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Fun fact - Bitcoin was ~$420 back on April 1 2016 when we all put down $1K for a Model 3.
If, instead, you had put that money in Bitcoin and then sold in December-ish of 2017, you could have made over $35K which buys you a Model 3 ...
If you knew when to buy and when to sell, you could become a billionaire trading any volatile stock or commodity.
For sure, but the fact there was a 35X gain over 1.5 years is pretty massive
The people I really feel sorry for? The ones who bought $100 worth of Bitcoin at 1¢ and when they learned it was worth $30,000 realized they had thrown away the hard drive their wallet was on, or their coins were stolen when that exchange was hacked. One of the reasons it's worth so much now is because so many coins were irretrievably lost back when it was worth a few pennies and nobody was paying attention. If one of those early people with a few billion dollars in Bitcoin were to sell out now, the price would drop to about $5. The long-term value of Bitcoin depends in large part on all those lost coins remaining lost.
The people I really feel sorry for? The ones who bought $100 worth of Bitcoin at 1¢ and when they learned it was worth $30,000 realized they had thrown away the hard drive their wallet was on, or their coins were stolen when that exchange was hacked. One of the reasons it's worth so much now is because so many coins were irretrievably lost back when it was worth a few pennies and nobody was paying attention. If one of those early people with a few billion dollars in Bitcoin were to sell out now, the price would drop to about $5. The long-term value of Bitcoin depends in large part on all those lost coins remaining lost.
but they were lucky that they happened to hit upon something that turned out to be the next big thing.
I don't think it's luck, though. People invest in things like Bitcoin and Tesla for the same reason - they believe in the underlying technology and the MASSIVE potential it has for the future. Whether that technology is electric cars or blockchain based currencies, the disruption factor they cause is incredible.
You're totally right that there is crazy selection bias for any investment story, but i think it's a bit unfair to say that it was "lucky". After all, why else did Elon pour the last of his money into Tesla besides truly believing in the technology and how it would impact the future? It wasn't luck, Elon (like some others) simply has a fantastic ability to look at things from a macro scale and determine what is needed and how to get there.
The same is true for cryptocurrencies and the initial wave of people who saw the opportunity to free ourselves from a government controlled, fiat currency with nothing backing it and limitless supply (AKA inflation). It's more or less the equivalent of digital gold, so the opportunity was pretty apparent from the beginning.
Wrong. Cryptocurrency is NOT a just currency. You are right that US dollar as “dumb” currency has no value because it is just paper blessed with human confidence in it. Thats all it is. However crypocurrency is completely different breed. It is mainly computer code, the internet protocol which happens to be usefull as curreny also. Hundreads of people can work on its code like any other program, make it better more functional etc. It is like saying that Tesla has real value because it make physical cars but Facebook or Amazon has no value as they make “just virtual code”. Please check for example Cardano, it is cryptocurency developed by dozens of high profile scientists and it will enable things that are unimaginable today with “dumb” money, however it takes years to develope and lifetime to upgrade.And once once it is done and adopted by milions, the network effext kicks in and its value is rightfully higher than any company on this planet tesla includedSorry, but people who think that cryptocurrency could actually function as the principal medium of trade in an advanced industrial or post-industrial economy just don't understand economics. Crypto is indeed an opportunity: for speculation, and it was luck for those early investors that it became such a fad. What happens when there are ten thousand cryptos, indistinguishable from each other except for minor details about their mining and trading and cryptography algorithms? Bitcoin happened to catch on, but a different crypto could have been the one that caught on if the black-marketeers had happened upon it first.
Bitcoin is a form of currency. Like other currencies, it has no inherent value other than what people are willing to give for it, and most importantly, like other currencies, it does not produce anything. You can hold it, hoping its market value rises, or you can lend it at interest, but it produces nothing.
Tesla is a manufacturing company. Like other manufacturing companies it creates value by building things. It creates cars and batteries and solar panels where there were previously only raw materials. (Strictly speaking, it creates these things in collaboration with parts suppliers.) Tesla actually creates value. Some of the value of the stock is due to market speculation, but the company is producing actual stuff that has actual value.
Thus the two are fundamentally different.
FDIC?
Look at how much the FDIC has set aside for account protection compared to how many accounts (and the sum of their values).. if there was a bank run (which has happened multiple times in the history of our country) the FDIC will be woefully inadequate and incapable of protrctipr of all the accounts they say they protect. Your example is a single situation. My example is systemic bank run... Which is not unheard of.BUTCHER BANKS' COSTLY FALL happened in my home town, I saw entire bank chains go belly up and it was slow but FDIC made a lot of people whole after the fact.
If you are young you might not have seen the FDIC in action.
Lol and I didnt sell, at my peak would have made 31k on TRX instead im sitting here crying hoping it goes back up one day haha.I'm just sitting here remembering this thread and being thankful i sold in Dec '17 IMO FDIC is really just a mental thing, if there was a large run on banks we'd be screwed.
Paid for my car thanks to Bitcoin, forever grateful!
Hoping for 6 figures out of it!
Will Bitcoin or any other coin become an accepted medium of exchange one day?
All fiat currencies have one thing in common, they all eventually return to their actual value... 0I saw over 10x returns in 2017, was truly a ridiculous year. And yes, i paid the tax
YES. The fundamentals of blockchain make a lot of sense compared to a fiat currency that can be infinitely devalued. The only thing keeping us from using dollars as toilet paper is our faith in the US Govt. Not sure about you, but i'm not as trusting as I once was...
Who knows when this will happen, but over the long term i have a very hard time accepting that fiat currency in it's current form will be the norm.