Bitcoin Forum

I have been a client of a company in Istanbul for four years trading foreign exchange.  They have returned an average of 3.5%/month over the four years.

I have bank accounts in Australia, UK and Thailand.

The problem is when you wish to withdraw funds it is taking longer and longer.  The reason given is the banks and AML laws which are the problem.  I have now been waiting more than six weeks for a funds transfer.

I am concerned that I am holding too much with the one company.

I only found out about Bitcoin about three months ago and have since purchased.  Average purchase price to date is US$111.00/BTC.

I am unsure if I should invest more in Bitcoin or go with gold and silver, or, a combination of the three.

I am considering using - http://www.bullionvault.com/guide/gold/Ready-to-buy-gold#section-Ready-to-buy-gold-Insurance

It would be nice if BullionVault accepted Bitcoin, they do not at this time.

I realise all your eggs should not be in one basket.

I feel gold and silver are quite low at present and there is the possibility of good gains.

I really do not trust banks.

Any thoughts, thank you?

Not only do we refine and mint silver and gold bitcoin specie, we gladly accept bitcoin and can vault or deliver fine precious metal bitcoin pieces.  Check the links in the tag or send a pm and I'll happily answer any questions on this.

Bullionvault is a decent company, and you should do your research on them.  There are better deals, there are more solid enterprises, and no they don't yet take bitcoin (we are encouraging them to do so) but they do a pretty good business. 
If you want a Bitcoin specialist, who focuses not on government produced precious metal mintings but on private minting using designs sourced from the Bitcoin community (and very notably these pages of BitcoinTalk), you will find us to be your choice.

You are asking this question in Bitcoin forum, sure I will tell you Bitcoin :)

can't go wrong with silver.. but gold & bitcoin requires perfect strategy

You are hesitating between metals and a currency. I think you just can't compare them, they have different purposes.

Gold:

http://www.kitco.com/LFgif/au0365nys.gif

Bitcoin:

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=939.777777671814&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=360&i=&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=1&cv=0&ps=0&l=1&p=0&

Take your pick.

Safest bet is to invest in all three, in the proportions one feels reflect the relative risks. Higher risk of loss = smaller investment percent-wise.

I've already got a small amount of each, but were I to suddenly have a lot to invest, my view of the relative risks (over the long term; 10 years minimum) would be like so:

Bitcoin - 30%
Silver - 50%
Gold - 20%

This is good. I would follow that if I were just starting out

Not bad.

Gold is heavily manipulated market.
Jim Rickards pretty much nails it here:
https://www.goldbroker.com/news/interview-james-rickards-about-central-bank-manipulation-gold-silver-markets-346.html

The ETF is being used to drive price down - possibly so that the shipments to the sovereign funds can be managed, as it seems to have started contemporaneously with those demands.

Thanks to all.

Your figures are about what I was thinking. 

I am frustrated at the moment waiting for funds to transfer.  Possibly banks are dragging the chain to keep funds as long as possible, a little scary, especially as you do not own your money in their bank.

Diversify between Silver and Bitcoin (and altcoins if you are ballsy)...

I'd suggest buying some more Bitcoins and using them to acquire gold and silver for BTC. This way you're empowering the Bitcoin economy and diversifying at the same time.

This is a better diversification.

Bitcoin: 10%
PPcoin: 10%
Litecoin: 10%
Primecoin: 10%
Feathercoin: 10%
Stock: 10%
Property: 10%
Gold: 10%
Silver: 10%
FD: 10%

There....

Gold and Silver have been stores of wealth for thousands of years.  Nothing has changed.

Good to have all three.  Start with gold and silver first.  Those are sure things.  But put at least some of your nest egg into Bitcoin just in case it goes mainstream and rockets upward in value.

Never understood why such business practices are allowed. It's just plain fraud that only a select few can perpetuate. Any normal person who tries to sell "fake" goods that they don't have will go to jail plain and simple.


To answer the author: I am no economist and have been wrong before but in the short term Bitcoins is the best bet for a hefty return. There have been a string of good news pushing the price higher and higher. And now there is no Silkrd (SR) to be hacked causing prices to fluctuate. The fact we are having a huge rise after SR was taken down is unbelievable good news.

Gold and silver are more longterm. People might flock to them more as the economic uncertainty increases.

Good point. If the price of bitcoins skyrockets in the short term (say 5 years or less) relative to precious metals, it's likely a wise idea to diversify some of the profits back out toward other assets. I'm confident bitcoins will appreciate, but I acknowledge that there's a caveat--there does exist the chance of it being rendered obsolete by a better cryptocurrency in the next several years (although the longer it lasts, the less likely the risk of that particular situation occurring.)

