Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[jl2012]

(3) Bitcoin's only intrinsic value is its utility as a method of payment.  Its value as an investment depends entirely on that utility.

No, this is not true. A significant portion of bitcoin value comes from its utility as a storage of value: an asset that is scarce, non-confiscatable, exceptionally carriable (cf. gold), pseudonymous, uncorrelated to any traditional asset, and more.

Those properties do not suffice to make an asset into a reliable store of value. (The last one is in fact a defect.)

Yes they do.

No they don't.  

Think again about the Pluto land example.  With the premise of UN guarantee etc, it has all the qualities that you listed.  Why wouldn't it be a good investment? The problem is not that a comet may dig a crater in your plot.  The problem is that its value is not pegged to anything.  Therefore it may perfectly go from 1 M$ to 10$ at any time, without any reason.

That in fact is what has happened to Bitcoin in the last six months: its market price has changed drastically and unpredictably, because it is not supported ("yet", you may say) by its use as currency.  The demand that lifted the price at the current 620$  was entirely speculative, and there is no argument that excludes it going to 400$ or 1200$ tomorrow. We have seen it reach both.

Or consider any altcoin, no matter how stupid.  It may never be widely used as currency, but apart from that it has the same qualities that you listed above.  If those qualities were enough, then any altcoin would be just as good an investment as bitcoin.

Not this BS again.

1oz gold is 1oz gold is 1oz gold. Its value is not pegged to anything.

Also read "Rai stones" on wikipedia

For alt-coins, bitcoin is better than alt-coins because of its novelty. You may have 1000 bitcoin clones, but Bitcoin is always the FIRST successful cryptocurrency.

[1715011102]

1715011102

[Patel]

Requesting whales to please buy

Worked in 2013.

Requesting whales to please buy

[Davyd05]

well said

Bitchick is respectful, hurts me to see people shaming her for her beliefs.

[BitChick]

well said

Bitchick is respectful, hurts me to see people shaming her for her beliefs.

I was asking for it this time.  Hey,  people were just complaining about too much politics on here.  I figured there are other things to discuss.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[nioc]

Ok folks I may have a live one for our ponzi scheme.   A close friend who has heard me speak of btc from time to time for over a year is coming into a significant amount of fiat and told me today that they are considering investing in btc. 

This is after advice from someone that the stock market should not be invested in at this time.  My friend is clueless about money and so is putting their trust in others.  Now that it is a real possibility that somebody will take my advice, it makes me feel uneasy even though I can't see how it is a losing investment.  Something along the lines of the expression, don't lend a friend money. 

I guess a question that needs to be answered is, what % should be put into btc?  Without giving you, my fellow club members, any more specifics I guess the best advice to expect would be general in nature.  I'm sure that would be sufficient. 

Thank you for your consideration

[nioc]

well said

Bitchick is respectful, hurts me to see people shaming her for her beliefs.

I was asking for it this time.  Hey,  people were just complaining about too much politics on here.  I figured there are other things to discuss.

I don't care what people believe in as long as it enables them to be good.®

[Newbie1022]

The hell is wrong with these people with their graphs and lines that don't predict a damn thing. It is like those guys that predict the end of the world every year... when the world doesn't end instead of just saying they don't know what the hell they're talking about, they just beat the drum a little louder and suggest it will be the next year.

Listen, if you keep posting graphs that say there is going to be a breakout and there is no breakout or every time that you draw one you say the price will go up and it goes down (or vice versa) and you tend to be right only about 50% of the time... you prediction model ain't too good there slick. Maybe, just maybe, it's all bull---- akin to Tarot cards or them dot pictures that the psychiatrist asks you to interpret into a picture (Google appears to be telling me it is called a Roscharch test... I can neither confirm nor deny independently this fact, though, at this time).

Paul Giamatti as Joe Gould in Cinderella Man (2005) -- "Unbelievable bulls---!!"

[av123]

Ok folks I may have a live one for our ponzi scheme.   A close friend who has heard me speak of btc from time to time for over a year is coming into a significant amount of fiat and told me today that they are considering investing in btc. 

This is after advice from someone that the stock market should not be invested in at this time.  My friend is clueless about money and so is putting their trust in others.  Now that it is a real possibility that somebody will take my advice, it makes me feel uneasy even though I can't see how it is a losing investment.  Something along the lines of the expression, don't lend a friend money. 

