How to Beat the "Game of Bitcoin"

[tebou]

Objective of the game:

Make money by buying BTC when the price is low and selling when it is high.

Rules of the game:

1. The price of BTC will go up when the Bitcoin economy is growing.
2. The price of BTC will down when the Bitcoin economy is shrinking.
3. Players can buy and sell BTC at any time, and participate in the Bitcoin economy and community as they see fit.

Optimal strategy for a single player:

1. Buy (or mine) Bitcoins as early as possible.
2. Convince others that Bitcoin is a viable currency and encourage them to start using BTC for their transactions.
3. Watch the economy grow and the price of BTC go up.
4. Sell your BTC for profit.


This is of course a tongue-in-cheek guide for profiting from Bitcoins since I hope that nobody will actually take this advice, but it is also very close to the truth due to the fact that Bitcoins do have a hard limit of ~21 million coins, meaning that any change in the size of the Bitcoin economy will be reflected in the value of BTC (i.e. the more people use BTC in real economic transactions, the more valuable BTC gets, and vice versa).

The question is, would you still continue using BTC for real economic transactions and continue contributing to the growth of the Bitcoin economy, if you knew that the biggest winners in the game are the ones who are not economically productive and only hoard Bitcoins for investment purposes?

[melvster]

Objective of the game:

Make money by buying BTC when the price is low and selling when it is high.

Rules of the game:

1. The price of BTC will go up when the Bitcoin economy is growing.
2. The price of BTC will down when the Bitcoin economy is shrinking.
3. Players can buy and sell BTC at any time, and participate in the Bitcoin economy and community as they see fit.

Optimal strategy for a single player:

1. Buy (or mine) Bitcoins as early as possible.
2. Convince others that Bitcoin is a viable currency and encourage them to start using BTC for their transactions.
3. Watch the economy grow and the price of BTC go up.
4. Sell your BTC for profit.


This is of course a tongue-in-cheek guide for profiting from Bitcoins since I hope that nobody will actually take this advice, but it is also very close to the truth due to the fact that Bitcoins do have a hard limit of ~21 million coins, meaning that any change in the size of the Bitcoin economy will be reflected in the value of BTC (i.e. the more people use BTC in real economic transactions, the more valuable BTC gets, and vice versa).

The question is, would you still continue using BTC for real economic transactions and continue contributing to the growth of the Bitcoin economy, if you knew that the biggest winners in the game are the ones who are not economically productive and only hoard Bitcoins for investment purposes?

Why not just buy bitcoins and use them to do real transactions?

The value of a currency is based on trust.  Every successful transaction increases the trust, your value and the value of the person you trade with.

Be a good community member, and your own success will follow!

[BitcoinMint.US]

Be a good community member, and your own success will follow!

+1

[tebou]

Be a good community member, and your own success will follow!

That's the way I think we all would want it to work, yes.

And I apologize for continuing to use the game analogy, but the point I was trying to make was that if the existing rules of the game are rigged in the favor of the non-productive members, are you ok with that or would you want something to be done about it?

It is unrealistic to expect everyone to play the game in such an idealistic way as you would like, considering there is real money involved and such strategies do exist that win more money than "being a good community member" will.

Again, I don't believe that the above is the the motivation for most members of this community, but I'm just curious to hear if people see this as a problem or not.

I think the "idea of Bitcoin" is an awesome one and it deserves to succeed. That is why I made the post in the first place.

[322i0n]

Optimal strategy for a single player:

1. Buy (or mine) Bitcoins as early as possible.
2. Convince others that Bitcoin is a viable currency and encourage them to start using BTC for their transactions.
3. Watch the economy grow and the price of BTC go up.
4. Sell your BTC for profit.
5. Employ some trolls to trash the community and spread FUD.
Repeat the cycle

Fixed

[Steve]

The people that trade bitcoin seeking profit are not unproductive.  They provide needed liquidity and facilitate price discovery.  However, manipulating bitcoin perception (pumping and dumping or smashing and grabbing) is destructive.  It creates a situation where people aren't making rational decisions based on sound analysis.  You just have to try not to get sucked into the hype or get shaken out when there's panic.

[ElectricMucus]

It's all about information advantage. Don't make the mistake upon relying on publicly available chart analysis and probability calculations.
I made this mistake while I even discovered a working system beforehand.

People (especially those with big funds) all act so those calculations are always off by a larger amount than they could provide you with accurate information.
So if you use public sources there will usally be a big wall before you can buy and one before you can sell...