Bitcoin Forum

You can sleep well knowing you have it: It does not lose 80% of its value over three days.

When you have $100 in your wallet, you know how much it will buy you on Amazon. You can invest it into land, real estate, gold, silver, bitcoin whenever you want.

Why would anyone want to hold Bitcoins when they are in a multi-month bear market?

$100! That can buy you a decent car.

Oh wait...it used to be able to buy a car.

Now you can buy a coffee at Starbucks.

That's the problem you all have though. Although inflation isn't the natural state of fiat currency even if it has been corrupted to this your purpose should not be to accumulate wealth purely by having wealth. You're not supposed to keep 100 dollars under your bed for 50 years hoping it grows to 5000 or even remains the same.

What you used to produce when you were payed 50 dollars is now produced for 5 dollars in a more efficient economy.

Wages were lower. Now, that same thing is still produced for $5, however you pay $200 for it.

to pay your debts

You have state pension/private pension investments into the actual economy.
Or you have a social security system in setup in which a new generation takes care of the old.
It can even be into state papers that barely pay an interest above inflation but are thus extremely safe.

Of course.
As you always had, either your family or your business (but this time you're mostly a capitalist and you control a business indirectly).

What you're asking is highly immoral.
You're asking for your wealth to grow without contributing anything, even an investment in the economy.
Clealy this is not good/fair for those who are contributing to society  (i.e. woking).

Instead you should indeed depend on others (hopefully you have while working helped out your parents or you fellow citizens) or be active in the market and thus invest in those who still work (if you want a more individualistic approach)

Thus by storing money in gold or bitcoins for the purpose of an investment you are not only being immoral but hurting the economy since you are withdrawing liquidity from the market. Having gold as a reserve has some moddest value to the economy in case a fiat currency is horribly miss-managed but that's far from the point. Nations and corporations who have it as a reserve do not have it as a investment and they have alot of other currencies to.

No we are asking for it to stay the same. Growth is just a side-effect. There wouldn't be any bitcoin banks (because borrowing Bitcoins is not profitable, since borrowing should be discouraged, not encouraged) so the amount you'd get from bitcoin once its been adopted would be the same or lower than what a bank promises today.
No, they earn money. The only people that lose money are (a) the people who lose their wallets, who contribute to the "interest" of everyone else using bitcoins (b) the people that spend more money than they earn and (c) the people that risked their money in some venture and lost it.

Which is exactly should be.
Why exactly? (1) This encourages retiring as early as possible which is dumb for obvious reasons and (2) your retirement money should be dependent on what YOU earn while your working, not what the later generation is earning while they are working. If people WANT to pool their funds or contribute a portion of their wages to what is essentially an insurance fund then so be it, but there is no need to FORCE people to contribute it and pay the managers (i.e, banksters).
There is absolutely no reason why one cannot invest bitcoins.

What? I'm withdrawing liquidity from the market? I just provided the other side of the trade to somebody who just wanted to sell bitcoins. Thus I am ADDING liquidity.
What type of a corporation would have a gold reserve that isn't an investment. Like, honestly.
Nations that have a gold reserve... Well, I'm not sure what you would call that, but I suppose an investment describes their motives roughly. They are investing money now in order to be able to manipulate prices in the future.

First you say that you are the type of person who would want Bitcoins to stay the same and then that investing in them isn't a bad idea.
Who wants an investment to stay the same?

Make up your mind.
Either your are the visionary who wants a new, free currecy and service or you are the person who sees bitcoins as an investment.
You're not adding liquidity to the market, you are witholding it. As if you were to put your money under your madrass, except that would be stupid in addition to bad for the economy.

Corporations and nations have gold as a reserve currency and they spread the risk around with other currencies.
They want the opposite of any change; stability.
If anything they want their home/base currency to rise compared to others.

So in most  cases for example Switzerland would want the Suisse Franc to rise in comparison to the USD, Euro and even gold.
But they have the USD, Euro  and gold in reserve in case of their currency starts to fall.


