I am about to do something massivley stupid

[Melbustus]

Its posts like these that show the top of the market cant be far away.

Yeah, I'm pretty much a permabull here, and that was my first thought when reading this post...


Regardless, to the OP:

Read DeathAndTaxes' post a few times. I have no issue with people taking risks that they fully understand, but this is just fraudulent and stupid. As D&T points out, student loan debt never goes away. Pretty much all other types do. Credit card debt pretty readily (and that doesn't (directly) screw me, the taxpayer, when you default).

I know you're not planning on defaulting, but your financial position suggests a volatile situation where even *you* may not be aware of how you'll react to various developments. I question your resolve to hold for "at least 5-10 years" if, say, this current wave of adoption stagnates, maybe there's a high-profile hack or two, maybe Chuck Schumer gets some ugly bill to pass banning bitcoin and law-abiding merchants jump ship... Price slowly drops towards single digits, hashrate falls, no new positive news stories about bitcoin every week...

I would (and did in 2011) continue to accumulate in such a scenario, since none of the above indicates a long-term fundamentals change.....that's the luxury of not being leveraged. You, on the other hand, with no ability to even pay rent, would face, shall we say, a different set of incentives and considerations.

[glub0x]

15k is not so much and guess what, if you don't gamble you ll never win.
Even at 36$, if you think spending your time and money in creating a business is less risky then i bet you never did.
but there is still a shit loads of people doing it, so why not a loan for bitcoin?
Be aware of the risk, you might loose it all, act accordingly.
Be prepared to live with your parents for a bit more and good luck with that!


And also the more bitcoin goes up the more those loan folks will appear it is not a sign of future colapse it is due to the fact that btc price is rising. But i agree the proportion of thoose against the proportion of regular hoarder or btc spender will have a direct impact on the eventual bubble pop.
Now i have no idea of this proportion...

[XxionxX]

Its posts like these that show the top of the market cant be far away.

Yeah, I'm pretty much a permabull here, and that was my first thought when reading this post...


Regardless, to the OP:

Read DeathAndTaxes' post a few times. I have no issue with people taking risks that they fully understand, but this is just fraudulent and stupid. As D&T points out, student loan debt never goes away. Pretty much all other types do. Credit card debt pretty readily (and that doesn't (directly) screw me, the taxpayer, when you default).

I know you're not planning on defaulting, but your financial position suggests a volatile situation where even *you* may not be aware of how you'll react to various developments. I question your resolve to hold for "at least 5-10 years" if, say, this current wave of adoption stagnates, maybe there's a high-profile hack or two, maybe Chuck Schumer gets some ugly bill to pass banning bitcoin and law-abiding merchants jump ship... Price slowly drops towards single digits, hashrate falls, no new positive news stories about bitcoin every week...

I would (and did in 2011) continue to accumulate in such a scenario, since none of the above indicates a long-term fundamentals change.....that's the luxury of not being leveraged. You, on the other hand, with no ability to even pay rent, would face, shall we say, a different set of incentives and considerations.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. This is the kind of negative post I am happy to receive.

Do you think that it is wiser to use a credit card for this kind of purchase despite the large fees involved? Like I said before I am not into running afoul of the law. I don't think that using a student loan in this manner is fraudulent, but I am not going forward unless I am sure.

You, on the other hand, with no ability to even pay rent, would face, shall we say, a different set of incentives and considerations.

This is actually my biggest concern and the only reason why I would change my bullish stance. But this is my biggest concern even WITHOUT taking out a loan though...

I have a tent...

But really, unless my parents lose their home (entirely possible) I will have a place to live. If they don't have their home I think I will have bigger problems than all of this, including the student loan. A refugee camp wouldn't sound outlandish at that point...

I question your resolve to hold for "at least 5-10 years" if, say, this current wave of adoption stagnates

This is my problem like I said before. I get that there are risks involved and I have been thinking about this since before the uptick. I had been holding for 4-5 months at that point and then I thought the price hike was a bubble. So I waited... for 2 months. You all know what happened.

And it's not like I can convince you, but I am the kind of person who decides something and sticks with it like a mule. This has gotten me in trouble quite a few times...

I am actually counting on the adoption to stagnate, I don't believe that this rally can continue but I am also afraid that it will. This is what is driving me towards the loan. I would actually feel relief if it fell back to $15-$10 after I bought, below that not so much. My stop loss would hit me at $5 where I would crawl away with ~$2k left and I would be ~$10k in debt assuming this all happens tomorrow. If it did in a year or two I would just break even.

