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Dad_Brains

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #270 on: June 08, 2021, 05:41:18 PM »
Anyone getting those AMC returns? I haven’t looked at mine in a while, which I bought at around $10 then had a quick look the other day and some good stuff going on there

matty_c

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #271 on: June 08, 2021, 05:57:59 PM »
Thinking about getting some bitcoins if the arse keeps falling out of them, I had said if they go to 15 grand aud I’ll get some

Is this stupid?

That game stock thing I reckon that was a one off shoulda sold it all when it started to drop

But I know fuck all about investing I just meant cause it was all on that forum the majority woulda sold their shit whilst still posting that diamond hand stuff on reddit
listen to cosmic psychos

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #272 on: June 08, 2021, 08:26:39 PM »
Thinking about getting some bitcoins if the arse keeps falling out of them, I had said if they go to 15 grand aud I’ll get some

Is this stupid?

That game stock thing I reckon that was a one off shoulda sold it all when it started to drop

But I know fuck all about investing I just meant cause it was all on that forum the majority woulda sold their shit whilst still posting that diamond hand stuff on reddit

I think there's value to have a target to buy in at, but honestly just the best thing is to dollar cost average in. Get on an exchange and set a weekly buy of 25 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever your budget is, and that just cuts out trying to find bottoms or tops. And plan to hold for at least 3-4 years. Just my 2 cents, but that's the tried and true method in crypto. If you get into altcoins, I'd recommend taking profits if they're doing well because they bleed harder when BTC crashes and goes into a bear market. I'm in crypto for the long haul and it also helps to hold longer to avoid short term capital gains if you take profits before a year.


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shitsandwich

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #273 on: June 08, 2021, 10:46:44 PM »
Anyone getting those AMC returns? I haven’t looked at mine in a while, which I bought at around $10 then had a quick look the other day and some good stuff going on there


I have like 8 shares that I bought around 8 dollars. My sister in law and brother feel pretty good about it going up pretty high. I don't know shit about stocks but I'm probably just gonna ride this one out since I didn't put too much in initially

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #274 on: June 09, 2021, 03:06:50 AM »
If you get into altcoins, I'd recommend taking profits if they're doing well because they bleed harder when BTC crashes and goes into a bear market.

Where were you three weeks ago
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RCB3

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #275 on: June 09, 2021, 08:27:06 AM »
Expand Quote
If you get into altcoins, I'd recommend taking profits if they're doing well because they bleed harder when BTC crashes and goes into a bear market.
[close]

Where were you three weeks ago

What do you mean? I was watching them crash with everything else. I've been invested in a while and have taken profits throughout the last few months.


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Re: Investing?
« Reply #276 on: June 09, 2021, 11:09:07 AM »
Was a joke, I meant I could've done with hearing that 3 weeks ago just before it tanked and I lost a shitload of money
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RCB3

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #277 on: June 09, 2021, 11:44:00 AM »
Was a joke, I meant I could've done with hearing that 3 weeks ago just before it tanked and I lost a shitload of money

Haha, gotcha. I mean, straddling the line between certain price predictions and knowing when to take profits is really hard. No one's going to predict market cycles perfectly. I wish I took a little bit more profit, but still think we're in a bull market, and might be bearish for the next month or 2.

I watched my portfolio drop by about 50-60% over the course of a few weeks. Brutal, but again, try not to get caught up in short term. You'll go crazy. A lot of the alt projects are ones I believe in long term, so if we do slip into a long term bear market, I'll just accumulate and hold for the long term.


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Re: Investing?
« Reply #278 on: June 09, 2021, 05:58:01 PM »
Expand Quote
Thinking about getting some bitcoins if the arse keeps falling out of them, I had said if they go to 15 grand aud I’ll get some

Is this stupid?

