Bitcoin Forum

The only people on here that have any chance at making REAL money are the first miners who basically got their coins for pennies. They know who they are and they are smart. They are the ones pimping and hyping the shit out of bitcoins. I have been rebuffed for used stocks as an example but it applies to bitcoins. The people who have gotten in on the big companies and made their millions and millions are the ones who got in for next to nothing. Coke, microsoft, apple etc the list goes on. Do you think an ordinary joe is going to get rich on Apple stock now? They missed the boat. Opportunities come around few times in a persons life and right now at $200 the boat is gone. even at $100 or $50 the boat is GONE! UNLESS you have a ton of money to begin with and my point is then mute. Can you imagine having 10000 bitcoins and you paid $100 in electricity to get them? Now you have people scraping $1000 together to buy 5 coins. Do you see what I mean?

Now I have a question for the naysayers. Tell me an investment past or present(not a stock) that costs $200 or less that anyone could buy that made that person a millionaire. The only caveat is that the investment had/has to be a fully disseminated idea that the world knows/knew about. So in other words the person got in AFTER THE FACT and made millions off of a $200 investment.

you can easily make as much money as an early miner, you just need more money to do so

Ya what about all the people that laughed at me when I told them all it would take is to cumulate 10000BTC to never worry about money again and no one wanted to spend $5 $10 for BTC. So you might of missed the boat but I missed it all time ago when then price moved $7 per BTC...

So lets say that people are just getting into Bitcoin now and are buying 5BTC for $1000.  You say that is not worth it?  Their $1000 investment could easily increase up to $10,000 or even more in the next 4 or 5 years.  Tell me of any stock that has ever had that great of returns!?

It is just a matter of time before people with large amounts of money realize the potential here and jump in to take advantage. 

Sure the early miners scored big time. They took a risk and are already reaping rewards today.  At that time it seemed like a long-shot though.  I think we have even more proof NOW than the miners did back then that Bitcoin is going to work.  So the risk is even less!  There is regulation in place.  There are more stable exchanges to buy and sell.  There are large companies adopting Bitcoin.  There are funds being put into place that will channel hundreds of thousands of dollars into Bitcoin. 

NOW is a fantastic time to buy and $200 per BTC is still super cheap!

ITT.  OP believes any investment that doesn't turn $200 into millions in a few years = "not worth it".

I don't know - mining might have been profitable - but it was taking too much time. Buying was more efficient way to gather BTC.

There will be boat after boat after boat, but the room for profits on each will become smaller and smaller. The real last boat is when we have reached the saturation point and everyone knows/uses Bitcoin(then it will make about as much profit as "investing" in the US dollar aka almost none). Talk to the people you know and you'll realize how small a fraction actually are into Bitcoin already.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Who's claiming an investment of $200 now will/should make you rich?

Not sure if $200 (quick rise) is a fantastic time to buy but could still be a great investment long term.

However probably lots of early miners sold off for a few bucks per coin.

Opportunities are like buses, there will be another coming in 5 minutes

True. Fiat sitting in your wallet is losing it's value over time. You need to constantly invest in something, stable or not - that's your choice.

Subcribed to check back in 1, 2, and 5 years. I bet I made a "boatload" of more money by then

Single $200 investment? Idk about that but the forex market in general.

I'm surprised this thread isn't from summer 2011,
because there were a ton of threads like this back then.

If you are short on cash but long on confidence there is always buying on margin. Jack it up my man!

people who bought in at 100 are doing really well and they didnt get their coins for pennies. why do you need to make millions? whats wrong with making hundreds or thousands?

furthermore the market is still tiny, there is huge room for growth. angry birds is a well polished slingshot game and its franchise is valued at 7 billion dollars, bitcoin is a revolutionary currency and payment mechanism and its valued at 2 billion dollars. there is still every possibility that people who sink a few thousand dollars in today could make millions off of that investment. m2 money supply is something like 2 trillion dollars. lets say 1/2 that wealth flowed into bitcoin and you invested 5000 dollars today, that would net you $2,495,000 in profit.

Sorry, seems you thought Bitcoin if get rich quick scheme.
But maybe you will buy some new company stocks and get lucky few years later. Good luck  ;)

+1  but less slower than anything else IMO

Come on people you are missing the point. Tell me some success stories of investments where people made a ton of money and the idea was already set in motion? AFTER THE FACT!  You people now missed the boat and the REAL money is long gone. Give me an example of an investment that proves my point wrong. I am not denying the fact that there is money to be made yet. All I am saying is that very rarely are you going to get rich on something that has already happened.

you are correct. but who had $50000-$100000 unless you were already rich and could afford to lose that money.

Cmon Bitchick there are stocks that go up 10 fold several times a week. TSLA electric car stock has gone from $30 to $180 in 3 months recently.

no I am saying bitcoin boat is gone if you want to get really rich. the early miners are the only ones who are going to make any real money.

You may not get filthy rich in a few years by only investing a couple hundred $, but what are the alternatives, anyway? Hold on to depreciating dollars? Bonds of a state that's about to default? Carry around a safe full of gold and silver, and hope that it won't get confiscated on a border, because you didn't fill out a customs form properly? Investing into companies you have no real knowledge of?

I know people who got in with BTC in June and have been buying like crazy since.  Amassed a significant amount ... half at $60 and half at about $120 with an average of about $90 .... and right now they've made a ton of money.   It all comes down to how much you spend.   Then how much it goes up.

