Bitcoin Forum

[–]throwaway-69857457 63 points 4 hours ago*
I'm one of those early ones. I read the original paper, thought about it for a few hours and decided that this is going to become bigger than Jesus. Bought a lot of mining equipment (took a lot of risk with my money, at this point there was not any kind of marked price/exchange or anything) and mined like there was no tomorrow. I have not sold many coins, had to sell a few to prove to my wife that I was not completely insane, she was not satisfied until she saw USD appear in her account. I have no plans to sell anytime soon, I'm fairly certain this is only the beginning. Sure there will be ups and downs but in the end I would be very surprised if the price didn't reach several thousand USD per coin or more. In which case i will be in the global 0.000001% for sure. I also gave away about half of my coins to a friend and a few to other friends. I was pretty well off even before this, very close to independently wealthy, but the bitcoin's have definitely tipped the scales. I'm not in this to become rich and buy a lot of "things", from the very start I was politically motivated, as are many others of the very early adopters although with a little bit different alignments. I have a conviction that bitcoin will be the liberator for the worlds poor giving them access to the global marketplace on a scale never seen before. If bitcoin can give market access to that many people the entire planet will experience an upswing comparable to the industrial revolution, only stronger. I will save my coins until the price is of such a magnitude that I can begin investing in freestate projects enabling such a future to become reality. Buying a nice car or house is not even tempting, i have that already, what we are talking about here is how the world my children will grow up in will look like and making us a space faring species - nothing else will suffice selling out towards. This is as far as I can see the best shot in my lifetime to contribute towards this reality, if it turns out to go to zero i will not regret holding on to the end. This is all or nothing. Governments have spent hundreds of years fighting for power with little other than misery to show for it. Politicians preach altruism for the masses convincing them to sacrifice their lives for the greater good which always turns out to be a monster. Bitcoin is for the people by the people. Revolution is at hand (i hope).

is he a bull? not at all, we here have people who go all in bitcoin, that's what I call a bull. having a nice house and fancy car and some mined bitcoins stored for later is not bullish, everyone here does that - bullish is when you eat Ramen noodles and live under a bridge because all you ever had is sold and money went into bitcoins.

This is not bullish, it's simply stupidity.

Think so? The stupid people who went all in when BTC was at $14 now have about 8 times more, so they can safely retire. Now, who is stupid? They or (hypothetical since I know nothing about you) you going to work daily? :)

What does Bitcoin have to do with us becoming a space faring species? Wow some people truly are brainwashed by their own hype about Bitcoin.

Yeah, and BTC could have crashed and be worth nothing, and they would have literally nothing. I think it's stupid to go all in onto anything to the point you have to hurt your lifestyle a lot, specially if it's something as new as BTC, that can fail (don't think it will, but there is a nonzero probability it could happen).

Bitcoin can do this. The world today is structured like a feudal society where the rich people have built walls to protect themselves against competition from poor people. These walls are both physical (poor people are not allowed to travel to rich countries to work freely) and abstract (currency control, manipulation, import duties, unions decide who gets to work with what, taxes, regulation). The divide between rich and poor have never been higher, the rich people are really afraid of competition and tries to stop competition with every tool in the box. You can compare every aspect of the feudal society in the middle ages and find that the same type of structures is in play today. Back then the rich lived inside castles with walls. Today they live inside virtual walls where passports are needed to travel, if your passport has the wrong color you are locked out. Back then the rich had guilds that decided who could do which kind of work blocking out unguilded workers. Today we have unions who decide who gets to work with what and for what pay. Back then citizens had to pay the rich to rent land to live on, people were born into debt and stayed in perpetual debt throughout their entire lives leaving an inheritance of debt to their children. Today we pay taxes and our parents have voted themselves such good pensions that we will stay in perpetual debt. Our unborn children have already "promised" to work like slaves to pay off this debt.
This system is sick, it is anti-human, and it needs to die. Capitalism and rule of law needs to be re-introduced to get out of this mess.
The feudal age ended when the poor revolted against the rich. The rich, locked up inside their castles, found that everything they consumed originated from outside the walls. It took some time for the poor to realize that it was in fact them that made the rules and not the other way around. It is those who produce that decide, not the other way around. When the poor stopped deliveries to the rich inside the castles the entire power structure of the middle ages collapsed. The poor revolted against the rich. They beheaded those that tried to re-introduce feudalism. The ones willing to hand over power peacefully the poor accepted as powerless royalty. This change triggered the age of enlightenment which is the epoch of human history with the biggest advances within all fields: economy, industry, art, science, literacy, education and medicine. This again triggered the industrial revolution. Before this it was only royalty that could afford luxuries, it took capitalism + the rule of law to make luxury available to the poor. Just 100 years after the fall of feudalism the average citizen had richer lives than the royalty had during feudalism. This is what is going to happen again. When modern feudalism falls every single person on this planet will have the lifestyle of the richest westerner in 100 years. It is in your rational self-interest to want this for your children. The entire 'financial crises' is the proof that this system is failing, money is flowing uncontrollably from rich to poor. Almost all the means of production is now located in developing countries. Unemployment, poverty is staring to tear the royalty apart inside their walls; the wealthiest are fleeing from within the walls to start new lives in what will become the new power countries.
Bitcoin enables free trade across borders. Bitcoin will bypass the walls, trade fees, import duties, taxes, union regulation and whatnot. This will create an even faster outflow of wealth from the developed countries to the developing. Equilibrium has to be reached before growth can continue globally. If you look at the eastern European countries today I don’t think equilibrium is so far off from many developing countries in Asia. Bitcoin will tear down many of the financial walls that protect the rich and will empower the poor. Right now I have people working for me in developing countries paying them in bitcoin, I bypass every rule, regulation, union, trade tariff, minimum wage law in existence. We are talking free trade in the purest form: completely voluntary relations. I smell victory for freedom and humanity already.
This is not a mater of "giving" anything for free to anybody but leveling the playing field so that it is again competition that decides who gets paid what and not on which side of the wall you just happened to be born on. Just imagine, just by sheer statistical chance, the amount of Albert Einsteins, Eulers, Darwins, Satoshis etc that have lived and died deprived of every opportunity to realize their potential because they were born on the wrong side of a wall - humanity is losing out bigtime. The internet + bitcoin (or another crypto currency) will change this.