That game stock thing I reckon that was a one off shoulda sold it all when it started to drop

But I know fuck all about investing I just meant cause it was all on that forum the majority woulda sold their shit whilst still posting that diamond hand stuff on reddit
[close]

I think there's value to have a target to buy in at, but honestly just the best thing is to dollar cost average in. Get on an exchange and set a weekly buy of 25 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever your budget is, and that just cuts out trying to find bottoms or tops. And plan to hold for at least 3-4 years. Just my 2 cents, but that's the tried and true method in crypto. If you get into altcoins, I'd recommend taking profits if they're doing well because they bleed harder when BTC crashes and goes into a bear market. I'm in crypto for the long haul and it also helps to hold longer to avoid short term capital gains if you take profits before a year.
Legit 2 cents. Unless your able to watch the market all day/night I would go with the above method.

TheLurper

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #279 on: July 23, 2021, 06:48:29 AM »
How did everyone do with their investments? Any recent investments?

As expected my boring ass 401K mutual fund investments did well. I don't check on my Bitcoin ever, I still can't get into my ripple wallet, and the random stocks I picked were not the best choices.

Also, I still can't believe a pandemic that caused so many people extreme hardship led to huge windfalls amongst those who own property or stock. The system we live in is very wrong.

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I love when people bring up world hunger. It makes everything meaningless.
"That guy is double parked."
"Who cares? There are people starving to death! Besides, how does that affect you? Does it lessen the joy of parking?

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #280 on: July 23, 2021, 07:12:10 AM »
All my crypto investments have gone down like a sack of shit and I'm not planning to look at them until I either hear some news about how crypto is going wild again or I die, not sure which will come first at this point. Well I guess I won't look at them after I die but at least I won't care anymore
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essal

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #281 on: July 24, 2021, 06:15:32 AM »
I'm still up roughly 100% on my crypto. So down quite a bit, but still ok. Bought a bit more BTC and ETH.

And I don't really stress about it because I haven't invested more than I can afford to loose. All of those people on suicide watch because of a tiny dump should really try to follow that very easy rule- and not invest in shitcoins.

RCB3

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #282 on: July 24, 2021, 09:01:34 AM »
All my crypto investments have gone down like a sack of shit and I'm not planning to look at them until I either hear some news about how crypto is going wild again or I die, not sure which will come first at this point. Well I guess I won't look at them after I die but at least I won't care anymore

Not that anything is guaranteed, but the beauty of crypto is seeing the on chain data analytics. When BTC has been in these low 30's over the last few months, the data shows that whales and massive holders have been accumulating, which is always a solid sign that things should be going up. Lots of of the different metrics on Glassnode also point to things going up sometime soon. The only thing I fear is an overall market crash. Crypto would tank hard as well as people can pull out their money fastest in crypto.

Just be ok with holding for at least a four year cycle and you'll be solid.


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TheLurper

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #283 on: August 12, 2021, 10:28:35 PM »
Anyone make any interesting moves lately?

The bond market has been garbage lately. I pulled out a big chunk a couple months ago and put the money into a few small cap and mid cap funds, which ended up being a good choice. The Delaware Small Cap Value Fund and the Vanguard Strategic Equity fund are doing really well.

However, I feel I'm wayyy too conservative with my money. If I had just dumped my money into a Vanguard or Fidelity mutual fund my unearned income would be 4x greater. (I have some extreme guilt over this as stocks seem to be nothing more than stealing from those who actually work.)

Finally, I saw BTC took off again. Back up to about 45K per coin, which is insane. And, I still can't access my Ripple, which sucks.

Quote from: ChuckRamone
I love when people bring up world hunger. It makes everything meaningless.
"That guy is double parked."
"Who cares? There are people starving to death! Besides, how does that affect you? Does it lessen the joy of parking?