I guess a question that needs to be answered is, what % should be put into btc?  Without giving you, my fellow club members, any more specifics I guess the best advice to expect would be general in nature.  I'm sure that would be sufficient. 

Thank you for your consideration

100% should be sufficient.

[aminorex]

monkey isn't doing me much good in btc while i wait, but he surely did earn a banana telling me to long AUDUSD.

monkey's monday mumbles made me more monero mad money.

he didn't want me to take profit yet, but i couldn't resist.  i feel this weakness is humbling.

[aminorex]

100% should be sufficient.

110% is probably just a smidge better.

[av123]

100% should be sufficient.

110% is probably just a smidge better.

Good point. One can buy on leverage.

[Newbie1022]

Ok folks I may have a live one for our ponzi scheme.   A close friend who has heard me speak of btc from time to time for over a year is coming into a significant amount of fiat and told me today that they are considering investing in btc. 

This is after advice from someone that the stock market should not be invested in at this time.  My friend is clueless about money and so is putting their trust in others.  Now that it is a real possibility that somebody will take my advice, it makes me feel uneasy even though I can't see how it is a losing investment.  Something along the lines of the expression, don't lend a friend money. 

I guess a question that needs to be answered is, what % should be put into btc?  Without giving you, my fellow club members, any more specifics I guess the best advice to expect would be general in nature.  I'm sure that would be sufficient. 

Thank you for your consideration

100% should be sufficient.

He could go substantially in and then hedge with about 10% of it using low ball bids so he doesn't get burnt. This would work even if there was a slow to moderate fizzle. Frankly, we'll either fly or it will be a slow to moderate fizzle... we've gained too much steam to be banned, or at least banned to any practical effect, by the key governments now (we've gone past the Prohibition era of our development). So yea, I'd say give it a whirl, but do hedge in some sort of fashion.

Note also that the economy is terrible, we've had a temporary kick up in activity because the influx of consumer credit that always follows from April 15th (tax returns) to about September until people have had a chance to re-screw up their credit scores. In the meantime, the banks won't get free money forever that they can lend to us at interest, there is a 1.2 trillion student loan bubble sitting in the background, and we've had a return of the mortgage crisis games through the use of rental backed securitization and derivatives (with a more pronounced impact on the consumer as rents in every major city have shot up 30% or more). The ---- is going to tank hard. Oh, if he is going to invest in stock... invest in Hormel (symbol HRL)... they are cash rich (notwithstanding our dislike for fiat, here, that is always smart entering a deflationary set up because you can swoop in and buy assets cheap) and they sell inferior goods (ham, spam, and other mystery meats).

[sickpig]

it will be very hard to invest a significant fortune in bitcoins without the government knowing it.

But it is amazingly easy to invest an insignificant fortune in bitcoin, and subsequently spend a significant one.

Suppose that I were to use a threat of torture to compel you to trade all of your gold for false analogies, invalidate all contracts payable in gold, and demand that you pay me false analogies on a recurring basis, when I had previously arranged for the establishment of a lender of false analogies who was the only source of false analogies you could tender without being tortured by me, and who lent out false analogies at a rate of interest set by my sock puppet.  Suppose further that I issued an arbitrary number  of false analogies to a few of my friends at zero interest - several orders of magnitude larger than would be required to purchase all real property in the entire land - and required that all sales of real property be conducted in false analogies, on penalty of torture.  Then suppose that I took some of the false analogies that I had extorted from you, and hired an army of useful idiots to impress upon everyone that only false analogies were of any real value, and everyone should donate all of their labor to people who have more false analogies than they do, in hopes of getting a few here and there, and another army of sycophants to indoctrinate your children in the cult of false analogies.  Then I hired an army of army to bomb anyone, anywhere in the world, along with up to a million of their countrymen at a go, who threatened to trade oil in gold instead of trading oil in false analogies.  And every once in a while, I shipped a literal cargo jet loaded with literal palettes of 100 false analogy notes to some distant occupied land, administered by a friend of mine, who lost track of a few billion false analogies this way.  Then I promised you could have healthcare if you made me Emperor, and when you did, I doubled the charges (made on threat of torture) payable in false analogies each month.  Meanwhile I indexed your income in false analogies to the price in false analogies of irrelevant luxury goods, which consistently carried negative against the increasing price, in false analogies, of food, energy, fuel, housing, medicine, and education.

