I don't think it really matters. Both will do bad if bitcoin rises. If the crypto genie can be put back in the bottle, the world will be a sad place anyway and both g&s will have their uses. Considering that gold market cap is >> silver's, I would overallocate in silver. The point is to acquire stuff that would do well if bitcoin is destroyed. Nobody cares your gold or silver if bitcoin does rise to $1M. This is called diversification.

phelix comment deleted due to intentional snipping quote out of context. The minimum honest quote is one sentence between two periods, not a string of words in between, as a long time member you should know it. Do not post again. There are other threads for:
- strawman arguments.
- discussing whether bitcoin can possibly hit $1M or not.

Thank you.

Wow. Just wow.

Has any of the merchants ever complained about this supposed risk?  As a merchant I find the risk waywaywaywayway smaller than the variable percent of physical shoplifting.

The main defence is that I know who my customers are. From anonymous strangers, I have taken 2 confirmations for sums up to BTC50 (method: sweeping of private key). Is this prudent enough? (BTC50 is more dollarz than it used to be)

It is the standard plan for all kinds of high-risk events that can be reduced to either going up or crashing. For LTC it works exactly same way, you just need to do your homework to find the target value for LTC (or make the plan open-ended so that you always sell if it goes up more, and always hold some of the bag if it goes to zero).

I think LTC is overvalued at 0.01344, it does not offer anything compared to BTC, and it cannot be used anywhere. The whole community seems to consist of pump and dumpsters. I think the risk/reward is just not there compared to BTC.

- With Bitcoin (compared to fiat), you have (nearly) unlimited reward, compared to limited risk (all of your investment, but not more).

- With Litecoin (compared to Bitcoin), you have limited reward (small potential of a sustained LTC/BTC rate increase), compared to unlimited risk (much higher probability of going to zero, or orders of magnitude down).

Thank you for your feedback, but:

NO. DO NOT "DOLLAR COST AVERAGE", SINCE IT LEADS TO A MARKEDLY WORSE RESULT IN EVERY SCENARIO WHERE BITCOIN CONTINUES APPRECIATING AGAINST THE DOLLAR AS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE SO FAR.

Other points are correct.

Ah sure, but that is not "trading". And they are not sub-1mBTC, which was the issue here.

So this is only possible if all of the following coincide:
- Malicious intent
- Access to great hashing power
- Luck
- Opportunity to steal >BTC25
- ...with 100% chance of getting caught if successful.

Hardly my customers...

If it stays this way, it will show in charts as a record +90% week, so hardly a crash

What are the practical chances of getting screwed if one accepts a zeroconf transaction with Bitcoin (ie. Blockchain.info shows it)?

The cashout speed is relative to value appreciation (in the hypothetical world where all current holders are SSS'ing). So only if there is demand, will the price go up, and the supply will come. Price will not go down because nobody sells to the falling market, as they have already sold to the rising, and are comfortable.

Using the 10% rake example, we can easily calculate how many dollars will need to be invested for the price to go up by the target, 1000x. How? The investment of the new entrants is equivalent to the rake of the current holders. (Should I use dividend instead of rake??) In the first runup from $1 to $2 per mBTC, 10% of all existing bitcoins are sold at an average price of about $1.4. This results in a $1.7B rake for old holders, which comes from new investors' pockets. The bitcoin market cap is raised by $12B.

The (new investment)/(rise of market cap) ratio is therefore about 14%. Loger term, this ratio has been about 25% on average. In steep runups, it gets lower and during prolonged plateaus it is higher. It is advisable to sell more when the price is trending higher, and refrain from selling altogether if it does not rise.

Like I said before, the best advice I can give to new investors (advice value is high, because it is so far from the usual new investor pattern):
- Buy sooner than you are comfortable (right now is best, dollar cost averaging sucks bad since bitcoin rises 400%-10,000% per year so far)
- Buy with less money than you normally invest (you can buy more later, but most will not need to)
- Set a rake % that suits your preference (10-20% is usually best, consult the tables)
- Decide when to start raking/cashing out/diversifying (skipping the first 1 or 2 let you retain much more coins, but make the decision now, not according to circumstances)
- Stick to the plan. It is a speculative investment from dollar point of view, and no matter how high it goes, you should not go emotional and stop selling. Also if it goes lower, you should not try to cash out. Also make a new purchase only after careful thinking since it may go to zero and the idea of rake is that you win money regardless, not lose it.


**

I understand, this kind of mathematical talk is so intimately similar to a pyramid scheme, perhaps it's good to link to a lengthy treatise of mine, explaining how Bitcoin is not a ponzi, or a pyramid scheme, but a revolutionary technology whose value is correlated to the userbase, which means that it is on its way to become a self fulfilling prophecy where the value of the network grows faster than the money invested.

What happened after this?

Do coin mixers create bogus transactions? I thought their way was to just keep a pool of coins and try to have minimum taint between addresses A (recipient) and B (sender).

Think of the value.

If you value bitcoin more than other things, just buy now. If you would like to have more coins but don't mind having some other things as well, select a suitable buyback price.

My buying range is $300-$500 but obviously I haven't set the bids yet because it would look bullish on charts.

(I disregard sarcasm and seize the opportunity to teach )

The dump will intensify as we hit $700. People have had a few days to think that $700 is quite a good price to have for the excess coins.

I don't think $800 is cheap.

Nice plan.

I think the essence why the plan is good to have is that it enables you to see to the future - given certain bitcoin price, you know in advance how many bitcoins you will have remaining and how much value you receive that you can spend in other things or invest. This rules out emotion and guards you from making mistakes.

Anyone want to check what is the volume weighted price so far this month?

And should we change the weighting? Currently it is 100% Bitstamp. I think it is the best if we want to have 100% one exchange. Do we?

This thread is aimed for newbies. We don't have a problem re:squandering our bitcoin wealth and don't need a fixed plan, do we?