Coastal Fever

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #284 on: December 04, 2021, 04:44:59 PM »
Alright so this isn’t about investing per se, and I feel like a moron for not doing this years ago, as this is something most all financially savvy people do.. but in all honesty I have a strained, triggering, relationship with money and as a result have done lots of things to self sabotage myself financially throughout my adult life…

The epiphany I finally had today was to get a another credit card, one that offers 1-3% worth of reward points on the dollar, for virtually every single purchase and bill payment, and use it for everything, then pay it off right away.  It might be pennies to some people, but this is probably going to be an extra $500-1000/year in my pocket, and I’m seriously hyped about it. 

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #285 on: December 04, 2021, 05:24:07 PM »
Good on you for making that step. Better late than never. I find with a lot of financial advice, especially when you’re starting off can seem daunting and overwhelming. But if you just take it one item at a time it’s not so bad.

TheLurper

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #286 on: December 04, 2021, 06:13:28 PM »
Alright so this isn’t about investing per se, and I feel like a moron for not doing this years ago, as this is something most all financially savvy people do.. but in all honesty I have a strained, triggering, relationship with money and as a result have done lots of things to self sabotage myself financially throughout my adult life…

The epiphany I finally had today was to get a another credit card, one that offers 1-3% worth of reward points on the dollar, for virtually every single purchase and bill payment, and use it for everything, then pay it off right away.  It might be pennies to some people, but this is probably going to be an extra $500-1000/year in my pocket, and I’m seriously hyped about it.

Great move.

The free money from the rewards cards can be awesome (as long as we pay it back in full each month) and some of the fringe benefits are awesome as well (my card regularly gets me 10% off at hotels, AirBnBs, and at random companies).

However, like all the other shit here, our gain is someone else's loss.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22454885/who-pays-for-credit-card-rewards



Anyone else make any moves recently? Buying the dip? Selling to protect our (unearned and exploitative) gains from a potential drop? Any meme stocks or crypto bets?
 
I'm still up on my mutual funds, but my gains have been severely cut this week. All my stocks/funds "lost" 3% of their total value just this week. That shit hurt.

I'm tempted to put all my shit into safe short term investments.

Quote from: ChuckRamone
I love when people bring up world hunger. It makes everything meaningless.
"That guy is double parked."
"Who cares? There are people starving to death! Besides, how does that affect you? Does it lessen the joy of parking?

Coastal Fever

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #287 on: December 04, 2021, 08:18:31 PM »
Thanks for posting that article, had read similar snippets about the topic but that explained it really well.  I definitely feel some level of guilt for the small businesses and cc-less people who have to eat the cost. 

With that said, I’m a working class, paycheck to paycheck person myself who feels the effects of rising prices.  If one day I don’t need those extra few hundred bucks a year, I’ll rethink my strategy, but until then I feel I should make the most of my available resources.

Also open to any other obvious or not so obvious financial advice I might be overlooking.  I generally try to spend as little as possible, but takeout/junk food is one thing I struggle with that seems cheap but adds up.

TheLurper

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #288 on: December 04, 2021, 09:47:44 PM »
Thanks for posting that article, had read similar snippets about the topic but that explained it really well.  I definitely feel some level of guilt for the small businesses and cc-less people who have to eat the cost. 

With that said, I’m a working class, paycheck to paycheck person myself who feels the effects of rising prices.  If one day I don’t need those extra few hundred bucks a year, I’ll rethink my strategy, but until then I feel I should make the most of my available resources.

Also open to any other obvious or not so obvious financial advice I might be overlooking.  I generally try to spend as little as possible, but takeout/junk food is one thing I struggle with that seems cheap but adds up.

I'm over posting a bit (sorry).

1) Opt-out of the overdraft: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/understanding-overdraft-opt-choice/

2) The cheap stores aren't all that cheap (i.e. dollar stores are rip-offs and have better profit margins than grocery stores).

3) Buy shit you need when it is on sale. (I didn't worry about toilet paper during the pandemic because I loaded up a few months before when it went on sale. I do the same with soap, shampoo, and other stuff I can just let sit without worry of it going bad.

