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401
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Economy / Economics / Re: What have you invested since the recession and how are they doing?
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on: August 16, 2014, 08:01:15 PM
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real estate, stocks, anything?
the recession dealt quite a bit of damage to me. so i chickened out and mostly missed the boat.
i guess i will catch up with ya on the next downswing
I buy and hold index funds, so my performance has been almost exactly the same as the market. But I started a new, higher paying job in September 2008, so I had a lot of free cash flow and put every red cent I had into stocks (through index funds) when they were cheap. I timed the market in that respect. I don't own any real estate, bonds or bond funds, individual stocks, precious metals, or anything else. The simple reason is that they are either more expensive, more work or have weaker performance than stocks, or all three (for example, in the case of real estate). But of you bought a house you could live in it while waiting for it to turn profit. A house holds value a lot better than stocks. And even if the value goes down to a worthless level, you can still make use (and profit) of it unlike stocks .The key question is, when did you start investing A residence is a nonperforming asset. It does not generate any profit. And the rate of return on residential real estate is vastly inferior to stocks--about half in real numbers, even lower in real return. That's not to mention the lack of liquidity in residential real estate and all of the taxes, upkeep, insurance, etc. It is also, as many learned in the past 6 years, among the least diversified and most risky ways to hold capital. 1992, but in a more serious way in 1996. Residential real estate does provide a rental yield (profit), which can be attributed to a homeowner's returns. But real estate investors have a lot of delusion about the superiority of their (inferior) assets. Public equity does outperform residential real estate, and especially on a risk-adjusted basis, given the lack of scope for diversification in real estate investments. The psyche of the average investor is a strange thing. Everyone knows that you should buy low and sell high and, as Buffett is always quoted, be greedy when everyone is scared and scared when everyone is greedy. But in practice people tend to do the exact opposite. They tend to be willing to take on more risk and buy more stock when prices are high, when they should be eating up risk in bear markets instead. The one good thing is it creates opportunities for bear market buyers. The likely reason that people tend to do the opposite like this is because of emotion. When many/most people are fearful there is a reason to be afraid, the same applies to greed. Since, in a capitalistic economy people need to work for their money, if there is a reason for people to be afraid for their money they likely will as they cannot afford to lose their investment and not blink an eye. |
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402
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Economy / Economics / Re: Has anyone made a comfortable living only investing in crypto trends?
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:57:58 PM
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Alt coin developers probably make quite a lot compare to a regular job.
Remember, some of the developers were involved in several coin projects and then abandon the coin after the initial pump from unsuspected investors.
I think a lot of the altcoins are really nothing more then a way to make their creators rich. IMO they serve very little, if any, other purpose. Bitcoin is able to provide much more then what any other altcoin can provide. There were many scamcoins which made their creators really rich, sometimes scammers are really clever I have to admit. IMO with the exception of NMC and LTC all alts are "scamcoins" as they really do not anything of value to their users. I say NMC is not a scam because it provides the domains and LTC because it was the first scrypt based alt, however I would doubt that either be successful over the long term. I hope Dogecoin is included in that exception. :p Dogecoins are now failing in value and so, getting more of it now is easier. Just hope that the value will rise again to make it worth keeping now and selling someday.  Unless you see something that dogecoin can offer as value that bitcoin does not then it will not be. Granted the doge community does seem to be for some reason very active, this alone is not something that can potentially give it value. I think the reason why LTC is an exception to the rule is because it was the first of it's kind just like bitcoin is. |
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403
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Economy / Economics / Re: Global Financial Crisis scenarios
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:52:57 PM
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The financial crisis took out a few players (banks / investment banks) in the credit market. The absence of these financial intermediaries would have resulted in lower credit being available to main street. Rates would also have risen, with banks not willing to take on additional risk. QE was supposed to ensure that this did not happen, by making ample liquidity available in the system.
