How about a Safety Deposit box at a local bank?  About $40 a year.   

In a distant dystopian future, or not (maybe today), the financial institutions (banks) and culture is failing us.  The people are questioning if their hard earned wealth and worth is safe, and where to keep it.  "Who is John Galt?" is the rhetorical question as to why things are not working.   The banks are failing, and the government has only answers which involve sacrificing our liberties and properties in exchange for the philanthropic ideals of 'the good of the majority', which is at the cost of the wealth of those who actualy make things work.

It is a long and boring read.  Ayn Rand did not boil down her ideas at all, and it is hard to grind through 1,268 pages of her great ideals, which are long winded.  The three movies on Amazon are easier to endure.  

The ideals and principles are true though.  Nobody should live at the obligated expense of another, for any reason, and the ideal of individual interest trumping any and all collective interest really does produce the greater good for all.   IMHO.

We are living through a time of change, by those who want a "great reset", and those people want to change human nature to not be oriented towards self interest but instead 'we will own nothing, and we will be happy'.   The NAZIs and the Soviets tried to change human nature, from the idea of self interest to the interest of the collective...
-It didn't work, and I doubt it.

"Who is John Galt" has similar parallels to "who is Sotashi Nakamato".  Both disappeared and became legends, and both changed their respective worlds.  Both will deny the robbers of their stolen wealth from us, if we just wake up;

There is a way out, with gold in certain situations, or a decentralized cryptocurrency like BTC.  Like John Galt, we don't know who Sotashi Nakamato is,, he disappeared,,, or where Galt's Gulch is,,,,(perhaps El Salvador?).  And the movement is spreading world wide.  It (BTC) is, even with it's wild volatility, proving to be more of a store of wealth than our present financial institutions.

Like that dystopian world of Atlas Shrugged, we have to decide if we want to continue to trust and invest into a system that will rob us of our energy, our intelligence and our wealth, in order to benefit the 'greater majority good'.  

Like in the movie, when confronted with government dystopia of false philanthropic ideals, at the cost of innovation and individual liberty and freedom, at what point will we wake up to choose freedom over slavery?
 

I don't see it either.  If BTC goes below $6K, I am selling my car and buying!

Eventually, when governments realize they can't stop Bitcoin, prevent it, or slow it down, they will realize they should be buying it as fast as they can.   

At some point this will happen very quickly, because governments cannot afford to be left behind once the rest of the world, or even just one big government starts to HODL.  It will be like a nuclear reaction, where the nuclear mass reaches supercritical, and there will be FOMO on a world wide scale.

Perhaps hopium, but plausible.

I use Breadwallet on my IPhone for small amounts, and hardware wallets for larger. 

Trezor s great!

Nuke the whales.

Would/could you use several, for example Trezors, and program them all with the same seed, thus being able to access the totality of your bitcoin from any of the single trezors?  Assuming your six number code, and pass phrase was the same with all the Trezors, which you can do with Trezor, if you lose one of the hardware wallets you would not even need to break a sweat.

No it is not possible.

The very nature of your question, "is it possible to have a shortage" , reveals a lack of understanding in the free market.
- If price is free to adjust to demand as is the fundamental characteristic in a free market, there can never be a shortage.  

Even if all but one Bitcoin were lost it would/could be adjusted through a fork to allow infinite division, allowing everyone in the world to use it.  But the price for that last whole Bitcoin would represent the total capital value of the whole Bitcoin market.  

And if some family descendent of yours 100 years from now found the recovery seed key in a long lost safety deposit box you put your backup for a dozen BTC, ---they would own the world.

I don't know.  Sanctions are biting Russian economy hard, and he might actually take that chance and buy BTC.

Putin has big balls, and if push comes to shove it is better than nuclear war, and it would free the Russian economy from the restrictions of sanctions while spitting on the west.

And It might just be a very popular move for domestic Russian politics.  Certainly the initial market move with $10 billion in Russian money would be an instant profit so the domestic backlash from such a move might be minimal if not entirely absent, and then if there is a downturn at a later date it would have been forgotten by then.  Hell, Russia could be the ultimate in "pump and dump" whales!

I see no downside for Putin on this.

Work, work, work, work, work, work,,,

I know, it is a tough job,,,but I will take it for the team!!

All of a sudden...

Things make a lot of sense now...

Hi Dave, Fauk, and all my permabull brothers!

Yes, it could get very ugly.  We are talking about a hyper-inflationary collapse of the Dollar (the strongest fiat currency, which if it collapses will probably take out all the others).  Many think it is way overdue, and while I love what it will do for bitcoin and our positions who HODL, it will be a hell for the rest of the world, and it could be very destabilizing, war wise...