Finally, don't beat yourself up if you can't save a bunch of money easily. The game is rigged in favor of those who already have wealth and/or professional/managerial jobs. Normal people can save a couple dollars here and there, but to save money as a normal person it might take an unreasonable sacrifice (I didn't have a car and lived in some disgusting apartments when I was desperate to put money into the bank, but this fucking sucked and caused me some major problems.)
« Last Edit: December 04, 2021, 09:58:55 PM by TheLurper »

Quote from: ChuckRamone
I love when people bring up world hunger. It makes everything meaningless.
"That guy is double parked."
"Who cares? There are people starving to death! Besides, how does that affect you? Does it lessen the joy of parking?

PAWL

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #289 on: December 06, 2021, 02:48:02 PM »
Expand Quote
Thanks for posting that article, had read similar snippets about the topic but that explained it really well.  I definitely feel some level of guilt for the small businesses and cc-less people who have to eat the cost. 

With that said, I’m a working class, paycheck to paycheck person myself who feels the effects of rising prices.  If one day I don’t need those extra few hundred bucks a year, I’ll rethink my strategy, but until then I feel I should make the most of my available resources.

Also open to any other obvious or not so obvious financial advice I might be overlooking.  I generally try to spend as little as possible, but takeout/junk food is one thing I struggle with that seems cheap but adds up.
[close]

I'm over posting a bit (sorry).

1) Opt-out of the overdraft: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/understanding-overdraft-opt-choice/

2) The cheap stores aren't all that cheap (i.e. dollar stores are rip-offs and have better profit margins than grocery stores).

3) Buy shit you need when it is on sale. (I didn't worry about toilet paper during the pandemic because I loaded up a few months before when it went on sale. I do the same with soap, shampoo, and other stuff I can just let sit without worry of it going bad.

Finally, don't beat yourself up if you can't save a bunch of money easily. The game is rigged in favor of those who already have wealth and/or professional/managerial jobs. Normal people can save a couple dollars here and there, but to save money as a normal person it might take an unreasonable sacrifice (I didn't have a car and lived in some disgusting apartments when I was desperate to put money into the bank, but this fucking sucked and caused me some major problems.)

^this one. thankfully I'm at the point where I can overpay (relatively) to be comfortable. Don't miss living in a closet with people I didn't like.
yo mike mo new age ape style high five with my reborn hand.

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G raham

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #290 on: December 06, 2021, 04:51:37 PM »
Is anyone else completely enamored with bitcoin? It is the most fucked thing ever. The potential change it could have in the world is fucking insane
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TheLurper

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #291 on: December 06, 2021, 07:01:46 PM »
Is anyone else completely enamored with bitcoin? It is the most fucked thing ever. The potential change it could have in the world is fucking insane

I'm generally not stoked on any of the cryptos. I'll tell you why and you can tell me what I'm missing:

1) Pollution/energy. 1 BTC transaction takes an insane amount of energy compared to a Visa transaction.


2) It is relatively traceable and not as anonymous as cash.
https://bitcoin.org/en/you-need-to-know#:~:text=Bitcoin%20is%20not%20anonymous&text=However%2C%20the%20identity%20of%20the,should%20only%20be%20used%20once.

3)It can be seized by the US Gov.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/08/1004223000/how-a-new-team-of-feds-hacked-the-hackers-and-got-colonial-pipelines-bitcoin-bac

4) It simply doesn't make sense as a currency. As far as I can tell, money needs to be printed and there needs to be inflation to make sure a currency keeps circulating. The US GDP was roughly 10 trillion in in 2000. Today, it is roughly 21 trillion. How the hell would things work if more currency wasn't printed?

We could have items cost less, but that doesn't make sense. For example, if the US stopped at circulating x number of dollars, the dollar would increase in value relative to goods/services each day. Spending it would be terribly stupid as it will always buy a little more tomorrow. Why would I sell you a carton of eggs for 1 dollar today when I know that the dollar will be worth 2 cartons of eggs tomorrow. Why would you spend your dollar on the carton of eggs, when you could get 2 cartons tomorrow? This would turn us all into misers, which Marx and Smith point out are bad at capitalism. As currency, it has a strong potential to halt circulation and thus kill what makes capitalism work.

