Cryptocurrency - any of you guys into it?

Consider this ... Which would be wiser for most investors -- investing heavily in an oft-volatile "coin" or limiting one's risk by investing in a varied basket of stocks or offerings in another asset class?

For most investors, who want to avoid disproportionate risk, heavy speculation in bitcoin is a dubious concept.  Don't invest more than five percent of a portfolio in cryptocurrency unless you are willing to court outsize risk.

cccmedia

And: NEVER invest in any volatile or risky asset if you need the money in question - this is a playground for those who have money to spare (i.e. the already rich), but NOT a suitable vehicle for essentials like retirement savings, a nest-egg to buy a house or finance your kid's education, etc.!

I trade it as a CFD with brokers ,if you are good in market analysis and financial markets ,you can trade its CFDs with a bank or trusted broker

Kiwiprofesor wrote:

I'm interested and active in the world of crypto, DEFI, NFT's.... A huge trap for young PLAYERS, no DOUBT, but the future nevertheless. Anyone feel the same?

Right now it cannot be called the "future".  It cannot be even called a currency in the strict sense as for that to happen, two tests must be fulfilled i.e. backing by a Government central bank as for regular currencies and ability to do real world exchange for goods and services easily, readily and across any/all product types like other currencies.  So far, there is NO crypto in the world that qualifies per these tests.  Maybe it will gain acceptability sometime in the future.  Who knows.  My points are only about treating it as an "investment" as at today.

Hence, it is extremely volatile and there is NO linkage to any real world pricing or fundamentals which exists for other investments for the most part e.g. stocks etc....hence it is pure speculation vs. a genuine investment.

What does this mean?  this means that there is NO regulator to prevent manipulation or other things, you cannot predict the trends vs. any real world economics and your risk profile as an individual investor is sky high.

I have dabbled in it as a curiosity only.  And I am a savvy investor who has substantial amounts across different asset classes around the world with medium to high risk profiles.  You can go see my investment FAQ thread for expats on the Bahrain forum.

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=885444

XTang wrote:

Hence, it is extremely volatile and there is NO linkage to any real world pricing or fundamentals which exists for other investments for the most part e.g. stocks etc....hence it is pure speculation vs. a genuine investment.
What does this mean?

This means GAMBLING.
It's not more and not less.
So, before you enter, ask yourself: "Would I also bet this amount of money in a casino?"
If not, stay away!

Beppi's is an excellent rule of thumb,  in part because it's so easy to remember.

The recent adoption of Bitcoin by major investment banks and corporations (check Michael Saylor and Raoul Pal) further legitimizes its future as the hardest digital asset that will ever exist.  As central banks will very soon begin implementing their own digital/crypto currencies, most non-believers in Bitcoin will be left to the financial whims of their gov't overlords, with little to no room to manuever.  Go long on Bitcoin.  Look at the Lira.  All fiat currencies will end up there (confetti), so why not "gamble" on an immutable and permanently scarce digital asset?

Well, who can really predict what is permanent?

If such permanence has been established in any market, sophisticated investors will tell you that fact has already been priced in.

cccmedia

The number of Bitcoins is fixed at 21 million.  There will not be more than that, ever. The current market cap is 250B.  It's in early adoption phase.  In the current climate of open corruption by colluding govt and corporations, I see being open-minded and reasonably cautious on Bitcoin as a much better bet than ANY govt regulated currency or asset.  We shall see where it goes.

Yep let's see.  No one knows.  My personal opinion is to steer clear of it for the time being.   

Scarcity of supply only really matters for things which are of value - in this case, the value is not there in the conventional sense as highlighted before.  Hoarding something in anticipation that it will have value later, is speculation or gambling not investment.  And of course, you can win big but then again, you can lose big too.

Each to his own I guess.

We shall indeed....in the last few months we have seen institutional adoption on an incremental scale [PayPal, JP  Morgan, Microstrategy to name but 3] - let's not even talk about the Digital Yuan. This only means one thing to me.
Another thing, the US, where I'm guessing a number of our readers are from, is way behind at this moment - obviously to protect the 'mighty' $US. It's time to face the future head-on.

To clarify, I am not against cryptocurrency. That definitely has a future once a country / central Bank launches its own. And some of the stuff coming out or is in planning has straight linkage to traditional currency.

I am just not bullish on currencies like bitcoin which don't have universal adoption nor do we even know who invented them 😂.