You mean if Apple stock was $200 and eventually $900 ?   Yes ... they'd make tons of money off it.  Same with if they "got in now" with Google and google was currently at $200 ... eventually to hit $900.  But only if they could afford to buy at $200.

If BTC does what they estimate and hits $1,000 ... anyone who buys right now will make a shit ton of money.

Moot.  Not mute.  I know a few people who have put their life savings in.  They aren't wealthy to start.  But they've got $50,000 ... $60,000 ... $80,000 saved ... and you can bet they'll bank some money if BTC goes from $100 to $200 like it did.


If someone buys $50,000 worth of BTC at $100 and it eventually hits $1,000 or $10,000 ... that person is going to have $500 million dollars.
You can bet a lot of people out there have $50,000 invested in at least something.  And I know for a fact several people have put $10,000 to $50,000 into BTC.
They're hardly rich.  But they very well could be.

As for those who have 10,000 coins .... thats astronomical.  But yes you can still make 'real money' with BTC.  If you have a little to begin with.

Of all the arguments you could've possibly chosen to discredit Bitcoin, you selected, "You can make money, but don't expect a 100,000% return on your investment?"

 ???

This is not completely true. I know someone who mined 500 bitcoin in 2 days back in 2009 and just deleted his wallet because it worth nothing at that time. Early miners did not automatically became rich quick. Some also sold their bitcoin for almost nothing. (look for that pizza that was bought for 10K bitcoins).
Bitcoin has a lot of potential and those who missed that missed the boat. Same is true for now.

Makes me wonder how much Bitcoin was lost because it was not worth much in the early days.  That means the value of the ones we hold should be worth even more in the long run correct?

The boat is gone but the ship is coming, time for late adopters to bloom when this gets mainstream.

FOR GOD's SAKE. I AM NOT AGAINST BITCOIN!! I AM SAYING THAT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE LOOKING AT MAKING SOME SERIOUS MONEY ARE THE EARLY MINER'S THEY PAYED  FREAKING PENNIES FOR THEIR COINS AND EVERYONE ELSE IS PAYING $50 , $100 OR $200. YOU ALL ARE TOO LATE TO MAKE THE KIND OF MONEY THE MINER'S MADE. THEIR INVESTMENT IS UP 1000000% OR WHATEVER THE PERCENTAGE IS. AND NOW THAT MORE AND MORE AND MORE PEOPLE LEARNING AND BUYING ITS GOING TO BE HARDER AND HARDER TO MAKE THE RETURNS. BECAUSE WHERE THERE IS SERIOUS MONEY BEING MADE, YOU CAN BE SURE AS SHIT PEOPLE WHO REALLY HAVE MONEY OR INFORMATION OR THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS ARE GOING TO MAKE THE $1000'S OR MILLIONS BEFORE YOU!!!!!!!!

What makes you think the opportunity is lost?  As bitcoin gains popularity 100x as many people as now may be using it.  This is still the beginning.

Why be jealous of people who took the risks before you even knew about bitcoin?  The pioneers.  They got there first and found alot of the gold that on the surface of the ground and easy pickings.  Great for them.  They put in the time and took the risks before it was anything like established.  It all could have evaporated.

Now that these people have blazed a trail, find a way to get some of that good stuff for yourself.  You have a great advantage they didn't have: you KNOW bitcoins are valuable and likely to be viable for some time to come!

Create a business that accepts bitcoins.  Or work to get money to purchase bitcoins with.

Or you can cry in your milk and do nothing.

Your call.

ok so you are trying to argue that bitcoin probably isn't a get rich quick scheme anymore. well yea that's probably true, but it also might not be.

but he did not jump from a bridge yet, the poor guy?  :'(

Since I know OP didnt read my response above, Ill make it shorter for him:

1)  Its Moot not Mute

2)  BTC is speculated to hit $1,000 .... $10,000 ... $100,000 .... anyone who buys today, in sufficient quantity, will still make millions of dollars.  That's still "real money".

3)  The people you're referring to who have 10,000 BTC ... well thats just astronomical.

This isnt the beginning. The beginning was back when bitcoins were pennies. I am not jealous. I have missed many boats in my lifetime and I will miss more. The news on Bitcoin is fully disseminated for the people who are even the least bit curious.

ANSWER THIS QUESTION:
Tell me an investment past or present(not a stock) that costs $200 to $5000 less that anyone could buy that made that person a millionaire. The only caveat is that the investment had/has to be a fully disseminated idea that the world knows/knew about. So in other words the person got in AFTER THE FACT and made millions off of their investment.

What is "Serious money?"
Someone with $10,000 could buy coin today.  The coin could double.  They could sell half and then they will make pure profit off of BTC. Perhaps several hundred thousand if they hold them long enough.  Or, someone with $200 buys one.  Holds it for several years.  It reaches $100,000.  They cash out the $200 initial investment and they still profited $199,800. 

Sure someone could have mined or purchased 10,000 BTC for $10.  That same person could have already sold that coin for a pizza.  It is about seeing an opportunity and using the means we have to take advantage of that.  According to this post there are only 1000 people (or companies) with holdings of BTC over 1000 now https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=316297.0;topicseen That puts anyone with even 10 BTC in a pretty good place if and when this takes off!

