Bullshit.  The vast majority of poker pros are stakehorses at least some of the time.  Unless you are a multimillionaire, you are not sufficiently bankrolled for a large field $10,000 buyin tournament on an annual basis.  Many pros also cross-stake each other to lower the variance.

Which, of course, I did.


Using the exchanges just as exchanges, you only pay transaction fees on that exchange, not as in day trading, where you pay the fees again and again and again any time you make a trade, generally in the same commodity.  So instead of only paying fees once or twice, when you cash in or out, you're paying them repeatedly.  This can be hundreds of times in a year, especially if your basic strategy is trying to profit on very short-term trends, which in Bitcoin are often hour-by-hour or even minute-by-minute.

No he isn't.  He's accusing him that in the future he might scam someone on something that hasn't even happened yet.

Then he's accusing him of "stomping around" and "shouting obscenities" and a bunch of other retarded trolling.

The Bitcoin community should ignore the Bitcoin "Foundation" just like it ignores other forms of government.  It is increasingly obvious that the "Foundation" is attempting to dictate.

Treat it as the Internet has always treated censorship, by routing around it.

That might involve making sure to denounce it at every opportunity, or at the very least, to ensure that it is obvious that this "Foundation" does not speak for the community, but merely speaks for itself and the vested interests of its corporate ownership.

This is sort of like saying if you're the best poker player in the world, you should never turn down an option to play against the worst for your whole bankroll.  Most people aren't that person, though, and even the best get unlucky.

Yes, there are good day traders, just as there are good poker players, and some of these consistently make a profit.  However, when you're basically betting on hour-to-hour price shifts, and frequently buying and selling, you don't just have to beat the market.  You have to beat the combined transaction fees from the exchanges as well.  You don't just have to be better than the market, you have to be better than the market plus a constant stream of transaction fees.

This is basically the definition of a negative-sum game.  While those who make infrequent but large transactions also pay fees, they are basically negligible in comparison to the size of the transaction.  When you day trade, this overhead or "rake" becomes exorbitant.  While you only have to be reasonably intelligent to make money in the mid-term or long-term dealing in Bitcoin, which is likely to increase in value for the foreseeable future, you have to be way ahead of the curve to expect to profit as a day-trader.

I sold out some at $170 or so, when the price was spiking, and felt mildly foolish when it went to $266.  But if I'd waited for the peak, I probably wouldn't have even been able to sell when it started crashing, because most of the exchanges suspended trading or were simply too incompetent to maintain their operations with heavy trading (MtGox I'm looking at you).  There was a frenzy of panicked idiots basically trading blind with no reliable ticker value for the commodity.

Note, this is a problem you don't even see in normal day trading, but has happened during both major bubbles because the idiots running the exchanges are basically amateur hour assholes. 

I think in the current situation, being very cautious is better than trying to eke out every last cent of expected value, unless you are the best of the best at day-trading (with BTC this can basically be hour-trading or even minute-trading).  The vast majority of people aren't.

Those who are here and asking for advice almost certainly aren't.  If they were, they wouldn't even care about our opinions.

There's already a thread for this scam site.  No need for another.

More bullshido from the biggest troll this site has seen.  Go fuck yourself, loser.

The wiki only says that because Puke-Jr immediately reverts any change to his lies.

The fact someone has scammed in the past is highly indicative of someone likely to scam in the present.  Scammers scam.  It's what they do.

Pretty amazing how cheaply some sell their souls.  I guess those souls weren't worth much to begin with.  Or perhaps they just enjoy sucking Satan's cock.

I believe once you count the exchange fees, trading is actually a negative-sum game.

It's only zero-sum if you consider the exchanges a "player" in the game.  I don't.  I consider them a house taking their rake.

Okay.  I have an opinion that killing me is a bad idea and is against the law.  I'm willing to use force to "coerce" anyone who doesn't believe that.  Wow, I'm a monster!

I personally don't care much for Litecoin, and probably won't have much if anything to do with it.  I think it might have a future, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it go belly-up either.  If any of the altcoins has any legitimacy, though, it is Litecoin, maybe Namecoin, maybe one or two others that have some purpose for exhisting.

I am a lot more suspicious of the proliferation of bullshit me-too-coins (BBQcoin I'm looking at you) that basically have no purpose or reason for existence.

That's a lot different than them being a scam.  Luke-Jr has no evidence whatsoever that Litecoin is actually a scam and is basically libeling anyone who participates in it.  Based on nothing.  At least if I say Luke-Jr is a scammer, I have plenty of evidence in the betsofbitco.in thread where he blatantly helped them rig a bet to help them steal money.  So he has no business calling anyone else a scammer.

Saying "nobody" is kind of an exaggeration.  But okay, not much of one.  Successful day traders are pretty rare. 

I think a much more sensible investment strategy is to hold in the middle or long-term, and sell at a good price point.  Where "day trading" might come in is if you manage to sell at the high and the price crashes.  Then it is a good idea to buy back in at the bottom and, again, hold for a while.  This is partly my personal preference, because I just don't have time to sit around all day watching the ticker.

Also, the exchanges all seem to have serious stability problems during high volume trading, something that will have to be fixed.

From reading his ludicrous claims on the Wikipedia talk page, this guy apparently knows as much about how Wikipedia works as he does about Litecoin.  That is, SFA.


What a total douchenozzle.

Some people would consider that a rather large difference.

I'm not sure what the reasoning on this is with Bitcoin.  What's going to cause it to go down long-term unless something actually breaks the entire technology?  If you know much about the technology involved, you know that's very, very unlikely to occur.

Bitcoin is full of intelligent but idealistic people with an often naive view of the world, i.e., suckers.

Where you find suckers, you will find people who prey on suckers.


He looks like a shifty-eyed liar.

Which in fact he is.

All this really just demonstrates that it should be emphasized that entities with "Bitcoin" in their name do not speak for the majority of Bitcoin users, and may in fact speak for absolutely nobody but themselves.  Most of the media is too stupid to give a decent explanation of Bitcoin or anything else without assistance.  They will tend to seek out the biggest loudmouths in sight, just like on any other issue.

Search engine results are where it's at, because that is where anyone seriously considering Bitcoin will look.  Even if the "official" client is the first site, there should be effort put into making sure dissenting views are also available, preferably right below the people trying to set themselves up as "official."

(Even better above them, but just having "bitcoin" in the domain name is going to be big Google juice, not to mention on other search engines.)

The vig charged by the exchanges makes it very likely that it is the exchanges which enjoy the bulk of the profits from day trading.  There are certainly people who do this successfully out there, and with the general trend toward the price going up sharply from time to time, there's probably profit to spread around.

However, the exchanges have a bad record of going down completely during flash crashes, or have periods where people are basically trading blind.

Until this becomes more stable, this is basically gambling.  It's a kind of gambling where the skilled trader has an advantage, probably, but you're gambling on more than the price.  You're gambling that you will be able to sell or buy even if you actually do know what direction the market is going, because the infrastructure, even "trusted" sites like Gox, is very unreliable.  It may go down exactly when you need it to work, leaving you stuck with a mountain of overpriced coin and needing to wait possibly months for it to get back to where you can turn a profit.

I don't think anyone who isn't a fool is risking amounts that would wipe them out and render their investment entirely worthless.  However, you may very well end up underwater for a lengthy period of time if you zig when you should have zagged.

As with all forms of gambling, don't "invest" anything in this way you can't afford to lose.  I still think, though, the worst that is likely to happen is you are knocked out of the game for a while and have to wait for the price to come back around.