While I do have some altcoins as diversification, I (personally) would suggest to a) include Namecoin, as it seems to be the most promising alt-coin (even after the recent bug and upcoming hardfork), b) exclude FTC and XPM, as I don't see them as that important/useful, and c) put way less money into altcoins and much more into PMs and Bitcoin.  I have like 5-10% of my BTC holdings in altcoins, and am not really sure whether even that is a good strategy.

all 3.

The current value of gold is kind of a lie...the reason being the Fed pumping billions of fiat dollars every month is fueling the stock market, which continues to rise in spite of the poor economy (the exact opposite of what should happen).

This causes people to put their money into stocks instead of into gold because they think the Fed will continue to print, print, print.  You see this when another round of QE goes through - stocks rise and gold falls.  The stock market is vastly inflated and gold is deflated because of this.

When the money printing stops (and it will have to eventually), the people who have money in stocks are going to get slammed hard as everyone tries to get out fast.  Some will flock back to precious metals, where they really would be if the Fed wasn't printing money like its out of style to prop up the market.

When it comes crashing down, you can keep your dollars and I will keep my gold and silver.  We will see who has best maintained their wealth  :-)

All three.

You forgot to add LTC

I am a gold/silver buyer for an investment company, a proponent of both gold and silver myself, and a believer in bitcoin (NOT litecoin).

To make it easy, if I had $1,000,000 I would invest half in silver. I would buy Monster Boxes of either Maple Leaves or Eagles. Even though you are paying a premium, you can trade as much silver as you want up to 500 times (per box). If you bought say...5 x 100oz bars, you would only have 5 paydays/opportunity for trade.
Of the remaining half, I would put 1/2 into bitcoins and 1/2 into gold if you buy gold NOW. Gold is at an incredible low. Although, it gained $40 since yesterday...so don't waste any time. As far as bitcoins go...I remember some crazy figure in the decline in the value of bitcoins after SR crashed. But, look at bitcoins now-they were (are) more than resilient. I think that the shutting down of SR was one of the best things for bitcoins. Now people are forced to look at their utility in LICIT situations.
Final note: every body will share their advice with you until they are blue in the face. Its your money. Consider opinions, but remember its your call. Good luck!

3.5% a MONTH? wow they must be market oracle's because I've never seen that kind of success long term working out. I would stay with them if they are offering 3.5% a month. WHo is it?

just remember, as this experience should have already taught you, if you dont hold it you dont own it! asside from that we cant tell you what assets to hold, that depends on your values. do you want low risk high safety, or do you what high risk high return? its ranked like this, gold is most safe with lowest return, silver is in the middle, and bitcoin is high risk high return.

sustained 3.5 per month REEKS of ponzi to me.

I say all three. I'm a bit less heavy on bitcoins than gold and silver because i consider the risks higher, though the potential gains more. Gold and silver have always been valued. Bitcoins is still untested for mass adoption.

Thanks for all the comments.

Problem is, BTC is getting higher each day.  Who is going to be next and make the price drop? LOL

ya i can do 5% per month no prob. Hard part is black swans wonder how this guy dealt with them.

Ie: boj intervention, Chf intervention, Fed intervention march 2009, japan eartquake event, Greece portugal and ecb decision events
, flash crash may 6
All of these had big forex moves that would have put alot of players on their butts especially grid or martingale traders who usually r the ones who claim such gains.

Invest in gold. The price is quite low now

In the USA, these particular pieces are specifically targeted by the tax reporting rules as they run into the equivalence of ETF test and so are (must legally be) reported to IRS as CFTC requires for investing.

But, even so, it is not a report-able transaction when used as "cash".  Weird, but that is the law for you.

Check this out, especially the last half:

http://the-moneychanger.com/articles/numismatics_what_the_law_really_says

Bottom line?  Buy Bitcoin Specie and New Liberty Dollars instead.  ;)  You pay tax no matter what, but the reporting burden is less.

LTC is dropping like its going to go dead soon. I wouldn't take risk here..

you got me  ;)

actually its 4.  ;D


@ johncarpe64

btc dropped from 30 to 2 dollars some time ago...  ::)

It depends what's your preferences. I would choose bitcoin because I'm not afraid of things that may happen. Gold is just mainstream and I believe it's the second best choice.

Ganna try invest some LTC today, hope I don't get my ass burned...

If maximum potential profitability is your aim neither of the precious metals will be able to compare with bitcoin in either the short or long terms. If however, you don't have as much confidence in BTC at this point (a mistake imho) hedging your bets between Silver and Bitcoin seems a smart play ATM. Gold likely to keep dropping I think.

Use Bitcoins, buy gold and silver... ;)

Use bitcoins for online transactions, use gold and silver bitcoin specie for point of sale.
Keep your account full of bitcoin and your pockets full of bitcoin specie for the off chain and anonymous personal transactions.

Oh no, LTC dropped another 10% after I bought some. What is happening to LTC!!!