So, in the worst case, QE just didn't work out since there was not much demand for credit from the "main street", but it didn't make it worse either, right? It hasn't made it worse, but its efficacy was low. QE and low interest rates postponed the crisis but it is going to be worse and will probably end up in hyper inflation and wars I really don't see QE and wars being linked, especially since most of the modernized world has engaged in some kind of QE (neither wars fought with military or economic/trade wars). Also the fact that banks are keeping the majority of the money they get from QE as excess reserves at the federal reserve is preventing inflation from getting out of hand. Fiat allows bigger and more expensive wars; QE and low interest rates is a way not to be honest about the situation and to hide the problems for a while; when the problems will come back and be bigger, the politicians will not accept it and say they were wrong. QE+low interest rates manipulate the markets heavily which can come back in the form of frustration, protests or wars. In the US the politicians tend to regulate for the big banks and the big corporations such as the military industry; wars are good for the former so wars are made. Politicians are often sociopaths who want to control everyone so they are likely to start wars when their fallacious economic actions are unsucessful It sounds like you are implying that QE allows for governments to borrow at artificially low interest rates in order to pay for wars. Although this is technically true this has not happened, but rather the opposite. The US has withdrawn from one War (Iraq) and has not entered into really any conflicts since QE started. Instead the US and much of europe has used QE for social programs to give away money to the lazy and less successful. |
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404
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Economy / Economics / Re: Bitcoin is a hot target for criminals and money launderers.
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:50:36 PM
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The drug trade is estimated to be worth $400 Bn a year. What portion do you think is conducted through bitcoins?
Probably a small amount as a percentage, but larger then the percentage that the BTC market cap is verses the dollar. What is more important here is the comparison between the drug trade amount effected in each currency relative to the total supply of this currency (perhaps, this is what you meant to say). And this comparison wouldn't be in favor of Bitcoin, as I can guess. I would think this stat would likely make bitcoin look very bad. With that being said I think the overall percentage of drug and illegal related trade is still very low when compared to legit trade, and the illegal trade can be fought with law enforcement. Yes, you are probably right, but we also shouldn't fail to consider that what you call "legit trade" primarily consists of speculation and online casinos' transactions. With more merchants starting to accept bitcoin, legit trade is starting to consist of more things like computers, satellite TV service and household goods. This is a trend that will likely continue until the vast majority of bitcoin related trade is similar to the kind of trade you have at a shopping mall. on every 2000 dollars spend in creditcard 1 dollar is stolen by thiefs. just an idea that cc system is as well week. numbers for cahs? I am not sure how accurate your stats are but the principle is correct. Merchants are the ones who ultimately need to pay for this fraud and these costs are almost always passed on to consumers. This is why the price you pay with a CC is not transparent as there are "hidden" costs to the products consumers buy. |
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405
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Economy / Economics / Re: Solution to poverty - Socialism or Capitalism?
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:48:17 PM
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At a restaurant you trade money against a good meal. Wealth just got created.
You valued your money less than the meal, and the cook valued the meal less than the money. The sum of the difference of valuation is wealth.
Not all trade is equal. Most of the time there is a power relationship where the strong exploits the weak. An example is sweatshops. People who need jobs are willing to allow themselves to be exploited because they need money. This was common in 19th/ early 20th century before existence of labor unions Labor unions were necessary a long time ago but are useless today, as they are only good for enriching themselves and the politicians they support. There are enough employment laws today that will protect workers from these kinds of abuses. Additionally workers are educated enough to be able to stand up to these kinds of abuses. The pendulum swings back and forth. Corporations were too greedy and tried to exploit people. Labor unions were formed to combat that, and it worked pretty well. But then the labor unions got greedy and tried to take too much from the corporations. Labor unions have been disappearing, and corporations are getting greedy again. Education has little to do with it. You can't stand up to corporations when you have no better options. For example, look at how corporations have slashed benefits over the last couple decades. You can't stand up to a corporation and demand a pension when no other corporations are offering them. And just look at how companies treat their employees now--they're just expendable labor. There's no loyalty anymore. I disagree. I think people today are more informed as to what their rights are because some government regulations have been written well and have forced companies to disclose what workers' rights are in conspicuous places throughout the workplace. I work for a fortune 500 company when even the lowest paid workers make well over minimum wage and every hourly employee needs to take an online class about how workers must input the time into their time-cards accurately even if they worked unauthorized overtime. This company does not have any unions (that I am aware of), though they do pay very well and respects their workers and their rights. |
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406
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Economy / Economics / Re: Is Argentina the cyprus of 2014?