I am not worried about those with 1000 coins or 10,000 coins.  They were smart but they were also the biggest risk takers here and they earned that!  I am happy that I am still an early enough adopter to still get on the "boat" you claimed we have all missed.  Only time will tell, but I have a feeling in a year from now someone will post this same thing.

no guts, no glory.

to make huge returns, you have to take huge risks. how could something be risky of the idea is already widespread?
that's like saying show me a square with only 3 sides...

NO WAY IS IT GOING TO $10000. IT MAY HIT $1000. BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IS HOW MANY COINS CAN YOU BUY RIGHT NOW AT THIS MOMENT? IF YOU CANT BUY 10000 YOU ARE NOT A PLAYER. THE PLAYERS ARE GOING TO MAKE THE MONEY AND THEY ARE HOPING YOU BOTTOM FEEDERS PUT EVERY LAST CENT INTO BITCOINS AND THEY WILL TAKE EVERY CENT FROM YOU.

EXACTLY IT IS WIDESPREAD NOW ANSWER THIS QUESTION:
Tell me an investment past or present(not a stock) that costs $200 or less that anyone could buy that made that person a millionaire. The only caveat is that the investment had/has to be a fully disseminated idea that the world knows/knew about. So in other words the person got in AFTER THE FACT and made millions off of a $200 investment.

You are talking rubbish and you know you are. Firstly your question is ridiculous, nobody is going to tell you something they can buy for $200 that will make a million because they wouldn't tell you if they did know. Secondly, to say any less than 10000 coins is pointless proves you are trolling. If someone has doubled there money over the course of the last 6 months they are winning. If they had £500, £5000 or £50000 invested they are feeling pretty happy right now. To talk about missing the boat if you didn't make millions is bollocks, most people would feel very very pleased making 20-30% on an investment.

Only 1100 people in the world could own 10,000 BTC and that is if no one else in the world even owned 0.1 BTC.

BTW- Not everyone knows about Bitcoin.  I am not sure why you keep saying that.

Tell me an investment past or present(not a stock) that costs $200 or less that anyone could buy that made that person a millionaire. The only caveat is that the investment had/has to be a fully disseminated idea that the world knows/knew about. So in other words the person got in AFTER THE FACT and made millions off of a $200 investment.


sHOW ME AN EXAMPLE IN THE PAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I find the fact that because somebody can not tell you an unrelated investment opportunity to return 5000x you take that as proof that what you are saying is right very strange indeed.

SEEING NO ONE CAN GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE SHOWS THAT ITS A PIPE DREAM. ITS NOT STRANGE BECAUSE EVERYONE ON HERE HAS THE BELIEF THAT A $200 BITCOIN IS GOING TO $10000. SO SHOW ME AN EXAMPLE OF THIS IN THE PAST WHERE ORDINARY PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD GOT RICH BY INVESTING IN AN IDEA THAT THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT.

Has there been discussion of transaction fees in this context? I've never looked into it. How valuable is a satoshi when transaction fees cost many, many, many times more?

bitcoin is unprecedented. it may be the case that if you asked this question again in 10 years the answer would be bitcoin, and it would be the only correct answer to the question.

Bitcoin went from $1 to $200.  Thousands of people knew about Bitcoin when it was $1.  There were even mainstream newstories by then.  By your "logic" the rise from $1 to $200 should be impossible. 

The fact that the prior history of Bitcoin disproves your very claim doesn't it at least seem possible that the future unwritten history of Bitcoin will do the same?

Examples in the past???

The internet never had anything that preceded it.  Bitcoin is the "internet" of money.  There is nothing like it so we cannot really compare it to anything else.

I do not understand your comment of "AFTER THE FACT."  So many people do not even know about Bitcoin yet or use it.  Just look at the number of posts on Facebook pages for "dogs" as compared to "Bitcoin" and it gives you a vague idea.  I am not sure what circle you are in but none of my friends or family had ever heard about it until I mentioned it to them.  We are early adopters.  You might not believe that but it is true just the same.  If you want to prove me wrong then take my challenge.  Buy 1BTC hold it for a few years and if you have not made a significant amount of money you can say, "I told you so."  

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :o :P

I would say that something like 99.6% of the world is not aware of what the bitcoin protocol is capable of, including more than 3/4 of the people who are invested in it, such as the OP. In this sense, it is very much still unknown, and not a "fully disseminated", as you've described it. People can project market caps onto bitcoin based on real world currencies, companies, and commodities that are 10s to 100's of times what bitcoin is valued at now, and it sounds fantastical, but the possibilites are so much more than just that. People like me just stay quiet in these discussions, because the guy saying bitcoin will be worth $10,000 already sounds crazy enough, and while I agree with his conclusion, it's not for the reasons he is giving.

Blockchain will be used for more than a financial ledger. Use your imagination to think of the biggest problems the world faces today, and how a decentralized peer to peer system in place to determine how to solve that problem and supply funding for that solution simultaneosly, and near instantaneously while being completely impervious to corruption might look. Suddenly, the concept of leadership, regulation, and boundaries will seem unecessary and unwieldy.

YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. THE RISE FROM $1 TO $200 WAS THE BOAT COMING IN. IT IS GONE NOW

Yawn

Fleabag,

You should take some time to understand a little more about markets.  What your not considering is market cap.  Take apple for intance, which you referenced earlier.  The market cap is roughly $500 billion and the price is roughly $500 with roughly 1 billion shares outstanding.  Bitcoin has a market cap of a bit over $2 billion and a price of around $200 with a bit over 11 million coins outstanding.