The problem is of course we have spent 20 trillion dollars we don't have, and have promised over 200 trillion in unfunded liabilities, which while I wish I could collect on since I have contributed to them for decades, will not be affordable.. I am of course referring to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.   Another way this could happen is to lose the dollar as the world reserve currency, the "petrodollar", which would result in all those dollars previously needed to buy and sell OPEC oil will all come home....

The only way the government will pay for them, (because no politician attempting to run for office can ever threaten to cut them), is to devalue the currency.  Print money.  Make it out of thin air.  Raising interest rates lately may expedite this collapse because it will only accelerate the government's insolvency.  And it is not without historical reference.  Germany Weimar republic after WW1, Venezuela, Zimbabwe 2008,,,ROME hundreds of years ago!!!!  --and many more, and they all follow the same spiral...

The compounding problem is that we have so many social programs that will collapse with the currency.  So many people depend on the government check to survive today.  As such, when hyperinflation event happens (and it can and has happened VERY FAST) their government checks will be equally worthless (unless they increase the check amounts, which causes more deficit, in a accelerating whirlpool making the dollar absolutely valueless)  and it will cause riots in the streets.  

People who don't know better (and they should) will scream for the government to fix the problem.  But the government can only use force to fix anything when there is no money, whether it is to force taxation, or in the worst case here, confiscate property -things could get very ugly-  Government force, martial law, to stop the riots, redistribute wealth, attempt to control the economy through centralized planning.  The Constitution could be an unfortunate casualty. Not good.

I am hopeful though that if a hyper inflationary event does happen that Bitcoin may be the way out without losing our freedoms and country.  And anyone with any amount of BTC/crypto/metals will be a necessary leader by default assuming property rights survive.

Not to be a downer, and in fact Bitcoin and crypto is a hedge against the worst case scenario, and perhaps it won't ever get to this point.

HODL.

Hi again brother!!

I am a permabull.

OBVIOUSLY.

Any BTC lost is good for those who HODL, and at the same time we do need some way to more securely preserve and protect those we who HODL.

I think this is a business opportunity for those much smarter than I.  A way to secure, in a hardware wallet like Trezor or Ledger, and at the same time preserve absolute security.  It may require biometrics (fingerprints, eye scans, facial recognition technologies), or some other absolute security I cannot even imagine, but I can imagine.

For those who hold BTC,... lost BTC is no loss to you. It only increased scarcity to your benefit.  We SHOULD try to avoid the loss of BTC, and that includes those who die while owning BTC.  THIS IS AN ISSUE.  

Good will to all who HODL.  

Be strong;

We are all future wealthy IMHO.

FWIW, I use Coinbase, and it seems to be a competent and well run company, even if it is suffering from massive growth pains.  And I think this massive growth they are experiencing is indicative of the future, where they are positioning themselves.  They do have alt coin trading, as any good well run business should, but I don't think it is a distraction as much as just offering the most for the customer which they cater to.

I doubt they will have the resources and time to waste with possible bad investments.  Their "Vault" even seems to be a relatively safe way to store BTC, even though I keep mine in off line cold storage.

The big picture of BTC may be hard to see, but the periphery of the industry, as exemplified by Coinbase, is showing the stress of what could be massive growth and expectations.

 

I am not exactly sure what "hash rate" is, even after being explained to me several times, but I do know it is fundamental to the activity of Bitcoin.  

Be that as it may, this graph was posted late May on this thread, and it showed then that the hash rate at that time had DOUBLED since Jan 2018.  
https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate?timespan=2years

Well, an update shows a continued increase far beyond that, with at least as fast of an increase.  

-As I said before, the spring seems to be winding VERY tight.....

HODL!

FWIW, I quit FB a while ago.  Anything that can be regulated and controlled by a government, like FB, can regulate and control information for the sheep to follow.  Propaganda by the elites who also control our main currency in the US.  

--And in turn FB collects information of the most intimate nature about you, and SELLS it to whoever will pay.  I don't know about you guys and gals, but I don't play that game any more.

A good rule of thumb I heard is; If you are not paying for it, then you are the product, not the customer.

Think of owning Bitcoin like riding a bucking bronco.  It really can be the emotional equivelant if you watch the price every day.  

And like riding that bronco you only lose if you fall off, sell off, let go...

Hang on tight, wait for the eight second horn and it will be awesome, and you just may win,

- but know that it's going to be a wild ride!

I started buying at $600, and was scared to watch it fall to 210 or so,,, so I took a chance and kept buying.  The last BTC I bought was at around 1200, so I am happy right now. 

Yea, we could all still lose it all if something weird happens,,, or on the other hand John McAffe might not have to eat his johnson on TV and I RETIRE,,, but,,,

No guts no glory.

I am HODLing, but I want to scream...

They say not to take debt out to invest, but I have thought the same thing.  

I have made over 10X my investment in BTC, at today's prices...

WHERE I THINK THIS IS GOING, AS VOLITILE AS ITWILL BE....

I am HODL.