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:43:45 PM
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Argentina could print pesos to buy dollars to pay back their debts. As they sell more pesos, the value of each peso would decrease so the more they print the less dollars they can buy on a per peso basis.
No country has managed to mint its way out of a crisis. May be they shoud try with cryptocurrencies. I don't think this would be possible. You cannot "mint" cryptos out of thing air. You must first make an investment (buy an ASIC(s)). If you are referring to them creating some kind of altcoin with coins premined then this would also make no sense as it would be unlikely that there would be any kind of demand for this (there is little demand for most alts). I think most altcoins see "hyperinflation" in their value, that is see their value tumble as people realize that the alt has no value that bitcoin cannot provide. Even if they do come out with altcoins, its credibility would be linked to the Argentinian government. You would probably see hyperinflation in these altcoins too.  I think that most altcoins experience hyperinflation as more people realize that they cannot offer any thing of value so people sell the coins. This results in the price of the altcoin more or less crashing. Altcoins have no value to begin with. This is just the dump phase rather than "hyperinflation". They get their value from the speculators in the market, instead of from the security of the network (miners) as what happens with bitcoin. |
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407
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Re: REALLY NEED YOUR HELP! Bitcoins disappeared!
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:42:27 PM
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Please post the TX id.
Can't because it isn't showing under the "transactions" tab. Its probably lost in limbo. If the client that initially broadcasted it forgot about it and the blockchain explorers did not pick it up, its very likely that only a very few clients even know about this TX. It is not possible for a TX to be "lost in limbo" for any amount of time. An input is always either spent or unspent. If an unspent input is part of an unconfirmed TX that has been accepted by the nodes then for all intensive purposes it is "spent pending confirmation" however if the TX does not confirm after 24 hours then the input will again be spendable. |
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408
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Bitcoin / Legal / Re: How to prevent Bitcoins being seized?
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:36:17 PM
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Encrypt your wallet and store your wallet in a pen drive and hide this pen drive in some secret place.
Always take a backup of your wallet in other pen drive, etc. ;P
paper wallet is better for a long term point of view, even with encryption you are forced to reveal it, or they arrest you You would still have 5th amendment issues in this case as if there was incriminating evidence against you on there, you would be forced to provide evidence against yourself. I agree. I think that forcing you to give information as to how to find BTC that you own would likely b considered to be forcing you to incriminate yourself which cannot be done. Additionally it would be very difficult to for the courts to know for sure if you are disclosing all of your holdings as there are many addresses that have not had any sent TX in a long time. |
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409
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Bitcoin / Legal / Re: Vote: Fix the BitLicense
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:34:32 PM
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there will be more of this kind of 'regulation' coming .. which is a thinly-veiled attempt to allow coinbase and circle to create a monopoly. Only the big companies can afford to 'play by the rules'
Can you elaborate as to which rules would be costly to abide by? What the NY regulations say in a nutshell is that companies that exchange BTC to and from fiat must identify people who they trade with (this should already be done due to AML rules), and that exchanges must have enough BTC in their possession to cover all of their customers BTC deposits (in other words they cannot operate on a fractional reserve system). |
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410
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Bitcoin / Legal / Re: The blockchain breaks the privacy laws (?)
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:30:28 PM
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I think as long as the "average" user of bitcoin does not do things that are illegal nor reckless then there is little chance that his identity will be revealed as few people would have the interest to do so. Even though all of his transactions are public, there would be very few people that would want to dox one random person out of millions of people.
