poor sod, lol

Probably yes. All the lender wants is ability to hedge risks. This means availability of reasonably liquid options for the underlying stock/etf. If say you convert your physical gold into GLD and use it as collateral there is no good reason for lenders to refuse. I guess some swiss banks, for example, might hold physical gold for you while it is used as collateral too. This is something that is to be discussed with the lenders directly as such matters can vary from lender to lender.

Q: Who in his right mind would sell a nontrivial amount of Bitcoin for Iranian currency.
A: No one.

Sorry, but tough titty. Maybe it is not that hopeless if they have something of value like gold, oil etc and can actually deliver it. Even then all those embargoes do not help much. It sucks to be on the receiving end of modern "cold warfare" AKA "currency wars".

Nevertheless, let's assume they can set up some kind of local exchange trading bitcoins for whatever of value they may have at whatever the market sez it worth. Here you go, they have breached the blockade at least to some degree and Bitcoin immediately classified by some as "enemy of the state" and "treasonous financial instrument", lol,  and by some as a "strategic resource".

I made a post in another thread and decided that this thought deserves it's own discussion and a separate thread. Steal my idea and when 1 BTC = 1000$ start a company that provides "Bitcoin Collateralized Loans" AKA BCL's.

It is 2020 and you have some bitcoins and you want to buy a house. What is the best way to do it?

Do it like Larry Ellison http://www.cnbc.com/id/49194482/How_Larry_Ellison_Actually_Funds_His_Lavish_Lifestyle and unlike all the shipple selling themselves into debt slavery by taking our mortgages. But use your Bitcoins instead of a stock portfolio. This is a smart way to "monetize" bitcoin fortunes for those marathon runners among bitcoiners.

However, nothing new here. Google "stock loan" or "securities based credit line" or "stock backed lending". This is actually the smart way of buying high value property as opposed to various mortgage products.

The idea is that instead of having a mortgage AKA "buying one house for yourself and two houses for the bank"  you borrow money using your stock portfolio as a collateral.

A typical "stock loan" is readily available for amounts above 100k$, you pledge your portfolio as collateral in exchange for some amount of money, you keep whatever dividends your stocks brings, you pay whatever interest rate is agreed until the loan is repaid. Usually such loans are not callable by the lender but debtor can walk away from the deal at any time and stop paying any interest without repaying any capital but sacrificing the portfolio. The creditor usually hedges all risks associated with such a deal using options. Think about it, dividends are (hopefully) paying lion share of interest, you keep your stocks and get back control of them after you will have paid out the loan. If stock drops to 0 or to some other low value you can walk away from the deal at any time without any further liabilities.

I would say this is the way to buy a house for those who have 100k$ or more in liquid assets. Of course this could be combined with traditional mortgage (at lower interest rates due to large LTV) if "top up" is needed.

Just to illustrate here is a simplified example.

You buy 430k$ worth of Realty Income Corp (NYSE:O), 10000 shares, 43$ each. It pays 5% dividend. You use this portfolio to get 400k$ loan at a fixed 3% interest. You buy yourself 400k$ house outright without any further lending. eventually dividends pay off the loan and you get your stock back. Or at any time (if stock tanks big time, for example) you just walk away and keep your house and have no any debts. Alternatively, if your stock rises significantly you can settle the loan for a portion of your portfolio and walk away with the rest of it.

Essentially, this way one turns the power of compound interest from one's enemy to one's friend, offsets interest with dividend, offsets inflation with stock price appreciation, lets lender to offset risks of stock depreciation.

Now enters Bitcoin. Imagine that a few years down the road Bitcoin trades on various financial exchanges just like all other currencies, there are liquid bitcoin ETF's which are optionable and these options are rather liquid with about the same liquidity as a typical S&P 500 stock (or simply liquid Bitcoin options).

Once the above conditions are in place it is likely that Bitcoin's market cap is around 10 billion USD (I use today's dollars i.e. ignoring fiat inflation for simplicity). Let's assume that 1 BTC worth about 1000$, a round number for simplicity again.

I guess a typical deflationary Bitcoin loan in 4-8 years time or Bitcoin owners would be like the following:

You own 430 Bitcoins. You pledge it as a collateral for 400k$ at 3% interest. You buy a house outright. Every month the lender sells 0.1-1 BTC and/or you pony up some cash to pay the interest. Few years down the road your loan is paid up, you keep the house and , say, 430-N BTC that worth about the same amount of USD as your 430 BTC when you have bought the house.