And nope, this forum has a lot of non US readers.... Massive base in Asia and Middle East. And you are right, some of the stuff coming out here in Fintech is way ahead of the US.

Bitcoin has more future value than any other asset in the world presently.
Any future cryptocurrency that a country or bank launches, unless it is open
source would be close to worthless.

Open source is great for the computing world. Not so much for the financial world where the priority is on security, compliance with money laundering regulations and guarantee from a legitimate financial institution or sovereign. You talk open source to bankers re: financial systems and see them have heart attacks 😂.  Which is one of the reasons why bitcoin has not caught on in fund portfolios.

x-zackly why big banks cant stop cryptos, and are now struggling to play catchup with
blockchain patents. No open source, no useful coins. As soon as the US$ starts to slide
down the drain, and the world begin to realize the lost of everything they have.
Then adoption is going to ketch on like fire. When the rush of the herd attempts to safe guard
their wealth, the only place that will be left standing will be cryptos.

I have a PhD in Economics and have had an Investment firm for 48 years. We are a multi Billion US Dollar firm.    The only way to eliminate crime, and corruption is crypto currencies (CC) and the elimination of cash overnight. If local Government's  would like to keep sovereignty they could issue debit cards and electronic transactions in their own fiat currencies.   Eventually there will be a one world CC.   Likely not in any of our lifetimes!  This will eliminate all forms of financially based,  conversion,  money laundering  crime and corruption.  This would put the drug industry and it's houses out of business overnight as they could not launder their money.   The Governments could allow the crime families to convert their cash to CC with a 75% tax.  When the EU was formed and currencies were converted to the Euro, Billions were flushed out and converted!   Without Taxation a lost opportunity!

Even further if all cash were converted into CC, Governments could reduce taxes to all citizens with a 15% VAT on all CC transactions.   This would treat all citizens fairly and create economic parity and reintroduce the dream of personal improvement through individual success.  No government in the Globe would want this to occur, power corrupts and reinvests itself daily in new forms. 

A Crypto Currency  is traceable, documented and cannot be counterfeited.  The elimination of cash will only happen when governments choose to end corruption.   That is the battle as Governments are the causes of all wars, arms sales and Global Banks are in league with them. 

Any one interested in learning more should read "The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin.

This book describes accurately and objectively the formation of the Central Banking system in the the US and around the world and the elimination of control and supervision from global governments.  The CC movement is the solution to change the world and the process to end wars and differences. 

Today CC's are a volatile and still unproven solution however as they evolve they will continue to gain acceptance.   Expect Government's to attempt to eliminate CC's.

There are no trustworthy organization on this earth to manage monetary systems.

On the astral plane where he's enjoying the ultimate expat experience, Charles Ponzi must be getting a kick out of this thread ... and wishing that he'd lived in the Computer Age. 

I tried before but I quite don't like it.

Every dollar/euro of mined cryptocurrency consumes about the same value of electricity to power the mining computers. Consequently, profitable mining of cryptocurrency is limited to either power obtained from cheap sources - or other people's computers hijacked to perform the task.

Until better and cheaper sources of power are available, the cryptominers are basically converting burned coal into money. All of us then have to deal with the negative consequences to the environment.

More on that topic is here: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne … s?from=mdr

Mining of cryptocurrency powered by hijacked computers?

Converting burnt coal into money?

Are these concepts valuable insights or mental mush?

Can someone besides Brother Bryant kindly explain....

Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion,  but it strikes me that criticizing cryptominers for wasting energy is like criticizing Bernie Madoff for wasting paper, when he sent his bogus statements to his "clients".  Yes, the criticism may technically be true, but it's beside the real point.

Pbryant is right and brought up an aspect of cryptocurrencies that is often neglected to mention. Here is the same from a recognised source (The Economist):
https://www.economist.com/the-economist … uch-energy
Whoever thought that "mining" new cryptocurrency coins creates value from nothing, is naive.
But Abthree is right, too, that this is besides the point - namely that cryptocurrencies are neither currencies nor a serious way to invest your money.

I have been trading FOREX for about 8 years now, made this year 250K$ so far,  when people talk about gambling, well buying a house is a gamble, taking a mortgage is a gamble, basically going to work is a gamble, so one should think about calculating the risk-reward ratio and go out and do what should be done.  I am training and trading forex for myself, for others, teaching methods around the globe.  CRYPTO NO damn way I would part money with it.  especially mining CRYPTO!!!!! major scam on the planet.  GREED paves the way for these cronies to lure people in..

