aubert and The Pharmacist are right!  

Do not go All Inn on anything.  It is extremely risky.

Yes, younger people ought to look at investments (but BTC is more of a speculation) that are riskier but offer better long-term rewards (like bond rates: short-term rates are low but the investment is secure, longer-term rates are higher but the investment is riskier).

Going all in on anything is almost always a mistake.  Don't fall for it.

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I recently received my Digital Bitbox, a new hardware wallet.  So far it looks good, no Chrome extension needed.  Looks pretty simple so far (I have only loaded some BTC on it), but I have not explored its other capabilities.

It also appears to be tough, I did not feel that neither the Trezor nor Ledger Nano is tough.

It looks a little more like an ordinary flash-drive than the others above.  It also has an option for a secondary password (to disguise your balance in your main addresses), an option I have not played with.  It can pair up with a smartphone.

Made in Switzerland (Trezor and Ledger also made in Europe, hmm).

So far, so good!


https://digitalbitbox.com/

Anyone else have any experiences they would care to share with the Digital Bitbox?

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I am frankly surprised that the miners & lead developers did not see these problems coming (low capacity, small block sizes, etc.).  In many ways, BITCOIN was designed for the very long-term...  It's curious to see all the infighting over problem-solving happen.

I wonder that after they "solve" this/these, whether or not we will see problems down the road that, wait for it........., "they did not see coming."

*  *  *

For anyone wanting a break from the Segwit vs. BU vs. , I offer up the latest from Armstrong:

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/europes-visa-war-with-usa-may-terminate-all-travel/

Will Europe cut off its nose to spite American face?  That would be stupid, but hey...  Italy & Greece would not like having huge losses of American tourists.

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This below definition and commentary re ANTIFRAGILE comes from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile) re N. N. Taleb's book:

"Taleb introduces the book as follows: "Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better".[1] Hormesis is an example of mild antifragility, where the stressor is a poisonous substance and the antifragile becomes better overall from a small dose of the stressor. This is different from robustness or resilience in that the Antifragile system improves with, not withstands, stressors, where the stressors are neither too large or small. The larger point, according to Taleb, is that depriving systems of vital stressors is not necessarily a good thing and can be downright harmful.

More technically, Taleb defines antifragility as a nonlinear response: "Simply, antifragility is defined as a convex response to a stressor or source of harm (for some range of variation), leading to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility (or variability, stress, dispersion of outcomes, or uncertainty, what is grouped under the designation "disorder cluster"). Likewise fragility is defined as a concave sensitivity to stressors, leading a negative sensitivity to increase in volatility. The relation between fragility, convexity and sensitivity to disorder is mathematical, obtained by theorem, not derived from empirical data mining or some historical narrative. It is a priori".[2]"

The above is not directed at anyone in particular.  But, I have noticed sloppy definitions and use of words and concepts here at bitcointalk.

I am enjoying this discussion, but definitions matter, else we would be talking about different things assuming we were not.....

* * *

Taleb's book is extremely interesting, I need to read it again as it is dense material.

A big problem for outsiders re BTC and Venezuela (same comment from here as to re Aleppo) is that Venezuela has nothing to offer (other than large oil exports, though getting smaller, to China, etc.).  So someone wants to send BTC to their family in Venezuela.  How do they spend it there, who would take it?  

If you were to try to send BTC, and get something worthwhile for it, how?  Venezuelans can barely export themselves!  They would not be allowed to bring out (nor send out) anything of value.  PERHAPS one could travel there and spend BTC to the right people (hotel owners), but that just would mean a cheaper trip...

Gold & silver would be more accepted there, but what would you get for it?  Coke & hookers?

Re taking gold out of Venezuela could probably only be done in small quantities (say 0.25 - 0.5 oz per trip: metal detectors at the airport!).

BTC could be taken out as well, either in a small hardware wallet or even a cloud wallet like blockchain.info.

...

I sent out a trx from blockchain.info with their suggested amount (BTC0.0008 or so), and it did not get confirmed in the next two blocks.  I then accelerated it using ViaBTC's tool, but they had too many in their little queue (they only take 100 / hour).

After two more blocks w/ no confirmations, I tried ViaBTC again, that time they accelerated it OK, but it still took two blocks more.

When things are backed up like they are now, it's probably better to just pay the higher fees...

...

While BTC's price move is very impressive, the above replies show that other than a relatively meaningless (but symbolic, OK) ratio of BTC:Au are indeed two different and too comparable measures.  BTC:Au price ratio (about 1.03 now) does show relative strength of BTC to gold over the past few years.

But I assign a higher probability of BTC going down below $1000 (say) than I would gold.  Of course a BTC price over $2000 is more probable than a gold price over $2000.

Also, gold will still be around in 10 years, or 20, BTC may not be.

They are different investments with different fundamentals.  Own both!

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I am always interested to learn more about developing any kind of BTC business or activities in a bad environment that Venezuela now finds itself in.

One issue that I can see is that Venezuela offers little to outsiders (other than oil) for any BTC, dollars or whatever.  I would like to see BTC make progress in helping ordinary Venezuelans able to buy food (etc.), but I do not see HOW that happens (I visited V. years ago but not recently).

If your project makes progress, please keep us informed!  It would be instructive to BTC fans all over the world.

I would not dismiss gold as a store of value just yet.

Yet, a H/T to the Bitcoin optimists, as it is very possible that BTC could have a nice run up from here.