Although this isn't completely true neither.
In fact on a macro-economic scale large corporations and nations sometimes want inflation.
For example (to my great dismay) Switzerland dumped its currency a few years ago because it was getting to strong.
I'm sure it was performing near gold levels.

And yes, we all try to boost our economic situation a little bit but I spread currency mostly for liquidity and security not for investment.

Due to inflation, financial haircuts, and all the other crazy stuff going on, whats the point of saving anymore?

Fiat may seem stable to you now, as does any snowpack until the avalanche happens, the numbers don't lie:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The cold hard truth is that ALL fiat money experiments have ALL failed throughout history.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Inflaci%C3%B3_utan_1946.jpg/220px-Inflaci%C3%B3_utan_1946.jpg

Read please.
(1) I said investing WITH bitcoins isn't a bad idea. Investing in a stable currency actually works better than investing with an inflationary currency. (2) Bitcoins are currently an investment not because they will be treated that way forever, but because they haven't gained the market cap they will if they are successful and thus each individual bitcoin will grow in value.
Or, you can be both?
Buy bitcoins early, wait for them to become a new, free currency that is accepted by all, and profit. (Profit not by selling them for USD, but profit by getting 100 BTC now for a lot cheaper in terms of goods and services than you would in the future.
Its a free market, I can do what I like. If I buy bitcoins now, I am providing the liquidity the seller needs to sell his bitcoins. If I hold my bitcoins, presumably I am not being an idiot and holding them for a reason, i.e, that they are undervalued. If I hold something that is undervalued, I help it reach its correct value sooner, thus helping the market. Thats sort of the whole reason markets exist.

They think gold will be worth more than their currency in the future -> investment. You think they would buy gold if they thought it would be worth LESS in the future?

Which is why they should be using bitcoin.
May I introduce you to what is known as the currency wars?

You have yet to provide one reason why Bitcoin is, as you say, "immoral." Unless you think it is immoral to try and make money, there is absolutely nothing immoral about bitcoin. Why? Because bitcoin, does the following:
-Provides a currency with a fixed (or close to fixed) supply.
-Provides security for this currency making it close to impossible for anybody to tamper with or even monitor unless you are either (a) stupid or (b) give your permission.
-Provides the ability for you to transfer this asset to anyone else in a manner that cannot be reversed.

There is simply no way this can be viewed in a negative light, aside from playing the "dictatorships are good" card, i.e, "The king is divine and as such knows better than everyone else so he controls you for your own good."

This is the century of over production, we don't need more investment, we just need a store of value to store all those excessive production. Unfortunately today's debt based fiat money can not work as such a store of value, the more you save in fiat currency, the more debt you will incur in the system. People are in urgent need of some medium of saving which can not be inflated by central banks or execessive production power

That is bitcoin

No they haven't. All non-fiat experiments have "failed" as they are not applied anymore.
Almost no fiat-experiments have failed unless those economies also failed. In fact I'll go out on a limp and say that fiat currency (which frankly includes bitcoins, even if its "deflationary" or "non-inflationary" is dominating the currency use by 99.8%).

@Kazu

Of course you can do as you wish. I am just trying to explain to you what effects I think "investing" in bitcoins is going to have as opposed to actively using it as a currency.

It makes very little sense to use a volitale currency as a form of investment currency for other investments. The only use of bitcoins in this regard is tax-evasion and even then there are better ways but fine; I do not object to the use of bitcoins as a way to invest in other things. On the contrary.
So if I missunderstood you there I beg your pardon.

Still it seems you refuse to abandon defending bitcoins as a sound investment in terms of macro-economic implications.

Generally speaking you do not want a currency like Bitcoins used as an intermediate currency for investment precisely because of drops like these which carry an additional risk to your investment strategy. You have absolutely nothing to lose on using USD and converting them into statepapers or investing into long-term interest funds while waiting for a new bull-investment as opposed to doing the same with bitcoins.