So just have 1000 BTC and in a few years you will be able to use such or a similar scheme to buy yourself a house outright and keep most of your bitcoins in the process.

All you need for this to be a realistic scenario is a bunch of BTC and 1000$ exchange rate. At this point options on BTC and therefore "BTC collateralized lending" will be available.

Here is a bit of my wisdom for you: keep your bitcoins until you can buy a house (or an yacht or whatever) like that. Also note how no tax event is triggered in described above scenario. Note how one could become a tax exile for a year or so and move out his bitcoins out of a punitive taxable jurisdiction. Estate planning opportunities will be great for those who can keep their bitcoins untouched for a while.

Yep. Do it like Larry Ellison http://www.cnbc.com/id/49194482/How_Larry_Ellison_Actually_Funds_His_Lavish_Lifestyle and unlike all the shipple selling themselves into debt slavery by taking out mortgages.

This is a smart way to "monetize" bitcoin fortunes for those marathon runners among bitcoiners.

However, nothing new here. Google "stock loan" or "securities based credit line" or "stock backed lending". This is actually the smart way of buying high value property as opposed to various mortgage products.

The idea is that instead of having a mortgage AKA "buying one house for yourself and two houses for the bank"  you borrow money using your stock portfolio as a collateral.

A typical "stock loan" is readily available for amounts above 100k$, you pledge your portfolio as collateral in exchange for some amount of money, you keep whatever dividends your stocks brings, you pay whatever interest rate is agreed until the loan is repaid. Usually such loans are not callable by the lender but debtor can walk away from the deal at any time and stop paying any interest without repaying any capital but sacrificing the portfolio. The creditor usually hedges all risks associated with such a deal using options. Think about it, dividends are (hopefully) paying lion share of interest, you keep your stocks and get back control of them after you will have paid out the loan. If stock drops to 0 or to some other low value you can walk away from the deal at any time without any further liabilities.

I would say this is the way to buy a house for those who have 100k$ in liquid assets. Of course this could be combined with traditional mortgage (at lower interest rates due to large LTV) if "top up" is needed.

Just to illustrate here is a simplified example.

You buy 430k$ worth of Realty Income Corp (NYSE:O), 10000 shares, 43$ each. It pays 5% dividend. You use this portfolio to get 400k$ loan at a fixed 3% interest. You buy yourself 400k$ house outright without any further lending. eventually dividends pay off the loan and you get your stock back. Or at any time (if stock tanks big time, for example) you just walk away and keep your house and have no any debts. Alternatively, if your stock rises significantly you can settle the loan for a portion of your portfolio and walk away with the rest of it.

Essentially, this way one turns the power of compound interest from one's enemy to one's friend, offsets interest with dividend, offsets inflation with stock price appreciation, lets lender to offset risks of stock depreciation.

Now enters Bitcoin. Imagine that a few years down the road Bitcoin trades on various financial exchanges just like all other currencies, there are liquid bitcoin ETF's which are optionable and these options are rather liquid with about the same liquidity as a typical S&P 500 stock (or simply liquid Bitcoin options).

Once the above conditions are in place it is likely that Bitcoin's market cap is around 1 billion USD (I use today's dollars i.e. ignoring fiat inflation for simplicity). Let's assume that 1 BTC worth about 1000$, for simplicity again.

I guess a typical deflationary Bitcoin loan in 4-8 years time (for Bitcoin owners) would be like the following:

You own 430 Bitcoins. You pledge it as a collateral for 400k$ at 3% interest. You buy a house outright. Every month the lender sells 0.1-1 BTC and/or you pony up some cash to pay the interest. Few years down the road your loan is paid up, you keep the house and , say, 430-N BTC that worth about the same amount of USD as your 430 BTC when you have bought the house.

So just have 1000 BTC and in a few years you will be able to use such or a similar scheme to buy yourself a house outright and keep most of your bitcoins in the process.

All you need for this to be a realistic scenario is a bunch of BTC and 1000$ exchange rate. At this point options on BTC and therefore "BTC collateralized lending" will be available.

Here is a bit of my wisdom for you: keep your bitcoins until you can buy a house (or an yacht or whatever) like that. Also note how no tax event is triggered in described above scenario. Note how one could become a tax exile for a year or so and move out his bitcoins out of a punitive taxable jurisdiction. Estate planning opportunities will be great for those who can keep their bitcoins untouched for a while.