Although Apple is about 2.5 times the price of bitcoin, its market cap is 250 times that of bitcoin.  if bitcoin were to reach the market cap of Apple, the price would be $50,000/bitcoin with the current number of coins outstanding.

I just came over this post on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1owf4v/im_rick_falkvinge_founder_of_the_first_pirate/ccwbao9

This guy, said to be a bitcoin believer, invested most of his money when bitcoin worth $7, but then sold all of them when price crashed back under $7. And he bought again at $3, but trade in the market and did not make significant money

It is no difference now, if you don't believe in the long term success of bitcoin, you will be wiped out by the market swings, it does not really matter when did you enter the market

I thought the rise from a penny to $1 was the boat coming in.  Shouldn't the rise from $1 to $200 be impossible.  The "investment" had already rose 10,000%.   Thousands of people knew about it.  There was media attention.   It was to use your crude language "after the fact".   It shouldn't have been possible for that second round of adopters to profit 10,000% as well. 

What about the subsequent crash back to $5.  You said $1,000 is possible.   $5 was certainly "after the boat" once again using your redicuoulous logic.  Someone buying in at $5 and selling at $1000 would be looking at 20,000% return.  Shouldn't that also be impossible?

I GIVE UP! i GUESS THE FACT THAT I HAVE BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH TO SEE HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED, YOU ALL WILL HAVE TO LEARN ON YOUR OWN.

Bought SIRI at $1.85 on 06/07/2012 still riding to todays high of $4.12, plan on selling at ~5ish, didnt have the balls to buy at $.09
Bought FB at $26 have a sell order in at $55, which was almost triggered today, hit a high of $54.76

I would say those are some pretty healthy returns.

CANT USE STOCKS IN THE ANSWER TO MY QUESTION. GOOD JOB THOUGH ON THE STOCKS.

Do you like being dumb?

IM OUT FOR THE NIGHT. YOU GUYS ARE GOOD SPORTS ABOUT IT. I ENJOYED THE DEBATE. I REALLY AND HONESTLY HOPE YOU ALL MAKE ALOT OF $$$$$$$$. I JUST THINK ITS A TOUGH PROPOSITION AT THIS POINT IN TIME.

YES I LOVE BEING DUMB. LETS SEE HOW SMART YOU ARE. ANSWER THIS QUESTION SMART ASS

Tell me an INVESTMENT past or present(NOT A STOCK) that costs $200-$5000 that anyone could have bought and then went on to become a millionaire. The only caveat is that the investment had/has to be a fully disseminated idea that the world knows/knew about. So in other words the person got in AFTER THE FACT and made millions off of a $200-$5000 investment.

I like this guy.

(And yes, no one's getting X000% ROI on a facebook stock.)

School?

Edit:  You lose.

https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABRK.A

time to sell that shit man. technology moves FAST. siri is going to be as ancient as dated as cassette tapes in a couple of years.

Back in 2007 a girl at my work shows me the Apple Itouch. I am floored at this thing, the browser touch screen was just amazing. 1st thought was that the app store would be a printing press and that buying Apple stock a total no brainier. BUT NAH I look at the price and see $180 and think I can't own enough stocks @ $180. Todays price: $519

after coming down from $700

Some people may have thousands of coins now, but that never lasts.

People die or spend coins on cars and houses and trips, give them to their kids and grand kids.  Just sitting in a wallet the bitcoins are useless.  So they will be spent or traded eventually - putting the bitcoins into circulation where you too can obtain them for yourself!

I don't know about you, but if I were middle aged (and we all get there eventually) and had a pile of bitcoins, I would be out there enjoying life, traveling, having the time of my life and putting those bitcoins to good use.  Afterall, the most valuable commodity of all is the short LIFE we have.  Not bitcoins.

Create something of value and people will hand over bitcoins and money for your goods or services.  Yes, it's true - you too can thrive, even become wealthy, through honest effort and work!

haha loving the trolls in this discussion. obviously new to BTC

2 points:
market cap of 2billion is tiny for a financial instrument.
BTC is not fully disseminated

this upward shift looks a lot like the beginning of the last bubble, only the base-line is much higher.

I remember saying when the price was $14 heading into the April bubble that there is no way it will go any higher. I sold most of my BTC then. I leant a valuable lessons:
never underestimate BTC
It is impossible to predict BTC

The bottom line is:
bitcoins still has a lot left in it. Just depends on long you can wait without folding.

Your itenerary:

-Take boat, Deboard at harbor to train station
-Take train, Exit at train stop at space station
-Board rocket


(boat) ]hardor =====<[train][tracks]>===== ((space station)) %%%%%[rocket===>                                  O  moon

Poetic and true. Underappreciated post.

Also, I like the sidenote that, if not bitcoin, then its successor will (probably) succeed. Too many people here forget that.

I dont believe this. The most used wins no matter of the flaws it has, look at Microsoft Operation Systems.

I don't see why there would be a successor.
If an innovation happens in another crypto that the market demands, surely bitcoin will adapt to include it.
Given the advantage btc has over other cryptos by being the original, I would think there's no way for another to knock it off it's perch.

