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Hail no. I wouldn't buy Bitcoin if it were $1000. Yes, it's a great opportunity to potentially make a killing. But it's got no intrinsic value. Any investment has inherent risk but you're at least owning something with value, whether that be small ownership of a company (stocks), tangible goods (real estate, gold, etc) or a guarantee from a government that your money will be repaid, hopefully with interest (cash, bonds). Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency has no connected asset.
Like I've said, I mine Monero for fun. I've cashed out about $300 worth over the last month. I've done it with standard PC components which can be liquidated or used for some other purpose if cryptocurrency tanks. But there's no way whatsoever that I'd consider using actual assets that are very unlikely to become obsolete or worthless anytime soon (e.g. US Dollars).
Bitcoin Watchers Are Blaming the Slump on the Moon
January 17, 2018, 7:57 AM PST
If regulatory concerns aren’t enough to explain Bitcoin’s 50 percent slump from its record high reached last month, how about blaming it on the moon?
The Lunar New Year, which marks the first day of the year in the Chinese calendar, is being cited by some as contributing to Bitcoin’s slump as Asian traders cash out their cryptocurrencies to travel and buy gifts for the holiday that starts Feb. 16 this year. The festivity is celebrated not just in China, but in other Asian countries including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea and Thailand.
"The January drop is a recurring theme in cryptocurrencies as people celebrating the Chinese New Year, aka Lunar New Year, exchange their crypto for fiat currency," said Alexander Wallin, chief executive officer of trading social network SprinkleBit in New York. "The timing is about four to six weeks before the lunar year, when most people make their travel arrangements and start buying presents."
Bitcoin had a similar decline at the beginning of 2017, when it slumped from a high of $1,162 to a low of $752 in January, similar to what happened in the first month of the prior year. In 2017, the total cryptocurrency market peaked on Jan. 5 at $22 billion, only to bottom out a week later at about $14 billion, Joe DiPasquale, who manages cryptocurrency fund of funds BitBull Capital, wrote in a report. The rebound back to the previous peak concluded in mid-February of 2017.
While Chinese yuan and Korean won used to account for most Bitcoin trading volume, regulatory crackdowns in those nations have reduced their significance -- and trading in U.S. dollars and Japanese yen now account for well over half of the volume. But that’s little comfort to Bitcoin investors who have seen prices tumble this year after the cryptocurrency surged 1,400 percent last year.
Bitcoin's sub 10K. I'm guessing there are a few folks that are
It would be hard to decide whether to cut your losses or hang on. Could really go either way. I wouldn't be surprised if Bitcoin was worth <$1 or $60K in a few months.
Agreed with general sentiments. Only put in what you’re willing to lose. Whether that’s 1k, 5k, 15k etc. nobody knows where this is going. You need to be prepared to lose it all. Or think of it as a very high risk investment to diversify your portfolio.
What I am seeing though is those doing well, either have a specialist or do the homework, and basically horse bet across different “penny” cryptos and ride small waves. Seek out up and coming cryptos on forums etc. there are so many entrants that go from say 2 cents to 1 dollar in a week. If you get in and get out, and continuously hit, the returns are extrapolated. Very different than betting all chips on bitcoin litcoin ripple etc. if you’re playing with FU cash might as well try to hit big on the small stuff.
Last edited by ThermonMermon; 01-18-2018 at 05:41 AM.
^ Pretty much. Typical of something with no attached value other than peoples perceptions. Up and Down, not based on earnings, new products, IPO's or anything else. Purely perceived value.
I'm not ragging on bitcoin when I say that. I hope a "non-centralized" currency will be the norm one day. Bitcoin will forever be known as the precursor to such a thing. However, the bottom line is that it has no value tied to it except the perceived value that others are willing to pay for it. That's kind of scary. I'm already invested in high risk stocks with upstart biotech companies and venture capital ETF's. That's high enough risk for me.
Just dumped $3K into a Hashflare SHA-256 1-year contract. Estimated earnings:
Break even: ~237 days. Profit at end of contract: ~$1609.
That's with no reinvestment. I'm reinvesting, so theoretically, it should be more. Of course, this is all assuming that BTC doesn't crash and burn, we'll see what happens
Ethereum Startup Vanishes After Seemingly Making $11, Leaves Message: ‘Penis’
Jan 29 2018
An Ethereum startup called Prodeum disappeared from the web on Sunday after raising a grand total of $11 USD from investors in a crowdsale. Shortly after the website disappeared, a message appeared on its homepage: “penis.”
Prodeum’s website now redirects visitors to the Twitter account of a cryptocurrency trader (they did not immediately respond to our request for comment), and its Twitter account has been deactivated.
Prodeum is at least the second Ethereum startup to pull up stakes after raising money from people in events called Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs, in which a startup funds their enterprise by taking cryptocurrency from people in exchange for digital tokens. Some ICOs have managed to raise millions of dollars, and the last startup to vanish after conducting an ICO—Confido, which disappeared from the internet in late 2017—made off with roughly $374,000. (A message later appeared on Confido’s site stating that it would buy back investors’ tokens, but it’s unclear if that took place.)
Prodeum, by comparison, only seems to have raised $11 based on the Ethereum address that was advertised on Prodeum’s site as being the ICO address. (Update: After this article was published the contents of the ICO wallet were sent to another wallet. That wallet contains roughly $100, with the other funds all coming from a single wallet that predates the Prodeum ICO and contains 46 cents.)
Prodeum’s pitch, according to a cached version of its webpage, was to track vegetables in a supply chain using digital addresses on a blockchain—a decentralized ledger at the heart of Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
The Prodeum website, for what it’s worth, is flashy and overall very well done. To throw off the suspicious, if you click a photo of any of Prodeum’s staff, you’re taken to that person’s associated LinkedIn profile. It also appears, as Buzzfeed journalist Ryan Mac noted on Twitter, that the startup was paying people on Fiverr to promote the ICO by writing “Prodeum” on their bodies. Still, it doesn’t seem like all the promotion was enough to make Prodeum’s crowdsale profitable.
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America & Citi bar people from buying bitcoin with a credit card
"At this time, we are not processing cryptocurrency purchases using credit cards, due to the volatility and risk involved," a J.P. Morgan Chase spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.
A Bank of America spokesperson also said in an email that the bank has decided to decline credit card purchases of cryptocurrencies.
Citigroup said in a statement that "We have made the decision to no longer permit credit card purchases of cryptocurrency. We will continue to review our policy as this market evolves."
01-13-2018, 08:26 PM