They all have their advantage and disadvantages but it think the major difference is ease of trade, storage and liquidity.

trade: BTC can easily be traded for little to no fee and on a global scale. Its costly to sell a bar of silver to someone in Cyprus let alone any crack downs the government has on the buyer withdrawing money to send world wide. there is no mandatory build in spread with a BTC like a metals exchange, although you may run into it down the road.

storage: BTC can be stored off the grid in a compact and secure location like gold or silver, but can also be instantly in the pocket of a buy within minutes. Its hard to get a gold coin to someone halfway across the world that wants to buy it from you.

liquidity: liquidity is very important. Most people in possession of precious metals are only liquid in their local currency and at spot price. BTC you can liquidate on an exchange for fiat and other cryptos without needing to wait or pay for shipping.

with all that being said, BTC is not (yet) held as reserves worldwide as a store of value. BTC are also susceptible to massive market manipulation; however one can argue that gold/silver already are exposed to massive manipulate even higher than what BTC could ever be.

i store my value in all three with silver being the majority stock holder over the other two. my BTC wallet is growing though.

just my two cents
well...  .02 BTC

You can deposit and withdraw money easily with bitcoins but in case of gold and silver it takes some time.

u can buy silver directly with devcoins now at igotspots.com

You may have massive amount of fiat, May consider Silver first as Silver has special property for photographic or electronic which should be able to make more money with. Even you don't use silver. You can use for preservation as silver is bounded, widely accepted.

Gold is the second option for as Gold is trustful in almost aspects. Before you do, Search the production cost for 1oz 24K gold first as some people lose money from there because of not searching the minimum processing cost for 1oz 24K.

The last option is bitcoin. You may consider to put some money in, For example. Put roughly few thousand grand into array, using cex.io for the base or using cloudhashing when applicable. Cloudhashing limits 5000Gh/s (5T/s) per person while cex.io seems to have no limitations, however the direct market price may be not reasonable.

Bitcoin may be the last option for you. Many people in here suggest you to put some. However in your aspect, For the lottery step. It is not easy. You will have to find the correct supplier such as kncminer,friedcat to help you on it as bitcoin contains scum and villainy which must be cautious. I personally almost trapped by BFL but safe by using PAYPAL policy to force them.


Before any serious steps, If you have massive fiats, Then do what you know first. Then add more such as bitcoin, nasdaq stock, FTSE series to control risk.

LTC always has been and will continue to be volatile.

if you believe in crypto, you must have both...and 10%? HA, thats nothing in crypoworld  ;D

after silk road was closed BTC dropped 20% or more. if you dont like roller coasters, stay out.

My holdings were roughly in the following proportions when I last checked:

BTC: 63%
Silver: 25%
Gold: 7%
EUR: 3%
Stocks: 1%
Misc: 1%.

I am a professional in everything except stocks, so that's why I have a quite bold portfolio allocation.

Just thinking out of the box... why not invest in the market gap between MtGox and BTCe?  There is constantly a decent percentage spread between the two exchange rates and even the other exchanges.

I was checking http://www.currentbitcoinvalue.org/ today and MtGox was at $205.23 while BTCe was at $183.91.  That is a 10% difference, which is more than enough to cover the trade fees.

I am sure someone can figure out a way to overcome the time delays of moving USD and Bitcoin between exchanges to make a profit.

Some have.  It is not easy to start this now.

You should do gold, and bitcoin. Whichever gives your more chance of profit.

Just my imo.

If you are looking into precious metals, there is more than gold and silver.  While they tend to be more volatile, platinum and palladium are commonly traded as bullion (not as much as gold or silver) and have uses in automotive and electronic industries. 

I would buy all including platinum and palladium.

I don't think it matter what you choose between Gold/Silver/Bitcoin.

Just buy one of them when it's low, sell when it's high.

People are buying them for long term gain, 10-20 years....

I knew someone would get it before me, there's nothing wrong with using all three, I believe that Bitcoin is going to be used for overseas transactions and Gold/Silver for local or wealth preservation, just don't have everything in paper and you'll be fine I'm sure, I think it's also a good idea to take a look at altcoins as well just in case the Bitcoin devs get arrested or something but you have to do your research carefully there.

1/3 PM (gold, silver, and platinum bullion, plus mining stocks)

1/3 DC (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Primecoin, PPcoin, and AsicMiner/CipherMine stock)

1/3 cash positioned in stink bids, ready to buy dips

I guess I will do this, but atm I am 100% on cryto-coins...

Sorry for the stupid question but what does it mean ? stink bids, ready to buy dips ?

All of the above! The one thing we know for certain, the days of the inflationary currency are over! (USD ect)

100% on Bitcoin, high risk high return.... Hurray....

Bitcoin!!! Seriously though best ROI by far

Just don't put all your eggs in one basket and you'll be fine.  :D

80% on Bitcoin and 20% on cash... If bitcoin crash use the 20% to buy it......