Buy some Litecoin at a nice price of $1.67 a coin  :D

Only 84 Million coins for the globe  ;)

+1111111

Tell that to Netscape Navigator. Or maybe its successor, Internet Explorer. Or to that one's successor, Firefox. Or how about Alta Vista. Remember the grip they had on the search market? No, probably not, but it can be looked up easily. Or how about Myspace. Man, no chance they could ever lose their dominant position as the social network.

Look, it's a pretty simple concept: I'm not saying Bitcoin will necessarily superseded, I'm just pointing out it's a possibility. For every market leader who held a monopoly in any kind of field for an indefinite time, there's one who was replaced by a new contender. It's a possibility within cryptocurrencies as well, and you'd be wise to keep your mind open enough to consider such a possibility at least. Doesn't mean you have to dump all your bitcoins right this moment :D

I don't think that comparing btc to a free piece of software, social network or search engine is really a valid comparison.

In fact, since nothing in history has ever matched btc in terms of utility, it's very difficult to compare it to anything.

I think it would be more poignant to compare it to companies like paypal, WU or Visa, even though btc offers more than these three combined.

Now that they have dominant share of a saturated market, it would be very difficult for some start up to come in and take over the market.
Especially since when one of the companies offers something, the other companies in the sector quickly follow suit ie mastercard paypass => visa paywave

I'm not saying it definitely won't happen, I just think it's highly unlikely considering the head start bitcoin and this community has over the alts.
It would have to offer something that can't be added to bitcoin to be of any real threat.

This is why we see btc at over $200 today and ltc valued more than 100x less.

Don't know. What's the answer?


Lucky only a microscopic percentage of the world knows about Bitcoin. Best hop onboard. You don't wanna miss that boat...

People who buy Bitcoin at lower prices can make higher returns: Point Conceded.

No one can buy bitcoin today and make serious money: Time Will Tell.

Did that when Litecoin is at the price of $1.9-$2.... regretted!!

Correct. Ltc is marginally useful (as a hedge against some black swan even that would affect btc, but not ltc -- a rather unlikely scenario, I would add) at best, and selfish at its core at worst. But you'll note that in my post I said nothing about ltc. I don't believe they could ever take over the dominant role in cryptocurrency. A currency that doesn't exist yet, and in one way or another improves on btc... that's a different matter.

oda.krell, I hope you are long now. The drop that marked the end of the second sub-sub-wave of the second sub-wave of wave B was overturned by whales.
There should have been at least a 10$ drop, but the whales didn't wait for it to end and bought. That's on Gox.
I believe we are going to see the third sub-sub-wave of wave B, and only after that we go down.

I'm holding, and have been, for a while now. And personally, I don't see that correction happening yet. By my count, we're up around 50% from where the "irrational" part of the current rally began (I'm going by bitstamp figures, by the way, but the two markets are linked closely enough that it doesn't matter). The market is more cautious this time, April is still in the back of the mind of many people, but a 50% rise in about 10 days isn't quite the frenzy that makes me think we'll see a major correction in the next days. That'll be different when (and depending on how) we go past 260 to 300.

An education.

Is that the TA formulation for "oops, I was wrong"?

Because all I read is

http://www.meme-generator.de/media/created/9ngne6.jpg

Correct.  Tzupy prefers blaming others to admitting he can't see the future.

PLEASE do tell me where I can get a $200-$5000 education that employers wouldn't laugh at.

Clever answer. I fear old fleabag will find fault though.

First off thats an unfair question because your numbers where differnet back then due to inflation. lets take a look at gold. in the late 1960 it was going for 35$ an ounce. doubling by 1972, and going up by a facotr of 10 by late 1990s. everyone said gold rush was over, but we went up by a factor of 5 in another 10 years, and a factor of 5 will most likley be achieved in the next 10 years. bearkshare hathaway on the other hand has also done fairly well. at each point in time there were people like you screaming its over, and there were people like me who realize that the run up has only begun. 200 a bitcoin is cheap. 1500 an ounce of gold is cheap. do yourself a favor, go to a mall and ask 100 people if they can tell you what a bitcoin is. then ask them if they own a bitcoin. then do the same for gold. then after calming down come back to this forum and post again

There's your problem right there.
Talking to investors is better

Pretty much anyone reading these words knows quite a bit about bitcoins. We are surrounded here with voices who have adopted and understand. It becomes easy to assume that the boat has left, so much "easy money" and "astronomical profits" has already been made. But honestly, well over 99% of the population of the earth has likely not even heard the term "bitcoin" yet. We see it in the news only because we are looking for it. To the average person it is so far off of the radar that it might as well not even exist.

The boat has not left. In fact, it is barely off the drawing board yet.

You know, when you carve away all the trolling and needless SHOUTING, fleabag's argument is not even completely dumb. If an event never happened until now, or only happens extremely rarely, it is reasonable to adjust your expectation of the likelihood of that event happening in the future by the fact. As always, there's a relevant xkcd (http://xkcd.com/1132/) for this.

That said, I ultimately disagree with fleabag for several reasons. His assumption is flawed ("the entire worlds already knows about it"), and the event itself is not completely unprecedented either (e.g. a pretty large number of millionaires were created during the dot-com bubble -- some even kept their wealth). Finally, constructing the prior probability is not as simple as saying "that totally didn't happen before, so it'll never happen, duh", which is essentially what he is trying to say.

Most of Europe? A.k.a. "the civilized part of the modern world" :D

You just showed you have no idea what I was talking about.
And yes, I can't accurately predict the price movement when someone breaks my combo. Shit happens.