With blockchain analytics companies being set up, I am not sure for how long this will remain true. analytics would make it easier to link two addresses together, even if mixers are used, but this would not make it more profitable to dox someone who had used bitcoin. If a hypothetical John Smith were to use coinbase to puchase bitcoin, send the bitcoin through a mixer for privacy and then purchased some household goods on overstock.com then it may be in theory to link his original coinbase purchase with his coinbase purchase, but since he not not broken any laws and the amount in question is very small, anyone who tries to link his identity to his used addresses would not gain anything from being successful. |
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411
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Bitcoin / Legal / Re: Using Bitcoin to Doge Child Support Collection
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on: August 16, 2014, 07:24:38 PM
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The funny thing about his thread is the use of "doge" instead of "dodge". Maybe you should try dogecoin to avoid the back child support owed! It's a sign when you misspelled dodge!
Out of the two options, bitcoin is really better as it is easier to mix bitcoin due to it's higher use, more choices for mixers, and relatively more stable value. With that being said, I think that anyone who tries to do anything to game the system to make it so they pay less in child support is scum. Money from child support is used for the benefit of your child. If you do not pay then you are not supporting your child and your child is suffering. Period. |
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412
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Bitcoin bubble to occur late August/early September
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on: August 16, 2014, 06:31:25 PM
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Prices are soon to fall again and already said time and time again over different section here too that price will eventually fall into the mid $400s before even climbing back up to high 700-800 area... Should see a few more drops in the 500s to 470s areas and possible to 300 mark depending on the last part of this month and 2nd quarter of next month.
Looks like my prediction from my quoted post is about right and people never listen to me. I did warn for this that it was going to happen back in mid July. I know where it is currently going to go to and its not looking good. Eventually mid SEP towards Nov is when it will begin to recover. Enjoy the low prices. November is when the last bubble started. If we don't see a bubblish scenario, people might leave the market looking for easy money somewhere else, so there is a chance that things won't be better at November Could be that people are leaving the market for now. Not sure where else 'easy' money is. In an efficient market there is no "easy" money as there is enough information to know what will likely impact prices in the near and medium term future. In order for anyone to make any serious ROI they will need to invest a lot of time in doing research and monitoring various markets for potential opportunities. |
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413
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Economy / Speculation / Re: John from bitfinex explains the "manipulation" drop to $451
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on: August 16, 2014, 06:26:37 PM
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How can he then explain the Total sum of active swaps (USD)? 5 days ago it was 31mil$ now is 21mil$?
Some people may not have been wiped out... they might have pulled out seeing the storm coming. Simple evac. Even accounts that have been forced to sell their positions likely have not been wiped out but rather incurred losses on their positions. It would be reckless for bitfinex to wait until an account has zero equity to close a position as the closing of a position would likely cause the prices to drop somewhat further, potentially causing negative equity in the account. |
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414
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Economy / Speculation / Re: This Bitfinex Credit Bubble cannot end well
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on: August 16, 2014, 06:23:57 PM
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http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/2dohjg/im_josh_rossi_from_bitfinex_here_to_talk_about/" We had approximately 650 bitcoins sold as the result of margin calls, out of a total amount of sales during this time of around 9000 coins. That is roughly 7%. Hardly, the cause of the drop in price. " This sounds like complete bullshit, but I don't know why they would lie about it. Clearly around 9M of longs have been squeezed out, and about 6M during that crash. That is at least 10k bitcoins sold due to margin calls, and the volume was around 15k on the flash crash. So those numbers somewhat make sense, but only 650 in margin calls does not. Maybe this guy missed a 0 and meant 6500? 7% of trading volume is actually a lot, especially when that entire amount is on one side of the market. Additionally, from what I can tell much of this forced selling is done all at one time as over the past several days I have seen a sudden, sharp sell off that happened over the course of maybe 15 - 30 minutes. I think that bitfinex should attempt to force sell margin positions in a more gradual way (maybe randomly selecting a certain percentage of accounts to force close positions every 30 minutes or every hour), and only force close positions all at the same time if equity levels were to reach a more critical level. |
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415
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Economy / Speculation / Re: And after this profitable sell-off, this is probably the bottom
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on: August 16, 2014, 06:14:36 PM
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I am not so sure. The current sell off is not based on technical indicators nor is it based on news. It is most likely based on the fact that too much margin has been used so people are being forced to close out their long positions. Once margin levels go to lower levels then the selling pressure will likely slow and price increases can resume.