Fiat's boring...

Why are you on a bitcoin forum if you would rather have your money value controlled by a few pigs with their hands in everyone's pockets? Let me remind you that the point of bitcoin is not as an investment or even a store of wealth. It is a currency created to avoid unfair and wrongful capital control.

I joined here because I was doing research for a possible university paper that now might go into an other direction than bitcoins.
I'm generally interested in bitcoins, why are you bothered by dissenting opinion?

Every post I've made on this issue highlights and is more or less supportive of the concept you mention above as an idea.
It is the concept of using the coins as an investment that I am negative to. How come you aren't if as you say the point of the coins was to be used as fluid currency?

I'm just confused by your supposed support of an uncontrolled current when you so blatantly support broken fiat spending?

I'm not against investing in btc because it's part of how a currency works. You have money in your bank account don't you? If you say yes, then you can't possibly say holding bitcoins is bad. The increase in value is only a side effect of increased adoption and market presence. I guess my point is that investments and holding are an essential part of a working currency because they show support and build a user base of willing users.

I notice you put failed in quotes, rightly so because no non fiat systems have failed, they have been replaced by fiat systems which will all inevitably fail.

You clearly do not know what "fiat" means, either that or you're trolling (maybe that is why you wrote limp?)

Check out wiki, first line is:


Bitcoin derives its value from its own merits as perceived by people, nothing more, the value is NOT dictated by a governing body, it is truly in a free market, as chaotic as that may be during these early days.

A university paper lol, and you don't know what fiat means, give me a break!

I think BluesBrother is my favorite poster here. Common sense is hard to come by in these crazy unstable times both in BTC and outside of it. What up bear buddy!

Basically all investments are shite at the moment. Panic commodities (Gold, Silver, BTC) bounce around like crazy mofos, bonds of all type pay around the same as inflation, banks basically just bend you over and have their way with you if you keep it in savings. My money's mainly in index based stock and real estate equities all over the world, with a very small part in precious metal based equities, which I regret daily. At least my excess money is contributing to the economies, and surely they cant all crash at once! If they do, you'll want ammo, not Gold or bitcoins.

Are you alluding to bonds here? Good gracious, do you seriously think bonds are safe? Already that house of cards is fragile, China owns ~1.6 trillion US$ bonds. If China were to put those on the market in one day, it would all be over, CRASH, down the cardhouse would come.

I asked a learned ecenomist about this predicament and he said "Yes but China can't sell them because that would be an act of war!".

Fiat currency is currency based on nothing of intrinsic value. Such as not being backed by a precious metal or a deed to something.
I don't care about what Wikipedia says in this regard and either way it is clearly a discussion of semantics.  
I love how you do not even read your own article...Seriously this forum is filled with quite many fools which is sad for such a complex and interesting new idea.

"money without intrinsic value.[9][10]"
I don't know, one of those links to Yale and the other to the guy running Harvards Economic department.

Maybe you don't consider those universities? Homeschooling is the best university! :)


I am really trying to hard to be polite here but this is absurd. DO not throw stones in a glass house.

I agree completely.  The problem is that right now, bitcoin is a currency controlled by a few pigs with their hands in everyone's pockets.  I have seen on the market some pretty intense manipulation with people throwing around huge amounts of BTC.  Not to mention microtrades nonstop from bots.

Well put. Generally owning land is among the best counters so is owning direct production of basic goods. But if it all collapses you probably want ammo :)

Hehe I do not have money in a bank account as an investment buddy. I have a bank account to be able to buy stuff such as investments.

Well, if you wanna get technical, paper money is incredibly filthy.

If it is for a university paper you will do well to bash the hell out of Bitcoin and highlight things such as "its creator is an unknown person!" and "a depreciating currency is bound to fail because nobody will spend".

You are well on your way with your response that old people should be taken care of by the state. Being a university paper I would also expand that to include minorities and the poor and lower middle class.

