Should I invest $70,000 in Bitcoin? How should I do it?

[geofflosophy]

A great idea would be to invest 2-4k in Bitcoins (money that you can lose), and bring the rest to a trusted financial adviser.
If you are fully comfortable with the possibility of losing more money you can use the cash to invest in BitCoin startups or companies, to be honest, it would be better than speculating in BTCs directly. 

I agree with this advice. Figure out what percentage of your 70k you're willing to subject to maximum risk/reward, and buy Bitcoins with that amount. Do some dollar cost averaging over the course of one month to make sure you don't get hit too hard initially on a major fluctuation, but then once you're in just let it sit. Take the rest of your portfolio and invest it in an index fund.

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[btcfre@k]

the bitcoin actuall price is to high and not mature enough .so you should wait a little..a little for me its two month ,to see where the price get stable and your own opinion.because of large swing in btc price you cannot think of putting 70k this is very a bad option

[geofflosophy]

the bitcoin actuall price is to high and not mature enough .so you should wait a little..a little for me its two month ,to see where the price get stable and your own opinion.because of large swing in btc price you cannot think of putting 70k this is very a bad option

Price could easily be $230 or more in 2 months.

[hasher87]

the bitcoin actuall price is to high and not mature enough .so you should wait a little..a little for me its two month ,to see where the price get stable and your own opinion.because of large swing in btc price you cannot think of putting 70k this is very a bad option

Price could easily be $230 or more in 2 months.

or $170 or less

its a win/lose situation

you could just do a fixed rate usd -> btc investment every month

[BitThink]

I am about to receive $70,000 in a couple days. My parents want me to put it into an investment account, but I am thinking about investing in BITCOIN. Do you think that I should do this? What would be the best way to invest in BITCOIN? How long should I keep it invested? What is my probability of loosing money? Thanks a lot for your opinion.

1) Learn more about bitcoin before investing.

2) Don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
If you put too much into it, you have to pay with many sleepless nights and your life will be ruined.

3) Never buy any BTC stock, company shares, mining hardwares, and cloud hashing shares (such as cex.io).
BTC stocks are dead, and so is mining. There're some winners there, but what they won are from other investors' pockets. I really wish someone had told me this 3 months before, and then I may still have the other half of my bitcoins.

4) After buying bitcoins, put them into cold storage and enjoy your life.

All the best to you and your parents.

[reactive4ce]

If $70,000 represents a significant portion of your net worth it's not a good idea, no matter how good the outlook on bitcoin is.  As an individual you can't accept unlimited risk.  Obama could wake up tomorrow and crush bitcoin. 

This. Put only the amount you dont mind to loose. If its $0, then dont buy BTC

[Golph]

Invest in stocks, Mcdonald, Google and Apple

[dsattler]

If this is your only investment, you should split it in three pieces:

1. buy BTC for one third

2. invest one third in a fixed-term deposit account (one year or longer)

3. invest the rest in an instant-access savings account, this will only give you an annual interest between 1 and 1.5%, but you will have quick access to this money if you need it

And stay out of the mining business! The current calculations are not very encouraging...

[bit-joker]

I'm impressed by advices like "BUY ALL IN BITCOINS" and the such.

First reply was the best. Don't GAMBLE invest more than you're willing to lose. Bitcoin is not an investment, it's a currency.

I like love the concept but it's very volatile. Many people are hoarding the coins expecting to go up another 1000%. Let me give you an example.

George buys 10k usd worth of bitcoins. A year later that same 10k usd is worth a million. He has two options:

1- Cash in and RETIRE! With a million, he'll be averaging around 7% (70k) annually with a diversified portfolio. World markets could crash but the companies he invested in aren't going to vapor and stop paying dividends.

2- Hold his bitcoins expecting to be the next billionaire. It could happen…. OR NOT! Maybe a new and better crypto-currency appear, maybe the price crashes (with many more people cashing in to retire), it's too early to say. A selloff is bound to occur, could be tomorrow or in 10 years.


My advice? Buy 10% (7k usd) in bitcoins and the rest in conservative stocks with a good record of paying dividends. You might not become millionaire but you won't risk all your money.

And don't bother looking for mining stocks and other risky "investments". Those "companies" can run away with your coins in any minute. Some could vouch for it but it's the same as entering early in a ponzi scheme. You might get lucky and make a quick-profit but eventually someone gonna get hurt.

[geofflosophy]

I'm impressed by advices like "BUY ALL IN BITCOINS" and the such.

First reply was the best. Don't GAMBLE invest more than you're willing to lose. Bitcoin is not an investment, it's a currency.

I like love the concept but it's very volatile. Many people are hoarding the coins expecting to go up another 1000%. Let me give you an example.

