You raised a load of comments, most of which were extremely simple to refute, so you're in the same circumstances, just in a different boat.I don't have any faith in anything related to it being used in a meaningful way at any point. I'm merely dismissing your dismissals as misinformation because that is what they are.
Nobody can move my money, from any account without 2FA
Not true. You can have your assets frozen by your bank. It might seem like they are there to protect you but there have been plenty of people that have had account frozen incorrectly. Not just criminals. Your bank can go bust as well and then your money is gone.
That's the thing though, most people who hold crypto will have very little clue about what it is or does, that's not a good thing, and plays into the hand of those who can game the system/ volatility.
Most people don't understand how anything they own works. You don't really need to. People don't fully understand the banking system. I don't know how me pressing a keyboard makes these words appear. You don't have to understand something to own it.
What happens if coinbase goes bust or whatever?
Coinbase is essentially the same as a bank. It isn't bitcoin. Properly regulated though it would operate like any investment company which is required to hold customers assets separately from their own (unlike a bank that are allowed to take deposits and then give out loans on that money many times over).
I wasn't trying to demonstrate anything being right or wrong. It was a basic example of how a distributed ledger is different to a centrally held one. Change it from cash and compare an inventory system or whatever. It's just an example for someone who asked what happens if the internet was switched off.
People get their accounts frozen all the time. If the bank suspects illegal activity they freeze them. Never heard of anyone being on holiday and having their card declined etc? Find that very hard to believe.You raised a load of comments, most of which were extremely simple to refute, so you're in the same circumstances, just in a different boat.
I'll take my chances on the asset freezing, it does a hell of a lot more good than harm, it's a winner, no doubt about it.
If it makes it easier to freeze drug dealers/ fraudsters assets/ cash or if it helps free assets of powerful people in countries which are committing crimes then fair enough, do it more often. I imagine the benefit to a small player like us far exceeds any negatives. I know of more people lose bitcoin wallets/ logins than I've known had assets or cash frozen, in fact I can't even think of one of the latter who I know. Equally I've known a few lose a £20 note or whatever on a night out, and known others find them, probably evens out for most, but I bet this is rarer now people only really use cards or phones. Credit card transactions are protected/ insured too, and also have consumer rights etc. Don't know anyone whose found a bitcoin wallet or bitcoin.
Banks can lend cash out, they need to, as most people like to borrow to live (mortgages etc), but there are rules on lending and leverage etc, and the risk can be diversified out. The regulation and FSCS protection gets stronger every year.
I think coinbase is regulated by the FCA, which is good, but it's not protected by the FSCS which is very bad.
Knowing how a keyboard works is a bit different to not knowing how what you're investing in works. I have no idea how a keyboard works either, but It can only really be combination of logic/ code, changing the physical input into a digital one. Then whatever that code generates just gets interpreted by something else and put where ever it needs to go, moved around by more code et. It's just like a circuit with loads of switches I suppose. The thing about the keyboard is I know it does work, and has a use.
People who invest in apple have a fair idea of what they do, and how they make their money etc, and whilst they don't know if they're going to lose 20% or gain 100%, it is extremely unlikely they're going to drop 50-80% or whatever. They don't need to know the minute finer details, but a lot who "invest" in crypto know a hell of a lot less than me, and I'm not claiming to know much at all. There are people who know a hell of a lot more than me about a lot of things and investing or whatever, and they're a hell of a lot more dubious of crypto than I am. Like I've said before though, the tech or idea of it is good though, but the energy waste isn't.
The world is a maze of datacentres, and more and more are being made, I just don't see how a bank could lose peoples account data and it not be able to be recovered. Even for my company I have about 5 backups of various data in different places, and we're small time and not a bank etc.
I don't think anyone has the power to switch the internet off, but if they could then those who only hold bitcoin are probably more screwed than most. I think crypto would be the opposite of a get out with the way our system works, and I just don't see a way that the current system would be able to be matched, never mind replaced.
There's no actual evidence that the halving causes price increases. It's very possible it's correlation rather than causation.I’ve noticed the rate of increase in the price of Bitcoin when it’s gone through its halving has decreased over time. Expecting the same again?
Oh I've had that with my card, many times, I'm fine with that for fraud protection. It can be a bit irritating, but I then just use another card from a different account, or apple pay. I think you can have multiple cards from the same account too, but never needed to do it. I'd rather have that protection than my account be rinsed online or abroad though. Can have other things like revoult too etc.People get their accounts frozen all the time. If the bank suspects illegal activity they freeze them. Never heard of anyone being on holiday and having their card declined etc? Find that very hard to believe.
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The big freeze: frozen and locked bank accounts - Resolver News
In the past year alone, Resolver has received more than 1,000 complaints from people who have had their bank accounts frozen, blocked or even closed – often without warning. Frozen account complaints The ‘big freeze’ has become more prolific in…news.resolver.co.uk
Seems like a good security measure but not very good if you are in a restaurant in Spain and your card gets declined or you've filled up your car with petrol and have no way of paying before you leave.
Apple is down 20% since December. Tesla is down 62% since last July.
It is not bitcoin holders that would lose the most of the internet was switched off. Everything runs through the internet these days. The whole world would be ****ed.
I wouldn't class something heavily volatile as a store of value, generally with things like that people don't know when they might need full access to it, so they're not going to want it to be too volatile.Bitcoin is used as a store of value and never has the intent to replace actual fiat ‘money’.
Similar to gold…bitcoins should be looked at as a digital property instead of a security.