Here are some buzz words:
Keynes
ponzi scheme
bubble
unregulated


A+ for sure.

(I used to write outlandishly liberal papers for high grades to get through college myself, gotta look out for number 1)

...or by the family, or by their investments, or by charity.
Not by hoarding currency ;)


I have used some of those words in my text here but unregulated isn't really true. Bitcoins is the most tightly regulated currency in the world :) It is mathematically regulated which frankly is key to its success. Who the heck would use a currency which is completely unregulated?

In fact part of the failure of the US Fed and some other modern central banks is their de-regulation. They are no longer controlled by set standards or by the democratic process but by a pseudo-private, quasi-secluded council which is "independent" from government policy.

Tru tru.

Ahh...someone who actually understands what the term regulate means.

Your professor would not. In liberal speak, to regulate is to use the government to make something better.

As opposed to during the days when your rifle would be "well regulated" if it was in proper working order and checked to make sure it would shoot if needed. It was that definition they meant when talking of a well regulated militia in the Constitution.

+1

DIRTY FIAT PERSON

What do you know of my professors :p
There is something called self-regulation which is for example what supply and demand is and thus the basis of market economy. Who would dispute this?
The only dispute you can make is that it competely ignores artificial scarcity and labour wealth theory and thus is prone to manipulation but hey that's not disputing its inherit regulatory powahs.
The best way is to bash both sides, then they don't know who you're with!

Worry not about offending me, My ego is not fragile, If I ever feel I am incorrect in my assertions I change my beliefs and acknowledge the fact that I was wrong or not fully understanding. But I am 100% sure that fiat money is not a scheme beneficial to the majority.

By your argument, gold would also be fiat, (its industrial uses aside). Yet clearly we see central banks expending much effort to collect and store it, you might ask yourself why? if fiat is so good.

Clearly the banking system realises fiat is fragile and they need a safety net for when the shit hits the fan, otherwise please explain why such a barbaric relic as gold is coveted by them, I'm all ears. If their fiat was so good surely they would not care for gold.

Bitcoin is very close to gold, from an information perspective it is superior, not requiring armoured cars to transport en masse.

It is my opinion that Bitcoin does have intrinsic value. It having some very unique and attractive properties.

Are you aware of the national debt of countries using fiat? Do you realise there is NO way to reverse this trend under the fiat model?

Anyway, you are welcome to your opinion.

The reason it appears "independent" is because the public face of politics is but a shell game. A thick glass wall against which we may pound our fists when we expect things to be changed or done. Democracy is a hollywood movie illusion portrayed to give us the impression that were not beig shafted quite as hard as we really are.

The truth of the matter is that some families run things regardless of what party is voted in, politics is mere pantomime, if you really think a country changes its macro gameplan depending on the outcome of elections then you truly are naive. You would be wise to follow the money if you wish to analyse current power structures.

Sure you're welcome to your opinion to just take it easy.
Gold has since its market exposure been a worse "investment"/reserve than USD fiat currency until it started rocketing at 2001+.
And I have no idea why it did rocket.

So yeah gold has an intrinsic value as a precious metal but its value is way over that by now.


Well if you don't want them to run the show stop voting for them, get involved and vote your dad up the party machine.
Heck start a democratic or republican club that pledges to support the candidate with least donations! Just for the fun of it ;)

What is your opinion as to why central banks hold gold, you refuse to answer that, I suspect you can't without destabilising your premise.

Lol @ people who think FIAT is a good investment.

So what I see here is someone telling me I shouldn't save my own bitcoin/gold/silver for retirement, I should convert it to FIAT and let it depreciate 1.5% per year until I retire (remember, OFFICIAL gov't inflation figures, like in argentina  ;D) or invest it in a third party like a stock (Lehman Bros or Bear Stearns, for instance) or the social security system (sponsored by a government that is FINANCIALLY INSOLVENT AND APPROACHING BANKRUPTCY)

I cannot BELIEVE I am hearing this.