Think so? The stupid people who went all in when BTC was at $14 now have about 8 times more, so they can safely retire. Now, who is stupid? They or (hypothetical since I know nothing about you) you going to work daily? :)

Sometimes people lie on the internet.  These people are known as redditors.

The post could be legit, but I think it's far more likely that it's some kid making stuff up for karma.

(...) The internet + bitcoin (or another crypto currency) will change this.

...(or another crypto currency) will change this.

Sometimes people lie on the internet.  These people are known as redditors.

I took out a student loan at a sick APR (non-residents get fucked in the US, because they don't qualify for any federal loans). I lied that it was for tuition and invested it all in Bitcoin. I maxed out all my overdrafts and credit cards before Christmas. I also got a travel stipend for a research trip, which I needed for plane tickets and accommodation for 1 month, and I shorted Bitcoin instead. I even got a little extra "emergency funding" before Christmas, all into Bitcoin -- when they audited me for it last week, I chuckled as I wrote a check for their fiat which was only 10% worth of the Bitcoin that it paid for. I invested all my tax returns (which I made sure to complete on the day they came out (February)

It was stupid and risky, but I didn't give a fuck because it paid off. And I not even a bull, I am long-term cautiously optimistic (at best), medium term bear, short term bull. I had no net worth to my name, I am a poor as fuck grad student, I can barely afford my food month to month, but I went ALL IN. I would say this is "bullish behavior".

... and I shorted Bitcoin instead.

bitfinex margin trade

So if I sold my house to buy lottery tickets, and I won, would you say that this was a smart move?
Personally, I don't think one should judge how smart an action is solely by its consequences.

I took out a student loan at a sick APR (non-residents get fucked in the US, because they don't qualify for any federal loans). I lied that it was for tuition and invested it all in Bitcoin. I maxed out all my overdrafts and credit cards before Christmas. I also got a travel stipend for a research trip, which I needed for plane tickets and accommodation for 1 month, and I shorted Bitcoin instead. I even got a little extra "emergency funding" before Christmas, all into Bitcoin -- when they audited me for it last week, I chuckled as I wrote a check for their fiat which was only 10% worth of the Bitcoin that it paid for. I invested all my tax returns (which I made sure to complete on the day they came out (February)

It was stupid and risky, but I didn't give a fuck because it paid off. And I not even a bull, I am long-term cautiously optimistic (at best), medium term bear, short term bull. I had no net worth to my name, I am a poor as fuck grad student, I can barely afford my food month to month, but I went ALL IN. I would say this is "bullish behavior".

ven't already, realize at least enough of your gains to pay off that student loan.

Student loans are awful. They're the only kind of loan that you can't escape by bankrupty; you can carry a lien for the rest of your life. I know you're bullish, and it's done well for you, but you gotta get that thing off your balance sheet ASAP.

Only if it's a government-guaranteed student loan.  If it's a private student loan (and that's what it sounds like), it may be dis-chargeable like any other private loan (but check your terms first).

My impression was that ever since the law changed in 2005, even private student loans have been able to survive a bankruptcy.

I suppose I could be mistaken on this point.

I love that fact that he is a libertarian. Bitcoin is probably the greatest thing to ever hit the libertarian movement.

To clarify, I borrowed money to buy Bitcoin. Was that the confusing part? So I guess that is shorting USD rather than shorting Bitcoin? ... shows you how much I know about financial instruments, and maybe that drives the point home: it was easy money, even for a EE grad student with no background in finance.

This.

Finally, a mass of peaceful people who subscribe to non-agression and voluntary trade will, for once, get a windfall instead of the usual shafting.

If you haven't already, realize at least enough of your gains to pay off that student loan.

Student loans are awful. They're the only kind of loan that you can't escape by bankrupty; you can carry a lien for the rest of your life. I know you're bullish, and it's done well for you, but you gotta get that thing off your balance sheet ASAP.

Yeah, and BTC could have crashed and be worth nothing, and they would have literally nothing.

[–]throwaway-69857457 63 points 4 hours ago*
 this is going to become bigger than Jesus

Maybe buy some land, too, especially if it's close to a major urban area but hasn't been developed yet. :)   Land is the other thing where there is only a finite amount of.  A big reason that rich people like inflation is because it props their physical assets, like land.  With land you could help hedge against a potential bitcoin crash.  I'm talking the crash of the 1859 Carrington Solar Flare style... if the solar flare of 1859 hit today, our electric grid (and things that depend upon it, like bitcoin) would be wiped out for months, maybe years.   At least if you cash out some btc to buy some land, you'll have a place to go, or even physical assets to sell if you need to.