 

lol, Aliens are of course the best bet.

As DeathAndTaxes said. Plus:

For the next 5-20 years expect Bitcoin mining tech to develop in the following directions:

1. improving Bitcoin ASIC's in direction of catching up with the best ASIC tech available i.e. with what the latest top of the line CPU we have;
2. making mining gear more modular so that upgrade path from old generation of chips to new ones is more cost effective. For example, retaining enclosures, power supplies, cooling gear etc and having replaceable cards with chips that could be replaced/upgraded;
3. making mining gear more space and power efficient so that it could fill standard 32/16A ~42U rack.
4. making mining gear that could also allow reuse of generated heat and proliferation of "energy cost offsetting" devices of all shapes and forms. like bitcoin generating coffee-warmers, space heaters, house heating systems, beef jerky and dried fruit production etc..
5. economies of scale i.e. producing large quantities of low cost hashing chips and gear.
6. concentration of large scale bitcoin hashing capacity in areas where low cost electricity is available or where secondary use of heat produced is viable
7. timed use of hashing capacity to take advantage of low cost energy during off-peak hours.
8. use of hashing hardware to utilize "free electricity" in places where "unmetered" energy is available. But expect, providers of "free energy" such as employers, moms basements, student dorms to catch up on this eventually.

This is the beauty of free market, it WILL make Bitcoin hashing as cost efficient as possible over time.

In any case expect network's Bitcoin hashing capacity to be customarily measured in Peta and even Exa hashes (as opposed to Mega and Giga and Tera hashes) rather soon.

Expect that pretty soon no single entity will be able to mount a sustained 51% attack even theoretically.

Expect eventually quantum computing, aliens, time travelers, DNA/biological computers or other such rather improbable now actors to disrupt Bitcoin hashing marketplace in some shape of form.

I also think that ASIC mining gear manufacturers will quickly move to large scale production of mining gear in large quantities up to the point where cost of auxiliary equipment in rigs (PSU, enclosures, fans etc...) is comparable to the cost of hashing chips.

I also think that we will see availability of hashing chips for OEM's and 1-2 companies dominating Bitcoin chip markets with a much larger number of OEM's and VAR's producing the mining gear of all shapes and sizes.

Should i allocate 100% of my savings to bitcoin?

Generally, no.

However, Warren Buffett said: "Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense to those who know what they are doing."

If you really know what you are doing and understand your risk profile then by all means keep 100% of your liquid assets or savings in Bitcoin. Most people who did so during last 4 years did rather very well indeed. Too bad that "past performance is not indicative of future results". YMMV.

What will be the greatest contributing factor?


- many grandmas using Bitcoin
- many teenagers using Bitcoin
- many "migrant workers" using Bitcoin to send money home
- many e-commerce businesses using Bitcoin
- many brick and mortar businesses using Bitcoin
- many banks ditching SWIFT and using bitcoin/ripple instead
- many services built on top of Bitcoin, such as "smart contracts", notarial services, etc...
- removal of "friction" on BTC/fiat exchanges in many countries (which would effectively enable low cost money transfer and currency exchange)
- upcoming viable and successful p2p private currencies using bitcoin as "debt settlement" mechanism
- massive collapse of fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBP etc.) and massive roll back of large economies to using PM's and p2p currencies (a-la zimbabwe).
- hawala networks using Bitcoin
- I must have forgotten to mention something

Some combination of the above. Pick your own poison.

I applaud Matthew's attempts to put things right. He, it appears, acting in good faith and trying to negotiate a settlement with parties that think that they were wronged. There is really no good reason to attack him for this.

One thing I would add is that, at least in England, with reference to Rights of Third Parties Act 1999 and in most common law jurisdictions too debts cannot be assigned to third parties without agreement of both contracting parties. I would say that if any debts were assigned to other entity than original bettors without agreement of both parties that assignment would be unlawful and unenforceable. But do check which jurisdiction is relevant and whether otherwise was specifically agreed beforehand.

Unfortunately, the dataset collected is not representative of "how rich/poor are the forum users". Hence whatever conclusion you would make based on this data in context of the thread title, would be a big steaming pile of nonsense.

At least 2 countries ARE already using gold as currency de facto.