George buys 10k usd worth of bitcoins. A year later that same 10k usd is worth a million. He has two options:

1- Cash in and RETIRE! With a million, he'll be averaging around 7% (70k) annually with a diversified portfolio. World markets could crash but the companies he invested in aren't going to vapor and stop paying dividends.

2- Hold his bitcoins expecting to be the next billionaire. It could happen…. OR NOT! Maybe a new and better crypto-currency appear, maybe the price crashes (with many more people cashing in to retire), it's too early to say. A selloff is bound to occur, could be tomorrow or in 10 years.


My advice? Buy 10% (7k usd) in bitcoins and the rest in conservative stocks with a good record of paying dividends. You might not become millionaire but you won't risk all your money.

And don't bother looking for mining stocks and other risky "investments". Those "companies" can run away with your coins in any minute. Some could vouch for it but it's the same as entering early in a ponzi scheme. You might get lucky and make a quick-profit but eventually someone gonna get hurt.

10% is a good number. The reality is that bitcoin is never going to zero, not at this point. I do think that it will 10x a couple more times, but obviously with great reward comes great risk, so making sure to only expose a small chunk of your portfolio to that risk is a good move.

The real distinction of note here is that whatever percentage of your money you're willing to invest in bitcoin, the best bet is to probably just buy coins. Don't try to mine, don't buy shares of anything. The coins still have huge upside, and while there may be a couple of investments out there that will outperform them, they are very few and far between. Most will fail.

[Kimowa]

$70,000 is a lot, you can even start up a business using it. Maybe start selling Ice Cream Online for Bitcoin?

[clc6152]

I think you should invest some money in bitcoin because now bitcoin very expensive..if you want invest should invest at low price...bitcoin is too riskier

[Fuyuki_Wataru]

I'd take a long shot and invest it in Litecoin.
If litecoin goes from $2 to $4 you dubbled your money, where as to bitcoin has to go from $190 to $380 to double your money.

[bit-joker]

Litecoin capitalization is around 50 million usd. Doesn't offer anything Bitcoin doesn't have.


Too many people saying where you should GAMBLE your money. Talk to a financial advisor. A good one will explain in a way you can understand.

[Omikifuse]

Why not invest in mxcnow since the share is open to public?

[BTC^_^]

I am about to receive $70,000 in a couple days. My parents want me to put it into an investment account, but I am thinking about investing in BITCOIN. Do you think that I should do this? What would be the best way to invest in BITCOIN? How long should I keep it invested? What is my probability of loosing money? Thanks a lot for your opinion.

In my opinion, it depends on how long you wanna be invested in. If you are talking about long term (2~5 yrs) and have a strong heart against short-term dramas, investing some of your EXTRA money in Bitcoin right now is not a bad idea. Right now the best way to invest in Bitcoin is to buy actual Bitcoins and hold. But remember to backup the wallet file every time after sending out Bitcoins, otherwise you can lose the entire balance.

The tragic lesson: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=782.0
and "Insti" has the explanation:

"It sounds like they are lost for good.

Sad

Lesson to other people: Remember you need to back your wallet up after every transaction!
(The wallet metaphor is actually a bad one, because it makes problems like this more common than they should be.)

Edit: (more explaination)

When you do a transaction you always spend ALL of the coins in that address, part of the money goes to whoever you're paying, and there rest is returned to you an a new 'change' address. (This helps your anonymity as someone watching cannot tell which amount you spent and which amount you kept.)

Before transaction:
Address1: 9000
Address2: 0

After transaction:
Address1: 0
Address2: 1
Address3: 8999

It sounds like you have wallet.dat that contains the private keys for Address1 and Address2, but not Address3.
(Although the numbers in your story don't add up.)
What were the Bitcoin addresses? (If we know these we can do some more in-depth block chain research)
"

Thanks for the lesson. All newbies should learn about this.
On the other hand, if you use Electrum [http://electrum.org/], it works diffferently from the Bitcoin-QT.

Electrum is an easy to use Bitcoin client. It protects you from losing coins in a backup mistake or computer failure, because your wallet can be recovered from a secret phrase that you can write on paper or learn by heart. There is no waiting time when you start the client, because it does not download the Bitcoin blockchain.

Nice, I use multibit though. The gigabytes of blockchain data are certainly a giant pain to download.

[BTC^_^]

I am about to receive $70,000 in a couple days. My parents want me to put it into an investment account, but I am thinking about investing in BITCOIN. Do you think that I should do this? What would be the best way to invest in BITCOIN? How long should I keep it invested? What is my probability of loosing money? Thanks a lot for your opinion.

In my opinion, it depends on how long you wanna be invested in. If you are talking about long term (2~5 yrs) and have a strong heart against short-term dramas, investing some of your EXTRA money in Bitcoin right now is not a bad idea. Right now the best way to invest in Bitcoin is to buy actual Bitcoins and hold. But remember to backup the wallet file every time after sending out Bitcoins, otherwise you can lose the entire balance.