In the future emplyeers will laugh at those that paid more than that

BOAT IS STILL SEA!

GO SWIM AND CLIMB UP THE BOAT!!!

THIS BOAT WILL BECOME A SHIP!

Did you really think $200+ is the top?

GUESS AGAIN!

So you can accurately predict price movement until you can not?
Because the thing "breaking the combo" is the same thing you try to predict.

Um, lots of places.

I can predict when there will be a smaller or larger drop or spike in price, and am trying to guesstimate the tops and bottoms.
When 'noise' pollutes the waves, that's when my combo breaks.
When buyers like me wait for the sellers to finish dumping, they can buy (get hit) with calculated orders and without slippage.
Today some other buyers went panic buying in the first half of the drop, maybe they didn't care about slippage.

I stopped reading the drivle a little while back... but his question about an investment that made so much? Simple answer..
Any government currency in existence :p
Comes from 0, gets printed to whatever insane rate of inflation they want.
Bitcoins are unprecedented, but exponential (and even greater) rates of deflation have and can exist. Anyone betting against the USD for instance in the past 20 years would have gotten something similar if they were smart :P

Yup MySpace was at one time the most used and thus always ...

The prior post is correct.  Bitcoin may be "good enough" (ebay) and thus the network effect will be powerful enough to resist technically superior future (none of alt-coins to date) competitors.  On the other hand Cryptocurrency as a concept is larger than just Bitcoin and it may turn out that Bitcoin wasn't "good enough" (MySpace) and its network effect will fold to a VASTLY superior competitor.

I would tend to think that if bitcoin achieves a reasonable (no telling what "reasonable" really means) market penetration that it would likely remain entrenched unless the something that comes along is vastly superior, or at least superior enough to induce retooling the entire existing infrastructure to accommodate a transition. Each day that the bitcoin infrastructure grows (in terms of adoption, services, acceptance, and even hardware) if becomes less likely that a successor can make headway. We may already be beyond that point unless the successor makes bitcoin completely obsolete for just about everything it does.

This is me pretty much agreeing with you.

you just got on here to say that? you have 2 posts go fuck off!

+1

I purposely missed the boat, because I was never sure if the boat was going to sink or float.  I typically held on to them long enough to buy what I wanted at the time.
 
But I'm a small fish, I've gone through (net) approx 350btc during my time here.  I have 5 left.   But what I *did* get was to turn those btc into tangible things (essentially what money does) that my wife would never let me purchase with "real money." 
 
So am I sad?  A little, but not enough to jump off a building or anything, 'cause I some sweet guns and gun accessories, all of which would have been nixed from the get-go if I had used "real" money (her words).

I'm still mining, albeit really slowly. 

Need posts to contribute to a discussion; need to contribute to a discussion to post. Genuinely, I'm new to this forum so if there's a specific way most people navigate this Catch-22 please point me to that direction.

Yea its not like he is the oldest of the bunch either.....hence the nobbynoob questions

Nonsense.

I got in under a dollar. With $100 that I couldn't well afford at the time, on what looked like some ridiculous hair brained scheme. I rued the fact that I had seen it 6 months earlier and tried to set up a miner at that time but had been distracted.

At the time I bought in, for me the small possibility of making money, was far outweighed by the crazy percentage returns that started to become available to me (and improvement in my cash-flow, $100 was still a lot at that time. Business was struggling. I could barely pay the bills) as it first hit ~$6 then ~$9 then ~$15.

You simply cannot hold. If you are as old and wise as you say you are then you know those kind of returns absolutely compel you to take profits. History is replete with examples of people holding too long and losing it all. I've gambled in my time, I know all about that.

I watched in horror as it continued to rise through the 20s, but still that money was in my pocket. I was vindicated when it crashed hard from the 30s.

Then comes the dilemma, buy in or not, where is the bottom, how much can i really afford to risk, am I just going to lose everything I made.

I got back in tentatively in the teens, then a bit more in the single digits. Worried that everything I bought now might just end up as dead money. The bottom came in though, but at the time you don't know that, so many of my low bids were mostly missed as the price turned the corner.

As the price starts to rise your feel the relief that your underwater positions are starting to recover, but also start to regret how much you didn't buy when the price was 20% lower, and wrangle with yourself as to how much more to risk.

Time went by and I ended up with more then ten times my original outlay invested, but still only around 100 coins. I was a bit better off, but $1000 was a shit load of money to be effectively gambling with. It started to grow though, $2k then $3k this was insane amounts of money for me. I lost several hundred dollars in bitcoinica, but I was still up.

Was I to just hold. I had more money invested in bitcoin than I earned in a month! Why you would be insane not to take some profits. I did, several times, all the way up into the $200s (I was lucky enough to sell a few at $220 before the high at $266). Again I had that sinking feeling, everytime I sold the price kept rising. Thousands of dollars of potential profit up in smoke.

Still, I had money in my back pocket again. Then the price cashed, and I was vindicated.

But whats this, it stayed well above the previous all time high, I wasn't going to be buying back in (in some cases for more than I sold some of my coin). That just didn't make sense.

With hindsight of course, it would have made perfect sense

Now I'm in a situation where my BTC may soon be worth more than I have invested in everything else cumulatively (not including house). Yet my dollar cost average position is negative.

The pressure to cash out is insane. This is real serious amounts of money now. Not quite life changing, but certainly life-easing for the short term!