1. Zimbabwe. Google "zimbabwe gold dust" for proof.
2. Vietnam. See  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-04/guest-post-central-bank-snuffs-out-vietnam%E2%80%99s-thriving-gold-market

Interestingly, according to the zerohedge article Vietnam population holds 30 billion USD worth of gold. Should they replace this gold by Bitcoin it would make 1 BTC worth 3000$.

It's not a bug, it is a feature.

P.S. Ignorance, is definitely a factor with Bitcoin, however.

I'd say it is the very beginning of the stealth phase and the "take off" has not yet happened.

The argument for this claim is rather simple. Institutional investors have not even dipped their feet into Bitcoin. Do not mix "media attention" to Bitcoin as investment to "media attention" to Bitcoin as a fringe technological and monetary curiosity. Some especially smart and reckless VC's have just started to push some pitiful amounts of money into Bitcoin economy which is by definition "stealth phase".

Therefore, if we accept the wisdom of the classic chart above we are in smart money/stealth phase.

If you are located in the UK, a legal route could be viable even without hiring a lawyer, the case is straightforward and it is viable to present it even being a litigant in person.  Even if you could afford only one trip to London and about 300-500£ in court fees it could be viable, but I am not saying it is easy to do it on your own.

Getting proper legal representation could be rather cost prohibitive, but still could be viable. Moreover, given the amount at stake i.e. > 5000£ it is likely to be allocated to fast track and therefore you could run a risk of having to pay legal costs, that could be significant, if you lose. On another hand, if you win, you likely would get your reasonable legal costs covered and likely would be able to collect the judgement (as long as Intersango is still solvent and has property in UK such as UK based bank accounts).

If Intersango tells you something like: "give us such and such docs and problem solved", then basically your best bet is to give then what they want. Whether you want to deal with them after that is up to you.

If Intersango tells you something like: "we will keep your money because we suspect you are a fraudster", then "put up or shut up" is basically the only choice you have. You either take it lying down or sue them.

Collection agencies in England are useless, toothless tigers, not worth even trying. This is exactly because they will just send 1000 letters (at your expense) but generally will not go to the court for you and will not do anything else actually.

I doubt that police would help you at all because they probably will say it is a civil and not a criminal matter. FSA (http://www.fsa.gov.uk/) and The Financial Ombudsman (http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/) are two other authorities that are in position to help you (or should be).

FSA will tell you that they only deal with companies that they regulate and the only thing you could tell them is that they shall ensure that they regulate Intersango (if you think they should). I do not know if they would care or not and whether it would help you at all.

Both with FSA and The Financial Ombudsman route the procedure is simple. You ask intersango for their formal complaint policy, lodge a complain with them as per such policy (if any), if your complain is not resolved to your satisfaction within 2-4 weeks you can lodge it with FSA and/or with the ombudsman.

I'd say https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/ is a better point to start. One thing that you have well protected in UK is your fundamental human rights, including the right to justice. If it was my account treated like this (as far as I know the circumstances from OP), I would sue them in a heartbit.

P.S. I am not qualified to give legal advise (and do not expect to be qualified for a few more years). Nothing in my posts should be treated as legal advise.

P.P.S Once there is a bitcoin exchange based in uk and regulated by FSA it makes sense to start using such an exchange because both The Ombudsman and FSA will be extremely effective in helping you enforcing your legal rights should there be any conflict with such company.

Another stab at it.

100 000 000 000 000 USD (one hundred trillion US dollars), give or take one-two zeroes, lol

P.S. BTW the guess in my post above still stands i.e. both 100 000 000 000 USD and 1 oz of gold could be possible at the same time.

Now this is my kind of thread (as opposed to "Bitcoin price in 5 days"). LOL

Optimistically, parity with 1 oz of gold in 5 years. But it is possible that it will be much more than that.

Dear Bittalk Media Ltd, Mihai Alisie and some others I offer you an opportunity to publicly retract all defamatory statements made by you which must be accompanied  by your public and sincere apology. Failing that legal action against you at this point is unavoidable.

Legal action for defamation is being prepared and once it is filed it likely will ultimately result in a number of corporate and personal bankruptcies. It is not what I would want but you are forcing my hand.

Quoted for evidence. I have no intention to sue you just yet. And it was indeed wise to remove one of your posts which would be classed as "false innuendo". However, choice of transactions present in this image as well as omitting of some relevant material facts known to you could very well give merit to a libel lawsuit here in England against you personally. Please thread carefully.

quoted for evidence, legal action pending