Most of this thread reads like occupy wall st. crap or people who don't understand the mechanics of money.

Wait, wait, so one of you tell me this: Do you believe the official government inflation figures, and base your evaluation of the USD's investment risk on that?

What else, oh yeah, people think investments are bad because they gain value without you contributing to society actively...
How stupid is this? Ok, so I put my FIAT into some sort of retirement scheme which is apparently the only way to save money without being an evil capitalist. So it gets some ridiculous amount like 3% interest per year - meanwhile, real inflation might be something like 10-15% so I am actually losing quite a bit by the time I retire. But by your official gov't figures, I am making 1.5% per year and that's ok, but if I invest in bitcoin and make 1000% per year for a few years until it reaches saturation and levels out, I am an evil cpaitalist?

What if my retirement fund invests in something like apple stock when it is worth barely nothing, then I see 800% ROI and I am set for retirement? IS that OK because I am being a good girl and buyign into your fiat scheme where the potential for tiny profit is OK but the potential for big profit is bad if it's not by accident, because I am not physically contributing to society?

This whole thread is a bucket of hogwash. Take your Paul Krugman Ben Bernanke socialist fiat occupy wall st. theories elsewhere, bitcoin is too good for you ;D ;D ;D
If you want to be a slave to the federal reserve, do it, just don't try to sell me cockamamey theories about my contribution to society and how all money should be inflationary cuz deflation = bad cuz paul krugman said people don't spend deflationary money (gold silver and bitcoins are three excellent counter examples.) and how I should invest fiat into a financially insolvent government's social security scheme and watch it lose money and not be adjusted for real inflation and in the meantime used to kill little kids in pakistan with ObamaDrones.

No, you're just gambling in that case (similiar to a shareholder of a company or someone who plays the lottery) - unless you're also providing a service or product for bitcoin.


No, a good girl makes me a sandwich and brings me beer when I really need it.

According to the Occupy Wall St. Bears, anyone with that % profit is an evil capitalist ponzi market manipulator and doesn't care about bitcoin. If I invest in a low-yield government scheme with an insolvent counterparty, as was suggested by someone else in this thread, or a 'stable' stock in a too-big-to-fail government-approved behemoth, and end up losing money due to rampant inflation or REAL market manipulation, I'd consider that gambling with retirement just as much as investing 10% of a portfolio into bitcoins is.


In the context of this thread, a "good girl" is someone who prefers inflationary fiat over deflationary currencies/stores of value, and fails to recognize the pressing issues regarding its not-so-pretty future. Also, it helps to hold the opinion that a 1.5% yield is 'responsible and good' but a 1500% yield is "evil, capitalist, irresponsible, not contributing to society.' This is why judgement language is not only semantically invalid (in the field of applied general semantics) but has absolutely no place in the worlds of finance, investment, monetary economics, etc. 

A good girl doesn't bring you sandwich and beer, a good girl brings you a hot potato - right out of the 450 degree oven - and puts it right in your bare hands. When you swear and throw it across the room, she explains that it is the metaphorical hot potato of fiat currency - you don't get to choose your poison i.e. nice cuddly 3% inflation - it starts at 3% and the official figures are reluctant to budge but once real inflation is 30+ percent the Argentinian peso becomes like a hot potato and you have to get rid of it the second you get it - inflation is just theft in disguise, and promotes rampant consumerism spend-spend-spend mentality. Deflation encourages a responsible balance of saving and spending.

You live off of your millions you made from all that wise investing?  Well that is my plan and it has been working in my family for generations.  Some choose a nice bridge to live under.

Fiat is a poor investment but, it isn't some big bad scary thing that will lose enormous value any time soon either.  While we do have a national debt of trillions there are different theories that contradict each other on how bad that is.  Most of the sky is falling types claim a debt/GDP ratio over 100% which the USA is near is OMFGBBQ end of the world we are all going to die.  Well Japan is at over 200% and the sky hasn't fallen there so far.