The truth is that none of us knows what will happen. This is life.

Edit: However, if the market crashed in a year or two when I have everything paid off, I probably wouldn’t pull a stop loss because I wouldn't stand to make anything off of it. The money would be gone either way, why the hell would I care? You can't have less than 0.

[BorderBits]

Holy fuck, did Atlas and Dank combine and mutate into a Super-moron?  This is seriously the dumbest fucking thing I have seen here in a while. 

[proudhon]

I think this will come in handy here.

[XxionxX]

Thanks proudhon. I was wondering what you were going to say. And yes, that is how I feel. Please be merciful because I know that this is a bad idea.

[proudhon]

Thanks proudhon. I was wondering what you were going to say. And yes, that is how I feel. Please be merciful because I know that this is a bad idea.

In all seriousness, have you thought about other alternatives?  Do you have family who would be willing to loan you money?  You should explore other options before you take this route.  Not only that, but you have probably already put yourself at risk by posting about these intentions, for the reasons DeathAndTaxes mentioned on the first page.

[Spaceman_Spiff]

Thanks proudhon. I was wondering what you were going to say. And yes, that is how I feel. Please be merciful because I know that this is a bad idea.

Then why are you doing it?  Look, I can't see into the future, it's possible that this could be the smartest thing you ever did.  But on the other hand, isn't the fact that you want to do this now, even when you say "I know it is stupid, but I want to do it anyway" evidence for the fact that you are letting your emotions make this decision for you?  I mean, I know there are arguments pro and contra, but what is actually making the decision for you?  Is it a greed-joy-induced high, or are you feeling sober? From my short personal experience in silver, I have learned that crazy gains can stop the bloodflow to your brains and end badly (I overleveraged too much thinking I could be out before the bubblepop, losing all my previous gains and then some).

My 2 cents, I am bullish on BTC, this could make you rich, but be honest to yourself about the true motivators and try to really think through (feel it) what speculative failure would do to your life.  Then decide if you think it is worth the risk.

[Anon136]

Hello fellow bitcoin users.

I have been watching bitcoin over the past 2 years, I 'bought in' about 6 months ago. Over the months I have watched bitcoin developments and feel strongly about bitcoins future. Barring some massive hole found in the code, or something disastrous happening worldwide which might make people feel that bitcoin is terribly insecure, I feel that bitcoin's rise is inevitable.

Now comes the stupid part. I am thinking about taking on a $10k-$15k student loan to purchase bitcoins.

No, I don't need you to tell me why this is a retarded idea or why this is massively risky. I understand the risks quite well and I think I have lost my marbles. I have determined that I would rather pay off this loan than miss this investment opportunity. I know that if this fails I will kick myself forever, but I am young (26) and I can recover.

I was wondering if anyone knew of any loan services which might be good for this purpose, or things I should know about making such a large purchase. Please keep the doom and gloom to yourself, I know this is stupid but I have made my decision. I need ideas and help.

I plan to be holding for at least 5-10 years, and I would be willing to part with about 50 of my coins for $15k to pay off my loan and break even (a.k.a. a price of ~$300 a coin). I will be holding my breath until then. I plan on doing this in such a way that I do no incur Forex taxes on my 'cash out'. And I would probably end up having someone pay off my loan for the trade of coins below market rate. I would probably end up paying for everything I need in bitcoins as I see no reason to exchange my money back out and let 'the man' take a cut of my profit. This is my super scary gamble and I want to keep my reward if I get it.

Thank you very much for any positive input. And I hope you have a great day.

Taking a huge risk that you know will either lead to extreme wealth or extreme poverty in your future isnt smart or dumb its just a personal decision about what YOU want out of life. But the sort of person who wants to risk everything for huge rewards shouldnt care what we think about it, the fact that you need our approval says to me that maybe you arnt cut out for this sort of thing. Do you think andrew carnagee or john rockerfeller or Cornelius vanderbilt give 1/1000th of a shit what anyone else thought about their hair brained schemes?

[Bitcoinpro]

fortune favours the brave, bitcoin is a 20 trillion emerging market and that i find is conservative considering it may take the entire global economy in its wake,

[bowen151]

If this is a loan that is 100% disposable income then I see no problem with trying it. If you run the numbers and do your due dilligence then I think it not a total bonehead move, not the smartest by any means, but maybe do-able.