But, they are different assets!  Which move differently, with different fundamentals.  Holding both gold and BTC is a winning strategy, hey whatever holdings you have in gold may not show such nice speculative gains as BTC, you are SAFER holding both.

While my guess (and my price predictions/guesses are of very little value) is that BTC will do great, it could go back down below $1000 or even below $700 if the past is any guide...  Still, as a HODLER of BTC, if the price keeps going up, up and away, that's really great!

...

On the other hand, I have to salute all of those who predicted BTC price would get higher than gold (now 2.5% higher than gold price).  So even with its higher volatility, BTC investment/speculation has been shown to be a good bet until now.

This really proves little, other than what I have long written: buy gold and BTC.  Safer, and you get a real prospect of making nice gains in one or the other (maybe both if the US$ goes down).

Armstrong addresses gold and Europe (but not Bitcoin) today at his blog:

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/blog/

TL;DR

Maybe you should not invest in Europe....

...

88,000 + now.  I have not checked to see what fees now have to be to get a confirmation in 1 - 2 blocks.

I read earlier in this thread that rising BTC price correlates with increasing activity and longer confirmation times.  Today's unconfirmeds would tend to be more evidence of just that.

I'll just take a break from BTC activity until the number of unconfirmeds comes down.

...

Buying Bitcoin for me has always been a lot harder to buy than it "should have been".  I live in a big US city, so one would think that it would be easy...

Currently I buy BTC from a BTC ATM and once in a while from buy.bitcoin.com.  The BTC ATM ("BTM") charges around a 13.5% fee while buy.bitcoin.com charges around 7.5%.  (For a short-time I bought from Circle, who offered very low fees, that I liked)

I did a few transactions w/ localbitcoins.com, but it was hard to set up meetings.  localbitcoins does offer the possibility of being able to buy anonymously, at least in theory.

buy.bitcoin.com at first was hard to work with, but has gotten smoother more recently.  That 6% lower fee makes it worth it when working right.

The BTM asks for my cell number for 2FA (and a way to ID customers).


What works best for you all?  And tell us why.

...

It does not even have to be free if the mixing fees were to be very low.  Of the mixers I have used, the lowest have been just above 0.5%, which is not bad at all.

For me to use such a hypothetical free mixer, I would need to be convinced that it was rock-solid (works reliably AND is pretty anonymous).  My experiences with bitmixer.io have shown me that their is rock-solid.

...

Yes, I have to hand it to O/P (and various contributors above), that despite a lot of sound and fury over the years since I started (about 2013), Bitcoin has proved durable.  I suppose that even with the inability of the developers and miners to solve the current weakness (too many unconfirmed trx) that BTC will continue to scale to new higher prices albeit bumps along the way!

At least until something notably better comes along...

As does providentmetals.com (in the USA).  I have bought from both of them, both offered me good service (although I bought more recently and more often from Provident).

YMMV.

marcus_of_augustus raises the very interesting idea of continued exponential rise in the price of Bitcoin.  In physical and natural systems, exponential rises typically end HARD sometime "soon after the hockey stick" price movement starts.

Would a mathematical and/or abstract entity like BTC be subject to such?  One argument for stating that BTC would not grow to the sky is that because products can be BOUGHT w/ BTC that there would be an upper bound.

But, I don't know.  It will interesting to watch and see if the +/- $9600 price target could be reached sometime reasonably soon.

sidhujag, iamnotback, r0ach

Word definition differences come to mind as I take exception to sidhujag's characterization of gold having but history behind it and nothing else.  

There is a great case to be made that gold is the best settlement!  Once you have bought gold with your currency (BTC in this case), you have already been paid.  You have settled!  You have real wealth, the best wealth for preservation.

With having BTC stashed away, you only have an asset that you really need to turn into something else, to be paid.  You have your BTC, but you have not "completed" the transaction to get paid, to settle.

* * *

I concur w/ r0ach that BTC is to a large degree a Store of Value, that it has some utility being hoarded.  I hoard it!  I spend some BTC, but I also keep some with the expectation that it will be worth more.

So I agree w/ r0ach and iamnotback that as a payment system BTC has a long way to go, especially in handling a large number of transactions.

Thx for leaking a little bit out re your plans that you are working on, iamnotback.  I think that all of us look forward to seeing what you produce.

I have bought gold from providentmetals.com several times with Bitcoin with 100% success!  I have bought from them for at least two years, but I have no other relationship with them other than being a customer.

That would probably be USA purchases only.

You can always call or email them for more information.

...

tabnloz

A very nice comment.  I do not bet against the likely continued march of science & technology going forward.  Is it possible that technology could deliver us into a "1984"?  Sure it's possible, but not probably (IMO).

I love gold as a diversification investment (so many gold haterz out there, why that makes it a contrarian investment).

But, when you look, really look, at what iamnotback has been writing for a long time, you see that most of your chips should be placed on a good eventual outcome, or at least have some of your bets on winning technology.

I look forward very much to seeing if his alt works out.

*  *  *

Armstrong had a NICE piece explaining SWIFT, the Chinese attempt at undermining it via their CIPS and pushing their Yuan as the alternative to the US$.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/china/china-cips-v-western-swift-system/

It is an absurd attempt by China.

When we buy Chinese bearings, we use DOLLAR$!  China is going to lose this battle, and if they keep fighting stupidly (more so than the USA?), then they will lose their way, period.

My guesses are typically very bad.  So, whatever I predict, there is an 80% probability that anyone would win by taking the opposite side of my trade.

With that said:

BTC price to some $1400 - $1800 during this run.


Happy to see it go higher though!