Unlike Cyprus, Greece and Spain, the USA and Japan control their Fiat and can make more money.  This could cause future hyper inflation but, since 1973 it has not and we have had manageable inflation.  My favorite line is when people say we are going bankrupt.  This is beyond ignorant as a country than can print more money can not go bankrupt.

Yes long term debt is bad however look at the size of our economy.  It is still enormous and China is no where near caught up.  Their survival depends on Americans buying their goods.  They have no interest at this point in harming our economy and destroying their source of income.  Long term things don't look great however, one huge boom can change all that.  After WW2 we had over 100% debt/GDP ratio and we paid it down in 20 years.  Macro economics is very complicated and most "economists" I have talked to are theorists and glorified bullshit artists.  We (all Fiat based counties) are in uncharted territory and anyone who claims to have answers is a theory smoke blowing bag of hot air.

Having any type of money is a gamble - because money only represents the things we really want (a house, car, food, water, etc.). The question is: do you believe in the asset you have? e.g. Would you work for Bitcoin if someone wanted to pay you with it instead of government money?


Do you prefer it as an "investment" just to sell it for government money again or do you prefer it to pay and to get paid?

Bitcoin is for longterm, or making bank when it was $200+.

I told you it's a currency reserve.

So fucking true.

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah i like cake

You need to understand that anything that doesn't have a unit value of "1" can be an investment, and that unit value of "1" is entirely up to somebody's perception to determine. People in Japan are "investing" in the US Dollar. What is an "investment" now, should it become widely accepted as that unit of "1", will no longer be an investment, and thus suitable for being an investment currency in other investments.
You were the one that said that if people use bitcoins they are detracting from society because they are not investing. So  ???

Of course I consider Bitcoins a sound investment, that is why I own them.
What? If you are using Bitcoins as an intermediate currency, then by definition you are not exposed to any risk of fluctuation. That is why Bitpay is a thing. All "startup" currencies by definition will have fluctuations in price relative to all other currencies. This is something that will (hopefully) decrease over time
This is assuming that USD will always be more stable than Bitcoin. The USD, by definition, is unsustainable. The very way in which it is created ensures it cannot be sustainable in the long term. Bitcoin can be stable. It isn't necessarily stable, but if bitcoin were "sticky" it would be a lot more stable than the USD.

A currency reserve?

You do realise that the US$ is no longer backed by gold?

And that gold is not classed as a currency?

Please elaborate...

Family and charity may be unreliable. Investments are probably OK but if investments are not a good choice, should you not be able to hold your money in currency and not have it robbed by inflation bandits?

No you should not be able to. You should either save it (let the bank invest it), or invest it yourself in a very diversified portfolio. If you hide it under the mattress or in gold silver or bitcoins, you deserve to lose it since you're basically making a bet that society is gonna fail, yet too dumb to realize all these items will also be worthless in that case.

Having a very small portion of your net worth in bitcoins or precious metals is reasonable, as long as you're prepared to lose it all. Anyone who bought-to-hold or sold bitcoin in the last 4 months has done nothing to contribute to the future of bitcoin, sorry but its true.

Money is delayed fulfillment for work or services performed. By deliberately devaluing that, your are stealing from that effort. Did you consider that by not immediately spending that money, you are allowing the economy to grow in a healthy way by allowing resources that you would otherwise be claiming, perhaps wastefully, to be used in more productive ways.

I'm sorry, are you saying whatever this guy spends his money on will be wasted? If nobody spent money the economy would implode in a matter of minutes.

http://0.tqn.com/d/animatedtv/1/0/K/w/sp1303Margaritaville_170.jpg

Yes, that is true of a a debt based economy, quite scary really.

A debt based economy can only survive with ever increasing expenditure, and so we see resources wasted and asses too fat.

If you want to know the math explained simply then check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8