Could you live off your Bitcoins?

[Mageant]

I'm just interested in knowing how many "Bitcoin pensioners" are already out there.
 

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[SaltySpitoon]

I'v got 4 BTC. I think I could live off of that?

[tgmarks]

That would be sweet, but even if I could I think I would be afraid or worried about it the whole time.

[giszmo]

Re: Could you live off your Bitcoins?

So if pirate does not default until I die, maybe

No, I have no money with that guy but you get the idea: If the value of my assets keeps getting more at a rate of 20% per month and I'm happy with 500$ per month (there are places in this world where that is a lot of money), I could live on as little as 2500$ worth of bitcoin (which is only 5 block rewards) for the rest of my life. If you are skeptical about bitcoins security, you might answer "no" even with Satoshi's 2,000,000BTC.

[Mageant]

Re: Could you live off your Bitcoins?

So if pirate does not default until I die, maybe

No, I have no money with that guy but you get the idea: If the value of my assets keeps getting more at a rate of 20% per month and I'm happy with 500$ per month (there are places in this world where that is a lot of money), I could live on as little as 2500$ worth of bitcoin (which is only 5 block rewards) for the rest of my life. If you are skeptical about bitcoins security, you might answer "no" even with Satoshi's 2,000,000BTC.

You could even buy insured pirate-bonds, so even in the case of a default it would probably not affect you much.

[Realpra]

You could even buy insured pirate-bonds, so even in the case of a default it would probably not affect you much.

You can't insure investments... that is why it is called "investing"/"venture capital"/"chancing it"/"believing in a company" and not "money in the bank"/"money under the bed"/"risk-free".

The risk involved in ANY investment is why you as an investor is paid anything - it's YOUR premium. So if YOU are getting a premium exactly covering the risk involved; how can an insurance provider ever hope to operate in the case of a default?

Such insurance firms have zero funds, they spend or drain any premiums they can get and fold at first trouble.


An "insured" or "risk free" investment translates into "RUN RUN RUN" to any experienced investor.

(not saying I'm experienced here, just common sense)

EDIT:
No I could not live on my BTC, but maybe one day in a not so distant future. Right now I hold BTC and invest directly in food/energy production.

[dree12]

You could even buy insured pirate-bonds, so even in the case of a default it would probably not affect you much.

You can't insure investments... that is why it is called "investing"/"venture capital"/"chancing it"/"believing in a company" and not "money in the bank"/"money under the bed"/"risk-free".

The risk involved in ANY investment is why you as an investor is paid anything - it's YOUR premium. So if YOU are getting a premium exactly covering the risk involved; how can an insurance provider ever hope to operate in the case of a default?

Such insurance firms have zero funds, they spend or drain any premiums they can get and fold at first trouble.


An "insured" or "risk free" investment translates into "RUN RUN RUN" to any experienced investor.

(not saying I'm experienced here, just common sense)

My bank account is insured.

[Realpra]

My bank account is insured.

Well that is not really an investment. It's a bank account.

The government usually guarantees such in return for regulating their business and posing demands for liquid capital.

Still even bank savings have been known to be lost if the economy got really bad. Since its rare your premium (interest rate) is low. My point stands.

Given the state of today's banks I don't think running to BTC/gold/other would be a bad move though.

[Gabi]

To live only with your bitcoins you need like... dunno, 100k bitcoins? more? we have so much ppl with so many bitcoins?

[evolve]

Maybe in a cardboard box...




...a really small cardboard box.

[adamstgBit]

Maybe in a cardboard box...




...a really small cardboard box.

a cardboard box with WIFI!

 

[herzmeister]

Who insures the insurers? 

---

Yup, in a perfectly logical (Austrian?) economic system, there'd not be much difference between a John Doe's savings account at a bank and an investment fond, they all do carry risk.

[wachtwoord]

To live only with your bitcoins you need like... dunno, 100k bitcoins? more? we have so much ppl with so many bitcoins?

Depending on your expenses you can deal with far less. I think the retirement extreme guy (http://earlyretirementextreme.com/) used $250k for early retirement but he spends very little. So you'd still need 23k BTC even in those circumstances.

[julz]

The Bitcoin exchange rate (to loaves of bread etc) would have to go up by a factor of a few hundred for me to do this

If/when it does - I intend** to be running at least one BTC generating enterprise, rather than just completely retiring and lounging around on a boat somewhere.
(not that there's anything wrong with that)



** assuming I'm not 100 by the time BTC are worth that much.

[[Tycho]]

Yes.

[niko]

No.

There are really two very different options under "yes" -

1. Living off of bitcoin-related income (three or four top-volume exchanges, SR and SR sellers, few of the payment services maybe). This really means living off of your work that happens to involve Bitcoin one way or another.

2. Living off of your btc savings, assuming you mined them or bought them bravely at a fraction of today's value. If you are not in this category, but hope to be in the future, you've got to ask yourself where this value will come from. Seriously, the only way is to work hard on making Bitcoin useful and accepted. Otherwise your investment will be worthless.

[eleuthria]

Hah, I wish I could answer a straight 'Yes' like Tycho .

I probably couldn't live off my Bitcoins (or even my entire pool) indefinitely.  But I've spent the last 18 months being very careful with what I've earned, and started investing it into two new businesses that should be able to provide reliable revenue streams.  If all goes well, I'm hoping to be able to pay off my mortgage in the next year, which will reduce how much I need to pay the bills each month by about 50%.  Maybe then I'll be able to answer yes .

[BkkCoins]

Mining in Thailand you would need about 2.2 GH/s to make a typical local monthly salary.
I only have 920 MH/s so sadly cannot live off that but I do have other income and don't need to have a job... and I don't pay rent, and food and beer are cheeeap.

Out in the rice fields along the highways the farmers can get free electricity up to a limit but none of them know about mining.

[FreeMoney]

I certainly can't at their current value, but I think I could in an optimistic value growth rate scenario. I fully intend to never earn another dollar though. Bitcoin all the way for me.

[jothan]

With 13 Ghash/s, I earn almost 50 % of my income from mining. I could afford not to work, but with the upcoming rise in difficulty and reward halving it would be a big risk to depend solely on that income.