Would you finally consider yourself, then, a free and dignified human being, well-served by the servants of the public, who merit your confidence?

Best post of the year

[molecular]

it will be very hard to invest a significant fortune in bitcoins without the government knowing it.

But it is amazingly easy to invest an insignificant fortune in bitcoin, and subsequently spend a significant one.

Suppose that I were to use a threat of torture to compel you to trade all of your gold for false analogies, invalidate all contracts payable in gold, and demand that you pay me false analogies on a recurring basis, when I had previously arranged for the establishment of a lender of false analogies who was the only source of false analogies you could tender without being tortured by me, and who lent out false analogies at a rate of interest set by my sock puppet.  Suppose further that I issued an arbitrary number  of false analogies to a few of my friends at zero interest - several orders of magnitude larger than would be required to purchase all real property in the entire land - and required that all sales of real property be conducted in false analogies, on penalty of torture.  Then suppose that I took some of the false analogies that I had extorted from you, and hired an army of useful idiots to impress upon everyone that only false analogies were of any real value, and everyone should donate all of their labor to people who have more false analogies than they do, in hopes of getting a few here and there, and another army of sycophants to indoctrinate your children in the cult of false analogies.  Then I hired an army of army to bomb anyone, anywhere in the world, along with up to a million of their countrymen at a go, who threatened to trade oil in gold instead of trading oil in false analogies.  And every once in a while, I shipped a literal cargo jet loaded with literal palettes of 100 false analogy notes to some distant occupied land, administered by a friend of mine, who lost track of a few billion false analogies this way.  Then I promised you could have healthcare if you made me Emperor, and when you did, I doubled the charges (made on threat of torture) payable in false analogies each month.  Meanwhile I indexed your income in false analogies to the price in false analogies of irrelevant luxury goods, which consistently carried negative against the increasing price, in false analogies, of food, energy, fuel, housing, medicine, and education.

Would you finally consider yourself, then, a free and dignified human being, well-served by the servants of the public, who merit your confidence?

+/u/changetip 1 false analogy

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[ErisDiscordia]

Resident Anarchist Linguist to the rescue!

The Libertarian definition seems to be "totally unregulated market" which in my experience instantly degenerates into oligopoly or monopoly market, typical of crony capitalism.  If "ultra-capitalist" is not that, what would it be?

Tell me please: where did you have this experience of living in a totally unregulated market? I'd love to try it out myself!

I believe that a relatively free market can only be sustained if it is regulated by a government that is commited to it and is stronger than any individual supplier (or consumer), or any small group thereof. 

However, a strong government and proper regulation is necessary to keep a market free

Oh dear, slavery is freedom, war is peace.

The sad thing is that by now probably the only thing which might make you realize the contradictions in your Belief System (BS) is 5grams of dried mushrooms 

on a more constructive note:

Total freedom in the sense of absolutely no restraint, is certainly never desirable...  My need for individual liberty does not demand that I have the freedom to coerce and murder, and economic entities should certainly be held to the same standard.  THAT is the problem that needs to be solved: how do we prevent the players in the game from bending the rules in their own favor, thus cheating the other participants?  The answer is surely not as simple as government regulation - that is just another cheating mechanism.

I don't claim to know what the ideal answer is.  I imagine that there probably is no ideal answer, really.  But I do know that empowering regulators is just arming the enemy.

I think you're on the right track. What needs to be changed imo is the thing that causes government regulation to exist in the first place, which is our culture. Our collective operating system. Because it hasn't been consciously updated for the era ultra-high acceleration of knowledge and technological progress, it is full of self-destructive bugs and plain old stupidity. This is why people (like you) feel, that "total freedom is certainly never desirable" - because they fear what all the people with their messed up operating systems might do, once "given total freedom".

That is of course a straw man. You are never given freedom. You can only claim freedom and by doing so change your own mental operating system. Some people will still choose to have harmful operating systems - we should be trying to help them...or who knows, maybe their kind serves a specific function in society. In any case it is a good idea not to provide them with tools to amplify the consequences of their destructive behavioral habits (i.e. government).