Suggesting someone (to whom $200 means something) can sit and watch that $200 investment turn into $1million, and at no point sell. Thats what's ridiculous.

And here I am trying to just that though ;)

I have credit card debt with double digit APR, and I aint paying it off. I have a mortgage that is going to cost me double what I borrowed over its lifetime, and I ain't paying it off.

If I didn't believe that a $200 investment could make me a millionaire, you really think I'd be risking 5 figures on the ultimate meal ticket?

If I lose it all, then I will have plenty egg on my face for sure, but profit you never took was never profit in the first place, so I lost nothing. The profit I have taken, is actual profit.

So buy your $200 bitcoin, and thank me in ten years when you are a millionaire (not adjusted for inflation hehe). Provided you had the balls not to sell a single satoshi on the way...

+1

There are so many stories of people who sold out thousands when it hit a dollar, thousands more when it hit 10....its hard to see the big picture...my adivice...understand what it is, what you think its worth and hold on tight...5 digits

Cool story bro...


No seriously, thanks for sharing - I hope this helps others to see the bigger picture.

Making absolutely no judgment on whether you are right or not (although my current BTC holdings certainly does), I just wanted to say it's incredibly refreshing to see someone actually put a serious amount of money where his mouth is. This is more commitment than just a hopeful gamble; it's brave but informed, and I think it's the type of passion that will help drive the long-term value of bitcoin.

SGbett:

Yes.  Buy a $200 coin and thank you later if you can hold it that long. :)  My advice to anyone thinking of selling off some coin is to keep at least one just in case.  You just never know how high this will go.

You're doing nothing wrong. I think fleabag is just on his period ;)

Come now fleabag. Don't pick on the newbies, post count is hardly the measure of a mans worth...

Am I wrong or those IBM, MSFT, APPL took few decades to make invetors rich ?  BTC did that in less than 4 years, for those who knew it exist, AND had the balls to invest in mining/buying.

OP, did you had the balls to put 10k$ in GOOG 10 years ago, it would have a 100k$ value today.

I invested almost as much in mining, but like a majority of early miners, when I got positive ROI I begun to sell, I've made some small profit, like 2 to 3 times my investment and it was fine.  Then I came to understand the true power behind BTC, and began to buy BTC, at 15, 20, 30, 50, 80, 100, 150, and im still a buyer.  I'll never posess as many BTC I've mined in the past, and it's ok.

No one ever buy at the bottom and sell at top.

I've learned 1 things in investment, well before BTC, never regret an investment decision, assume it and go on !

BTW, imo, 1 BTC will worth so many valuless dollar within a decade, I'll be way better as a BTC owner than a fiat millionnaire !

there is otherfiat and commodities except USD, you know... I would prefer to be a fiat 'millionnaire' any day :)

 ;D

i panic sold and insta set orders in 150s and was amazed they executed! success! got lucky there.

dude I like you. I can tell you are legit. you are a very smart investor and I like your honesty. thank you for sharing your story.

The whole premise of this thread is moronic.

OF COURSE you've "missed" the boat if you didn't get in at $0.1 or whatever. For whatever gains we get from here, the early birds will get the same gains PLUS what they have already, so they will always be ahead of you. Unless we fall all the way back to <$1 then it's impossible not to have "missed" that boat.

Who cares? I believe bitcoin is still a good investment. There's risk of loss, but also risk of significant gains from here. It's not a sure thing, but it wasn't back then either.

(Will forever be kicking myself for not buying more in July at $60)

This thread is not moronic. Why doesnt anyone listen? There IS money to be made PERIOD! What I am saying is that is where there is easy money to be made you get more and more people fighting over every damn dollar. Ever see a great invention or idea get replicated by fifty different companies? They total saturate the marketplace fighting the others for the same dollar right? Who wins in the end? The biggest player or the one with the most money or best lawyers etc. Same thing for bitcoins you have people who have more money, resources, information etc and have a better chance to make money than your computer geek buying his coins with his allowance. You are chasing the same dollar as the rich people. Bottom line People with more money have an advantage. The winklevoss twins have money right. and seeing they had money they could have directly bought their coins right from mt gox at a discount, not at the price you and I could buy it for but THEIR price because they have the money. So what I am saying is that unless you were in from the beginnings and have held throughout all the ups and downs YOU MADE THE BOAT! People buying at $50, 60 $100 etc are chasing the boat because you are vying for the same dollar that the rich people are trying to get.

Okay, what you're saying makes sense. From the perspective of someone who sees Bitcoin as a way to extract dollars from users, this would be the sentiment you'd expect. However, the thing about Bitcoin is that it actually functions as a currency in and of itself.

In my opinion, the best thing about the Silk Road (putting aside your political/moral views on their business) was that it demonstrated just how well Bitcoin functions as a means of exchange - 1.2 Billion dollars worth of sales over the course of two years!

So, when you stop seeing the system as some sort of pyramid scheme designed to part users with their money (and admittedly, at first glance it may well resemble one), and start to see its potential as a replacement for that money, you realise that your perspective shifts. Will Bitcoin make it all the way? Well, the current price is a reflection of overall sentiment as to the probability of that happening.