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416
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Been here before.
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on: August 16, 2014, 06:08:45 PM
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it is a good thing, that i have to hold my coins minimum for 12 months because of tax issues in my country. after a year of holding, every profit is taxed with 0%. that means i have no other choice than hodling till summer 2015.  What country is this?? If these coins go up another order of magnitude, I'll be looking for relocation opportunities and your country already sounds phenomenal. In the US, if your income is low enough then you do not need to pay capital gains taxes on long term gains (the rate is 0%). I am not 100% sure if these capital gains count towards your income or not for purposes of determining if you qualify for this 0% tax rate on long term capital gains. There are also other parts of the world that have no taxes on capital gains/investment income regardless of their overall income. |
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417
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Economy / Speculation / Re: is Bitcoin going to crash to as low as 200 usd?
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on: August 16, 2014, 06:06:09 PM
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Bitcoin is likely to range between $200 to $300 and maybe less, it will take time... But now I've bought back in. I expect a spike to $550 before the next dumps.
This would really be a huge crash, the final capitulation. If it will happen, expect a rocket train leaving the station some seconds later. Crashes caused by over leverage can be this large, and bitcoin related crashes have been this large in the past. I think the absolute worse case scenario would be that we see a drop to the mid $200 range and if this were to happen it would be a huge opportunity to buy. It is important to note that past crashes of bitcoin have been very big however the price would almost always recover quickly (at least partially) within hours. |
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418
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Is it time to buy or what?
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on: August 16, 2014, 06:02:40 PM
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The volatility is great at the moment. My advice - Go Short - Hodl Build that bitcoin wallet and wait for the $100k coins to come I agree that the volatility has increased a lot in the past few days and this is good for traders of bitcoin. This will also likely increase profits for exchanges who measure their profits in terms of BTCWhat this is not good for is the long term adoption of bitcoin as it will make it more risky for people to buy and spend their bitcoin (they have a bigger exchange rate risk). For the OP: I think we likely have some ways down to go from here. I would personally buy net more BTC if the price were to drop ~50% from today's levels, but I think the chances of it going that low are low. Over the long term the price of bitcoin will likely rise to levels well above our last bubble highs. |
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419
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Is it time to buy or what?
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on: August 16, 2014, 05:16:35 PM
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I am a veteran trader, for me it's no brainer-now its time to buy.
I don't think it is that clear cut that it is time to buy bitcoin. The sell-off is likely attributed, at least somewhat to liquidating of leveraged positions and without knowing how close to the min margin requirements the overall bitfinex and btc-e markets are it is hard to know how much more forced selling we will see. |
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420
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Bitcoin / Project Development / Re: 80 btc around the world
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on: August 16, 2014, 04:20:38 PM
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right now 0,01% of the world has adopted bitcoin and its value is 500$-imagine if this amount was 0,1%. The value of one bitcoin would become 5000$
I'm concerned that you don't know how the value of one Bitcoin is influenced by higher adoption. Increased adoption of Bitcoin will not necessarily increase the value per Bitcoin, and the value of Bitcoin will definitely not be correlated to the percent of adoption. If you go on this trip, make sure you have some smart "hero-type" members from this forum and the Bitcoin community to help you provide accurate information. Maybe your travels can be the spirit of what Bitcoin can do, the reality of it, using it for every day needs, and your stops and speaking engagements can highlight the real experts of the community and currency. I don't think the OP so much needs information from this forum to be able to take this trip, as few people here (if anyone at all) have access to information that is not publicly available (although several people on here are very good at finding public information). What the OP really needs for his trip to be successful is much greater rate of merchant acceptance of bitcoin. If the rate of merchant acceptance were to hold steady from now until he starts his trip he will likely need to resort to selling some of his bitcoin for fiat as he would have no way to pay for things like food and shelter or other necessities. |
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