[Peter R]

it will be very hard to invest a significant fortune in bitcoins without the government knowing it.

But it is amazingly easy to invest an insignificant fortune in bitcoin, and subsequently spend a significant one.

Suppose that I were to use a threat of torture to compel you to trade all of your gold for false analogies, invalidate all contracts payable in gold, and demand that you pay me false analogies on a recurring basis, when I had previously arranged for the establishment of a lender of false analogies who was the only source of false analogies you could tender without being tortured by me, and who lent out false analogies at a rate of interest set by my sock puppet.  Suppose further that I issued an arbitrary number  of false analogies to a few of my friends at zero interest - several orders of magnitude larger than would be required to purchase all real property in the entire land - and required that all sales of real property be conducted in false analogies, on penalty of torture.  Then suppose that I took some of the false analogies that I had extorted from you, and hired an army of useful idiots to impress upon everyone that only false analogies were of any real value, and everyone should donate all of their labor to people who have more false analogies than they do, in hopes of getting a few here and there, and another army of sycophants to indoctrinate your children in the cult of false analogies.  Then I hired an army of army to bomb anyone, anywhere in the world, along with up to a million of their countrymen at a go, who threatened to trade oil in gold instead of trading oil in false analogies.  And every once in a while, I shipped a literal cargo jet loaded with literal palettes of 100 false analogy notes to some distant occupied land, administered by a friend of mine, who lost track of a few billion false analogies this way.  Then I promised you could have healthcare if you made me Emperor, and when you did, I doubled the charges (made on threat of torture) payable in false analogies each month.  Meanwhile I indexed your income in false analogies to the price in false analogies of irrelevant luxury goods, which consistently carried negative against the increasing price, in false analogies, of food, energy, fuel, housing, medicine, and education.

Would you finally consider yourself, then, a free and dignified human being, well-served by the servants of the public, who merit your confidence?

Best post of the year

+1

Classic Aminorex. 

[Sandia]

I went to sleep at $618.99.
I woke up to $618.99.
I came back from breakfast at $619.00.

Bubble confirmed. CCMF.  We will be the new wealthy elite, gentlemen (in about 400 years).

If you need me, I will be keeping an eye on the paint and checking the lengthening of the lawn.

[nanobrain]

it will be very hard to invest a significant fortune in bitcoins without the government knowing it.

But it is amazingly easy to invest an insignificant fortune in bitcoin, and subsequently spend a significant one.

Suppose that I were to use a threat of torture to compel you to trade all of your gold for false analogies, invalidate all contracts payable in gold, and demand that you pay me false analogies on a recurring basis, when I had previously arranged for the establishment of a lender of false analogies who was the only source of false analogies you could tender without being tortured by me, and who lent out false analogies at a rate of interest set by my sock puppet.  Suppose further that I issued an arbitrary number  of false analogies to a few of my friends at zero interest - several orders of magnitude larger than would be required to purchase all real property in the entire land - and required that all sales of real property be conducted in false analogies, on penalty of torture.  Then suppose that I took some of the false analogies that I had extorted from you, and hired an army of useful idiots to impress upon everyone that only false analogies were of any real value, and everyone should donate all of their labor to people who have more false analogies than they do, in hopes of getting a few here and there, and another army of sycophants to indoctrinate your children in the cult of false analogies.  Then I hired an army of army to bomb anyone, anywhere in the world, along with up to a million of their countrymen at a go, who threatened to trade oil in gold instead of trading oil in false analogies.  And every once in a while, I shipped a literal cargo jet loaded with literal palettes of 100 false analogy notes to some distant occupied land, administered by a friend of mine, who lost track of a few billion false analogies this way.  Then I promised you could have healthcare if you made me Emperor, and when you did, I doubled the charges (made on threat of torture) payable in false analogies each month.  Meanwhile I indexed your income in false analogies to the price in false analogies of irrelevant luxury goods, which consistently carried negative against the increasing price, in false analogies, of food, energy, fuel, housing, medicine, and education.

Would you finally consider yourself, then, a free and dignified human being, well-served by the servants of the public, who merit your confidence?

Best post of the year

+1

Classic Aminorex. 

pfftt...I'm stunned by how many here are still seduced by Aminorex; the Sheldon Cooper of Bitcoin.