EDIT: Not 1.2 Billion dollars worth of sales, dammit I've been brainwashed by lazy news reporting. The real volume of sales would be much lower, adjusted for the varying exchange rate for BTC/USD. But still, the figure would have been in the tens or hundreds of millions, so the point remains.

aw shucks thx :)

To be fair. Agree with your point that the crazy money might not be there. Hindsight is a sonofabitch. I could easily be sat on 1000+ BTC right now if my balls had been bigger ;)

The most relevant discussion point (imho) is how many people actually know about BTC. I think maybe lots know(say 10%?), but only a small (maybe 10%?) percentage of those that know have done anything about it. (Assuming we are talking about developed countries here which is about 1bn people). So maybe 1% ? Which I think is still a fairly goo place to be in terms of early adoptership?

I rekcon there is plenty of scope for *many* more people to find out, and for *many many* more to take action. All of which pumps adoption, which has to have upward pressure on price.

To me the only big risk left is supercession. To hedge against that I got a few bits and pieces in other alt coins, and I continue to skim a small percentage off the top for every big leg up in BTC/USD price. I'm just trying to pay myself enough to take the sting away if it all goes to zero, from whatever pricee it was at. I can tell you I have spent many hours playing with spreadsheets and charts trying to settle on what strategy to take. One things for sure, your strategy should definitely not be to take it as it comes. I have my sell orders planned right up to $1m per BTC. Maybe I'll tweak them over time. The key thing is to try to make sure you never sell because you 'think' anything ;)

To everyone not on BTC the big risk to them is that it goes supernova. I loved Talebs work on black swans and antifragilty. To that end I think anyone that hasn't insured themselves against the possibility of a BTC supernova, is effectively exposing them to the huge risk that they could wake up one day and find their world turned upside down.

I would say be sure about what one can lose, but make sure one always leaves open the chance of unlimited gains.

Good point. I want to see it work but somehow some way the capitalist pigs always  f the hard working folks in the end.

This is also a good idea. :)

Sure the boat is long gone, but if the author of that post had any balls he could've increased his saving 5x in a month! But no, that's not a good enough opportunity, right?

How is that total ignorance is any different from early adopters? So here's the main answer to this thread - does not matter when you get into bitcoin. It matters if you do. In 2011, you could've either bought "overpriced bitcoins" at $1 each, or go on the forum bitching about how the boat to riches is long gone and now you can't buy bitcoins for cents anymore, because "no fucking way it ever goes to $10". Substitute BTC for mBTC and you have the today's situation.

I.e., losers would stay losers in any situation, and the rest finds a boat to sail of which there are plenty.

Okay, let`s call it. This time the boat really is gone.

LOL, I'm gonna come bump this next year (If I remember to)

This feabag guy can just crawl back to his cave now. Nothing more for him to say.

The boat was missed when he said BTC was still $200, now it's nearly $1k...

Many boats have gone. New boats go every hour.

Each boat pays less than the previous one, but who cares.

In November 2014 everybody will cry a boat was missed at $10000 :)

You mean at $10 mBTC?

$10K/btc :)

To those who cry the boat has gone, consider the decisions the earlier buyers of bitcoin have to make.
If someone bought 10 coins for $1 and now has $10,000 usd worth of coins, and you have $10,000 usd of fiat then, not including friction in money transfers, both parties have equal decisions to make re converting to bitcoin.

The old hand with $10k of coins is making a decision not to convert back to $$ at that level if they hold. That confirms their ongoing bullishness/faith/strong hand. If someone who 'missed the boat' has $10k they could use to buy bitcoins at this level they cannot whinge about the person with 10btc who stays in bitcoin.

Both parties have the opportunity to profit from the future purchasing power of bitcoin, or they could cash out or stay in dirty fiat money.

So the jealousy is for the run up to $1k/coins but if the fiat holder misses out of future gains they have no one but themselves to blame.

It will be a challenge for old hands (pre april 2013 in this parabolic market) to stay strong, but if they do and profit they have made the same risks as those with fiat to invest at this point in time onwards.

Strong hands will be tested in the next few months and years...
 stay cool bitcoiners  8)BTC8)

That is one very smart post, thank you. It never occured to me that in fact both whiners and holders are in exact same position, only the holders were making the decision to NOT SELL for several years while whiners started crying at the very first chance to buy they got :)

While difficult, one must avoid the temptation to think in terms of "what could have been".  Even at $1k, there is still a huge amount of money to be made.  People seem to work themselves into a decision coma by staring at the price and it turns into a spiral of regret. 

If you buy now, you are very likely to profit.  The boat has hardly left port. 

This...

Most folks, including me, have no idea of the scale that things can get to.   I am not a pie in the sky person but can tell you that we did not think the Internet was going to be a big deal either.   I put this one notch below Internet scale event and several notches above what happened to the MP3/Book/Movie industries.  This protocol is going to completely refactor the way we think about, and accomplish, global finance.   

You were right. In a month $2000 will be the new cheap. $10,000 will be reached in 2014 and it might go to $50,000.

Go big or go home! Winners go home and F#ck the prom queen at night!  You don't win by sitting in the stands!!!

Interesting discussion. While I can appreciate OP's point that the largest and easiest gains ultimately will go to those who bought in early, this market is still volatile enough for smart investors to play the market very successfully even with very small amounts invested. Case in point, a week ago, I moved .2 btc to an exchange and spent some time trading and swept all earnings back into btc and transferred the gain back to my cold storage. Net gain over the week has been about 9%. Not too shabby for a week of play for a newbie in the market. OP and others may have missed the big boat but there are still plenty of little ones waiting at the dock.