[Bitcoinpro]

just wait till bitcoin hits 200 sell a quater payback the loan and hold the rest

ill be buying even if a satoshi is 1 dollar

[Merralea]

Since you know that this is stupid to the point of saying so in the title, I doubt you will do this, which is good.
If you were going to take out a loan to buy BTC (which isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world in and of itself), a student loan might just be the worst possible way to do so. The interest rates may be low, but it can't be discharged, and you will get assraped with something hard and sandpapery if .gov finds out. If you must leverage yourself onto a tightrope, at least get a conventional loan, from someone you know, a p2p lending site, a bank, whatever. If you don't qualify for one, you'll have to work on that.
I do know someone that max'd their credit cards to buy a while back...it worked out all right for them, but I can't recommend it due to the fact that I would rather not get bludgeoned to death by a hobo in a few months.
TL;DR Seriously? No.

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I do know someone that max'd their credit cards to buy a while back...it worked out all right for them, but I can't recommend it due to the fact that I would rather not get bludgeoned to death by a hobo in a few months.

LMAO 

[XxionxX]

Taking a huge risk that you know will either lead to extreme wealth or extreme poverty in your future isnt smart or dumb its just a personal decision about what YOU want out of life. But the sort of person who wants to risk everything for huge rewards shouldnt care what we think about it, the fact that you need our approval says to me that maybe you arnt cut out for this sort of thing. Do you think andrew carnagee or john rockerfeller or Cornelius vanderbilt give 1/1000th of a shit what anyone else thought about their hair brained schemes?

I don't particularly care, I just think it is even dumber not to get input on my idea.

I am still sold on doing this, but I have learned a lot from all of the comments. This is exactly why I posted. I really didn't want to post, but I knew that there are people here who would be able to talk at least some measure of sense into my idea. So far it has been a wildly successful thread and learning experience.

[Anon136]

Taking a huge risk that you know will either lead to extreme wealth or extreme poverty in your future isnt smart or dumb its just a personal decision about what YOU want out of life. But the sort of person who wants to risk everything for huge rewards shouldnt care what we think about it, the fact that you need our approval says to me that maybe you arnt cut out for this sort of thing. Do you think andrew carnagee or john rockerfeller or Cornelius vanderbilt give 1/1000th of a shit what anyone else thought about their hair brained schemes?

I don't particularly care, I just think it is even dumber not to get input on my idea.

I am still sold on doing this, but I have learned a lot from all of the comments. This is exactly why I posted. I really didn't want to post, but I knew that there are people here who would be able to talk at least some measure of sense into my idea. So far it has been a wildly successful thread and learning experience.

well good luck to you! i can say with confidence that i am not at all the sort of person i described in my previous post. I would never do what you are doing. But i legitimately and truly hope that you become ridiculously wealthy.

[XxionxX]

I do know someone that max'd their credit cards to buy a while back...it worked out all right for them, but I can't recommend it due to the fact that I would rather not get bludgeoned to death by a hobo in a few months.

LMAO 

Death by hobo... Not really the way I wanted to go :/

[XxionxX]

Taking a huge risk that you know will either lead to extreme wealth or extreme poverty in your future isnt smart or dumb its just a personal decision about what YOU want out of life. But the sort of person who wants to risk everything for huge rewards shouldnt care what we think about it, the fact that you need our approval says to me that maybe you arnt cut out for this sort of thing. Do you think andrew carnagee or john rockerfeller or Cornelius vanderbilt give 1/1000th of a shit what anyone else thought about their hair brained schemes?

I don't particularly care, I just think it is even dumber not to get input on my idea.

I am still sold on doing this, but I have learned a lot from all of the comments. This is exactly why I posted. I really didn't want to post, but I knew that there are people here who would be able to talk at least some measure of sense into my idea. So far it has been a wildly successful thread and learning experience.

well good luck to you! i can say with confidence that i am not at all the sort of person i described in my previous post. I would never do what you are doing. But i legitimately and truly hope that you become ridiculously wealthy.

Thank you for the well wishes. I am going to need them.

[flipperfish]

This came into my mind this morning, I think it fits in here:

No Risk = No Fun
does NOT imply
Risk = Fun

[Rassah]

Really the only difference between this being really dumb and really smart is the timing. Doing it now is probably dumb. Waiting just a month or two until Bitcoin either comes back down or at least stabilizes enough to show it won't crash is much smarter. Even if it does drop down to $10 again, I am 100% confident it will get back to $40 eventually. The question is, do you want to make money while it's climbing back up, or waiting for a couple of years just to break even?

Personally, my strategy has been "dollar-cost-averaging." Look it up. I made money even despite the drop from $30 to $2 and the eventual rebound. Much less risky.