The tragic lesson: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=782.0
and "Insti" has the explanation:

"It sounds like they are lost for good.

Sad

Lesson to other people: Remember you need to back your wallet up after every transaction!
(The wallet metaphor is actually a bad one, because it makes problems like this more common than they should be.)

Edit: (more explaination)

When you do a transaction you always spend ALL of the coins in that address, part of the money goes to whoever you're paying, and there rest is returned to you an a new 'change' address. (This helps your anonymity as someone watching cannot tell which amount you spent and which amount you kept.)

Before transaction:
Address1: 9000
Address2: 0

After transaction:
Address1: 0
Address2: 1
Address3: 8999

It sounds like you have wallet.dat that contains the private keys for Address1 and Address2, but not Address3.
(Although the numbers in your story don't add up.)
What were the Bitcoin addresses? (If we know these we can do some more in-depth block chain research)
"

Only partially true. The current client stores the next 100 addresses in the backup. This includes change addresses and newly generated addresses. You only need to backup your wallet once every 100 transactions.

Thanks for the update. That accident was in 2010.

[dsattler]

I am about to receive $70,000 in a couple days. My parents want me to put it into an investment account, but I am thinking about investing in BITCOIN. Do you think that I should do this? What would be the best way to invest in BITCOIN? How long should I keep it invested? What is my probability of loosing money? Thanks a lot for your opinion.

In my opinion, it depends on how long you wanna be invested in. If you are talking about long term (2~5 yrs) and have a strong heart against short-term dramas, investing some of your EXTRA money in Bitcoin right now is not a bad idea. Right now the best way to invest in Bitcoin is to buy actual Bitcoins and hold. But remember to backup the wallet file every time after sending out Bitcoins, otherwise you can lose the entire balance.

The tragic lesson: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=782.0
and "Insti" has the explanation:

"It sounds like they are lost for good.

Sad

Lesson to other people: Remember you need to back your wallet up after every transaction!
(The wallet metaphor is actually a bad one, because it makes problems like this more common than they should be.)

Edit: (more explaination)

When you do a transaction you always spend ALL of the coins in that address, part of the money goes to whoever you're paying, and there rest is returned to you an a new 'change' address. (This helps your anonymity as someone watching cannot tell which amount you spent and which amount you kept.)

Before transaction:
Address1: 9000
Address2: 0

After transaction:
Address1: 0
Address2: 1
Address3: 8999

It sounds like you have wallet.dat that contains the private keys for Address1 and Address2, but not Address3.
(Although the numbers in your story don't add up.)
What were the Bitcoin addresses? (If we know these we can do some more in-depth block chain research)
"

Only partially true. The current client stores the next 100 addresses in the backup. This includes change addresses and newly generated addresses. You only need to backup your wallet once every 100 transactions.

I did not know that, thanks for bringing this up!

Learning more and more every day... 

[pinger]

I am about to receive $70,000 in a couple days. My parents want me to put it into an investment account, but I am thinking about investing in BITCOIN. Do you think that I should do this? What would be the best way to invest in BITCOIN? How long should I keep it invested? What is my probability of loosing money? Thanks a lot for your opinion.

In my opinion, it depends on how long you wanna be invested in. If you are talking about long term (2~5 yrs) and have a strong heart against short-term dramas, investing some of your EXTRA money in Bitcoin right now is not a bad idea. Right now the best way to invest in Bitcoin is to buy actual Bitcoins and hold. But remember to backup the wallet file every time after sending out Bitcoins, otherwise you can lose the entire balance.

The tragic lesson: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=782.0
and "Insti" has the explanation:

"It sounds like they are lost for good.

Sad

Lesson to other people: Remember you need to back your wallet up after every transaction!
(The wallet metaphor is actually a bad one, because it makes problems like this more common than they should be.)

Edit: (more explaination)

When you do a transaction you always spend ALL of the coins in that address, part of the money goes to whoever you're paying, and there rest is returned to you an a new 'change' address. (This helps your anonymity as someone watching cannot tell which amount you spent and which amount you kept.)

Before transaction:
Address1: 9000
Address2: 0

After transaction:
Address1: 0
Address2: 1
Address3: 8999

It sounds like you have wallet.dat that contains the private keys for Address1 and Address2, but not Address3.
(Although the numbers in your story don't add up.)
What were the Bitcoin addresses? (If we know these we can do some more in-depth block chain research)
"

Only partially true. The current client stores the next 100 addresses in the backup. This includes change addresses and newly generated addresses. You only need to backup your wallet once every 100 transactions.

I did not know that, thanks for bringing this up!

Learning more and more every day... 

I know this starts to be offtopic, but this is real? Is fixed now? Do we really need to make a backup on 2013 on every transaction?