when I say this - I CAN'T WAIT till it's illegal.  Because once it is, the mainstream will find out about it.. and THAT's when more people will really start using it, and after a brief panic-induced selling from wimps, the price will probably skyrocket.  Even though it wasn't money, that's essentially what happened with Napster, Bit Torrent, the whole p2p movement in general.  Once they make it illegal, that's when people will start using it.

Additionally, it's irrelevant what the USG does.  There are 200 countries in the world, the USA is one of them... that works out to 1/200th of the world.  In terms of population, roughly 300M out of roughly 6.7B.  That's just 4% of the people in the world.  What I'm saying is - when they make it illegal, nobody cares.  When other countries make it illegal, still nobody will care. People will just move to VPNs and alternative exchangers.  Life goes on.  Don't forget that the Government is there to serve US, not the other way around.  You are only a slave if you accept to be one.  You can be a free man if you decide to be one.

I think the government is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they want the dollar to be the universal currency, and yet they keep on putting all these restrictions on how it can be used reducing its competitiveness. They must understand that they cannot have the dollar as a universal currency while restricting its usage. Their hands in the fight with bitcoin are pretty much tied, because the more they encumber the US dollar to fight Bitcoin, the more desirable Bitcoin becomes.

I also think that a ban on the US bank accounts of MtGox is imminent. And this will almost certainly crash the price of Bitcoin. However, as you say that will not destroy Bitcoin. In fact it will make it stronger. However, people that have invested all their savings into Bitcoins, and worse who have actually over-leveraged themselves to purchase Bitcoins, will no doubt get hurt badly.

When dealing with a risky asset like Bitcoin I think it is very important to diversify. Besides, there is no need to put all your savings into it - that's just pure greed. Even putting a small fraction of your savings into bitcoin can lead to great returns.

Napster original concept actually totally disappeared and so was defeaten, didnt get stronger like you're saying. Similar to many things like Kazaa, Limewire, etc. They never recovered significantly after all the legal actions taken against them.
Same with Bit Torrent, it's pretty weak compared to its top some years ago. Torrents are long replaced by news groups etc. Thus it has not gotten stronger.

Your statements about Napster, etc are correct; because these were company driven technologies with centralized servers.  Your statements about Bittorrent are not.  Byte for byte, bittorrent now consumes more bandwidth worldwide than email.  Movies do tend to be big files.  "Torrents are long replaced by news groups etc."  LOL!

Well I don't know about US but most hardcore Europe users moved away from torrents to news groups. And that's a fact

The biggest issue facing bitcoin, is that there's nothing to stop a "bitcoin 2" from entering the market.
A lot of people here are mining, trading and we're all happy as Larry that the price is going through the roof.

The problem is that once mining difficulty hits a plateau, people start considering energy costs etc, then people will start to drift away from mining. Currently we're at the peak, GPUs sold out etc etc - but we're all still 'making money' and watching our stash rise in value.

Right, so what happens when that grinds to a halt? We all throw our GPUs away?
Just takes somebody to create something similar and we'll all rush off to get onto the "ground floor" of whatever's coming next. It'll probably crash and vanish without a trace, but tell me you don't think anybody else is going to try?

All economics are based on scarcity, bitcoins are 'scarce' - but only within the market of bitcoins. Currencies themselves aren't scarce.

Actually, there is.  It's called the "first to market" advantage.  It's why VHS beat out Betamax in the consumer marketplace even though everyone agreed that Betamax was both a superior format and at least as cheap to mass produce.  Anyone can try to replicate Bitcoin, but without a significant and obvious advantage to users, it's market uptake will never approach Bitcoin's.

Newgroups are old tech, that were re-adopted to accomodate torrents.  I can use either in my bittorrent client, but the only advantage that newsgroups have is that they aren't often trottled by ISP's.  Bittorrent can be trottled, even in the US, but this is only somewhat effective.  I get entire OS updates this way, and download entire netshows.

Just keep in mind that I (and probably the vast majority of people who have thrown their savings into bitcoins) are in this for the long run. The shutdown of mtgox no doubt would leave a huge hole in bitcoins, but in the long run i see bitcoin recovering and moving far beyond.


You think that this competitor will just come out of the blue? it has taken bitcoin over 2 YEARS to get to where it is today. Infact there already are talks of new systems being developed such as ripple: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=3557.0 (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=3557.0) better yet, these systems just might merge to form an even better online currency.

Yes, but there is a long time between now and the longrun. Meanwhile you have to eat and pay rent.

I still have a job, so im not worried about rent and food

VHS didn't win as they were 'first to market' - in fact the whole first to market thing isn't really that big a deal. Apple weren't first to market with MP3 players, smartphones, laptops etc. Google weren't the first online search engine. In fact if you pick pretty much any technology the first to market has vanished into history and is possibly only surviving as a name branded on a successors products.
Just look at the brands around you in your room - how many of them can you genuinely say were first to market?

Just looking at replacements for cash - you got a Diners club card in your wallet?

Stil feeling confident triforce?

I was going to ask him the same thing.

I'm not going anywhere! The price can drop to pennies, I will still support bitcoin! I believe in the system and so I can look beyond the price. My only real concern would be the degradation of the network via hacking/glitches.

Which is impossible, as long as everyone is connecting with the same software.

Not necessarily:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses

I admire your enthusiasm, but even you must have been quite scared to see BTC's value drop from $31 to $10 within 2 days.  If the price dropped to pennies I doubt you would still support BTCs.

I am a miner looking to get back my hardware investment as soon as possible, and I can't tolerate massive swings in price.  BTCs could be at $10 tomorrow once again.  I sell my BTCs as soon as I produce them to avoid risking holding the bag should the whole deal fall over.  This means I miss out on the potential gains from the difficulty rate going up.  You're the person who could make a lot of money on my mining by going long.  I wish you well and hope it's profitable if indeed you have converted all your money to BTCs.

As long as the network is still secure and I keep seeing the massive effort being put into developing bitcoin, buying bitcoins for pennies is great sale! I'm not sticking with bitcoin because of what its doing today, I'm sticking with bitcoin because of the long term potential I see in it. If I was here for the quick bucks, yeah, i WOULD be scared. And yea, I just ordered parts for my first real mining rig.

by the way Cluster2k, how close are you to getting your mining gear paid off? how long did you think it would take?

+1

I know it has been said before but this is a great project and it is always good to see others are as committed as oneself. There is great potential in Bitcoin and working on a project with so many talented people who have a vision is truly amazing.

I do not condemn anybody who is just here for a quick buck because IMHO that's one of the beauties of Bitcoin: it works successfully even if most people don't care about the system and only use it based on rational profit-driven thought.

I was a buyer for pennies before, it seems a hell of a lot better deal after you've actually seen prices this high.

Still not breaking a sweat yet triforce?

I think you're missing the point.. I don't care what bitcoin does today or tomorrow, its about what it will be doing a year from now, or 10 years. The only thing that sucks right now is that I can't buy more while they're on sale, I don't have any more money :(

You're a lunatic.

Just because someone puts his money where his mouth is?

I see nothing wrong with investing your liquid assets into Bitcoin - it is not unreasonable to assume that given the recent incidents buying them now is a rather smart move for everyone who believes in their long-term potential.

We are all here for one reason or another.  Undoubtedly we like what we see in Bitcoins.  Don't put all your eggs in one basket, buddy.  If Bitcoins were made to be illegal through legislation, thing can go out of control real fast.  Stay vigilant. 8)