The original white paper dictates it tries to replace the flaws in which gold carries. Inflation and money printing is criminal at the moment so investing in something with a fixed supply in theory should be a smarter thing to do (I’m not saying btc is smarter or not smarter)
There’s a great book online called ‘The Bitcoin standard’ that goes into the history of money, commodities, how current monetary policy is failing drastically.
A lot of people in countries from contents such as Africa and South America have to hold btc or usd to edge against their fiat inflation rises.
I think criticizing btc without genuine a lot of research is common…if you have then fair enough.
I expect big things from btc in the next 10 years.
That table is a joke, must be from a crypto/ bitcoin site, surely? I've got about 1-2% of my investments in Crypto, but it's basically a combination of hedge/ FOMO and my belief that it works quite well on the greater fool theory aspect. I don't think it's going to do anything notable in my lifetime (as in come into wide use). The price might keep going up, just based on the greater fool theory, which is the main reason I've punted into it on a small scale.
For bitcoin to "win", it would need pretty much all the other crypto to lose, as well as beat all other currencies. Although bitcoin is crypto and the main one, it's difficult to lump all those things which are good about bitcoin in the same column as crypto, as there are various options etc. A lot of the pro's of bitcoin are the technology/ blockchain, not the actual crypto or bitcoin themselves.
Dollar not durable? 99.999% of the value of the transactions is just numbers on a screen, same applies to gold for portability. The only people lugging gold bars around are the miners. Gold and the dollar have been around for an exceptionally long time, proving their durability, bitcoin has only really been known about in the public domain since around 2017.
You can divide a dollar down to a cent, and the guys mine gold which is barely visible to the naked eye.
Online transactions for all are as secure as you want them to be. But writing a bitcoin wallet list of access codes down is not safe, and there's also a risk of losing it and never finding it again (I did this, like may have). If you lose your bank pin, account no or logon details you can get them all back relatively easily. You can even get access to dead peoples accounts if you've got permission/ rights.
The dollar is more decentralized than bitcoin, it's practically the world currency, the number of things controlling the price of the dollar is massive, this is both a good and bad thing but it keeps the price/ value in check. Never mind there are other currencies which can be used to hedge the dollar.
Gold being fairly scarce is a good thing, it's becoming more costly to mine, and harder to find, this will probably help gold prices long term, but there's also a chance that people realise it actually has little physical use in reality. I think it's similar to bitcoin in this way.
Most people are investing in bitcoin because they think the price will go up, but I bet not many are truthfully investing in it that think it will get physically used day to day. There are a million other options for investing which can be extremely diversified, with proven good returns over very long timeframes, bitcoin is also competing with those.
There are probably a limited few key players in bitcoin, as miners/ major holders, and they probably have more control of the price of bitcoin than the US government has control over price of the dollar.
There should be rows for:
Investment risk:
Investment track record:
Volatility:
Covered by the FSCS:
Ponzi scheme:
Greater fool theory:
Chance of going to zero:
Exceptional waste of energy:
Fidelity want people to buy bitcoin, or crypto, they make 1% on the spread for the buy and the sale.Here is a table from Fidelity (both they and Blackrock have Bitcoin ETFs now, which are the fastest growing ETFs in history)
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Economist Lyn Alden has noticed this when visiting South America and Africa.
In the past when countries had two currencies:
The local currency and the U.S Dollar, people would hold onto their dollars because it was stronger than their local currency which was getting debased at an alarming rate.
Now in these countries they spend their local currency, then the dollar and keep hold of Bitcoin.
Why? Because it's stronger than both.
You don't spend your hardest/strongest asset, you hold it because it increases in value against failing fiat currencies (they are all failing, just some quicker than others).
So just in the same way you will never see anyone in Asda paying with a gold bar, people will never pay in Bitcoin.
It's a store of value. A better version of Gold in almost every way.
The next generations will laugh at us for ever doubting this.
View attachment 75384
P.S Bitcoin and Crypto are not the same thing, if you think they are you have no right having a view on Bitcoin.
What if there were no "small devices"?
Don't digital black mailers demand Bitcoin as payment?
Gold has risen from $35 (1971) to $ 2,300 (2024) that's about 66 fold increase - UK inflation is around 25 fold increase. It has kept ahead of inflation and the UK stockmarket. It can be held in ETFs and divided into what ever pieces are requited to my knowledge. Weight is not really relevant.
No one can create Gold its a naturally occurring metal that humans have searched for for over 5,000 years. New mining adds a very small percentage to the total supply.
Some of the so called facts published by organisations are organisations pushing the sale of bitcoin to clients.
They often don't mention gold and bitcoin don't pay dividends or provide interest which say other investments can such as shares. The average person needs a very well balanced portfolio of assets if they are lucky enough to to have wealth. To me bit coin and/or gold should never be more than 10%.
Microsoft are voting on whether to begin investing in bitcoin next month. If that goes through then it could see a lot of other companies going the same route. If all businesses decide that they should have some bitcoin exposure to match competitors then it could see some rapid price inflation.Any guesses as to when the next bull run will really take off?
I didn't know about the Microsoft vote, I'll keep an eye on the outcome. Thanks for the heads upMicrosoft are voting on whether to begin investing in bitcoin next month. If that goes through then it could see a lot of other companies going the same route. If all businesses decide that they should have some bitcoin exposure to match competitors then it could see some rapid price inflation.
It's all guesswork though. It could cause a crash if there is a price drop soon after it happens.
The bigger and more institutional the investment class becomes the more stable the price becomes though so slow and steady might be more likely than huge booms and crashes.