Forex is risky but I wouldn't call it a pure gamble (meaning it's purely luck driven) as there are some fundamentals at play.  It is risky because you really need to understand it to make any money.

Crypto IS a gamble as there are no fundamentals.

It’s Pretty obvious when you are write,  you need to understand the fundamentals and the business itself, well without understanding any business how can you part ways with money?? I just don’t get the logic behind it, people who do not understand the business and how it works and when they lose their money they blame it on the market they blame it on country, currency and God knows what else. to me I understand  FX market so pretty well that I have not lost a single dollar in last eight years and that’s the fact.

You have been lucky because it's not dead cert to make money. It is a gamble. Just as I have been lucky with the property I have bought. I have always made a profit so have been lucky to climb the property ladder and to move countries.

Luck has been overrated mate.  You made money because you understood the market or you gambled and it paid off in your case.  FX you buy when everyone is selling, herd mentality never pays off.  Anyway I respect your opinion and I wish you good luck.  If ever wish to invest in Dubai property market I have bought many and real estate is another business I understand inside out.  let me know should you need more info.

There is a simple fundamental in Cryptos, you buy the right ones and HODL.

For someone that Gambles to make such a statement about Cryptos, you would have to be a COMEDIAN

I am in crypto.  Have about 8 coins-tokens.   Not much just a couple thousand

There is a small amount of gold in seawater. But it costs more to extract the gold than the value of the gold. What would happen to the value of gold if a radically new process was found to extract it very cheaply, and thousands of tons of gold suddenly appeared on the market?  At prices cheaper than iron? People holding gold as an investment would be very disappointed! No scarcity - no value.

I worked on some projects at NASA relating to quantum computing. At the moment, one dollar of bitcoin costs nearly as much in electrical power consumption to mine it with computers. When quantum computing emerges aa a prevalent technology, those holding bitcoin will be very disappointed.

The value of Bitcoin is not dependent on the cost of mining, one of it's main value is its scarcity.

Hola,

Yes I'm into crypto... trading and HODL.
I'm also in a crowd funding platform which uses the Tron coin for the smart contracts.

Without a change in the protocol, the maximum number of bitcoins is 21 million.

There are 18.5 million bitcoins that have been mined to date (rounding a little), and 2.5 million left to be mined, with about 900 being mined each day.

But a hypothetical quantum computer could mine the remainder is less than a hour. That would cause a sudden - albeit temporary - slump in value. A sudden increase in supply would dilute the scarcity.

It will be interesting to see what happens once the supply is saturated - assuming no changes in the protocol. Does the value relate at all to the effort in production? If the vale then increases rapidly, what happens if everyone holds, and no one trades?

Hi partner,

If you will, you can give this Bitcoin platform a try, just put a small amount, minimum $4.26 worth of BTC, and earn your 2% per day or 8% if you invest about $251 worth of BTC.

It's a telegram link:

[link moderated] (sorry was not aware sharing of links is prohibited) my apologies.


Best!

Bethuel wrote:

Hi partner,

If you will, you can give this Bitcoin platform a try, just put a small amount, minimum $4.26 worth of BTC, and earn your 2 % per day or 8% if you invest about $251 worth of BTC.

(link moderated/removed)

Such a rate of return is too good to be true.  Eight percent earnings per day is more than 240 percent per month or more than 2,800 percent per year.

cccmedia

Cccmedia: You are of course correct that this kind of earnings per day are not possible, but your maths was wrong:
2% per day means 81% in a month or 137600% in a year (invest a dollar and after 12 months you have almost almost $1400)
8% per day means 1000% in a month or 158369210882600% in a year (invest a dollar and after 12 months you have almost $1.600 trillion - roughly the GDP of Canada)
That clearly shows that the above poster does not know what he is talking about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and … rd_problem

It is capped to 350% on each investment, then you can either compound or restart the process:

Something like: - (data taken today)

🚴 Progress: 12.21% of 350%

🏦 Total capital: 12.78 USD (🔰 Basic)

Daily Earnings
🏆 Daily earnings: 0.26 USD
🔆 Daily earnings interest ~ 2%

Portfolio Earnings
❤️ Current earnings: 1.56 USD
💵 Withdrawals: 0.00 USD

Target portfolio amount (350%):
💰 Total earned: 1.56
🎯 Target amount: 44.73 USD