It might be a place to store wealth, but do we really have that much surplus capital where we need to make thing up to store value?

5) A few people own the majority of BTC. It isn't some democratic revolution, it instead just another small group of people coming up into a position of power.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-18/bitcoin-whales-ownership-concentration-is-rising-during-rally



The key value I see in BTC is its ability to send remittence home to corrupt countries and sidestep import laws/"taxes/fees," but going back to the fact that it isn't anonymous as we think, I don't think this will last forever. Same goes for if we were paid in BTC, we need to spend it sometime and now there is a digital record of our spending/identity.



Overall, I think this stuff doesn't make any sense, but that doesn't mean I've avoided the speculation wave associated with it. FOMO has def encouraged my investment and holding on to this thing that I have no faith in.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2021, 07:13:06 PM by TheLurper »

Quote from: ChuckRamone
I love when people bring up world hunger. It makes everything meaningless.
"That guy is double parked."
"Who cares? There are people starving to death! Besides, how does that affect you? Does it lessen the joy of parking?

G raham

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #292 on: December 06, 2021, 07:55:34 PM »
Expand Quote
Is anyone else completely enamored with bitcoin? It is the most fucked thing ever. The potential change it could have in the world is fucking insane
[close]

I'm generally not stoked on any of the cryptos. I'll tell you why and you can tell me what I'm missing:

1) Pollution/energy. 1 BTC transaction takes an insane amount of energy compared to a Visa transaction.


2) It is relatively traceable and not as anonymous as cash.
https://bitcoin.org/en/you-need-to-know#:~:text=Bitcoin%20is%20not%20anonymous&text=However%2C%20the%20identity%20of%20the,should%20only%20be%20used%20once.

3)It can be seized by the US Gov.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/08/1004223000/how-a-new-team-of-feds-hacked-the-hackers-and-got-colonial-pipelines-bitcoin-bac

4) It simply doesn't make sense as a currency. As far as I can tell, money needs to be printed and there needs to be inflation to make sure a currency keeps circulating. The US GDP was roughly 10 trillion in in 2000. Today, it is roughly 21 trillion. How the hell would things work if more currency wasn't printed?

We could have items cost less, but that doesn't make sense. For example, if the US stopped at circulating x number of dollars, the dollar would increase in value relative to goods/services each day. Spending it would be terribly stupid as it will always buy a little more tomorrow. Why would I sell you a carton of eggs for 1 dollar today when I know that the dollar will be worth 2 cartons of eggs tomorrow. Why would you spend your dollar on the carton of eggs, when you could get 2 cartons tomorrow? This would turn us all into misers, which Marx and Smith point out are bad at capitalism. As currency, it has a strong potential to halt circulation and thus kill what makes capitalism work.

It might be a place to store wealth, but do we really have that much surplus capital where we need to make thing up to store value?

5) A few people own the majority of BTC. It isn't some democratic revolution, it instead just another small group of people coming up into a position of power.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-18/bitcoin-whales-ownership-concentration-is-rising-during-rally



The key value I see in BTC is its ability to send remittence home to corrupt countries and sidestep import laws/"taxes/fees," but going back to the fact that it isn't anonymous as we think, I don't think this will last forever. Same goes for if we were paid in BTC, we need to spend it sometime and now there is a digital record of our spending/identity.



Overall, I think this stuff doesn't make any sense, but that doesn't mean I've avoided the speculation wave associated with it. FOMO has def encouraged my investment and holding on to this thing that I have no faith in.

2 billion people have smart phones but dont have access to bank accounts. All theyd have to do is download an app and theyd all effectively have a bank.

Anonymity is a weird one keep hearing arguments for both.

That article concerning confiscation is cos they kept it on an exchange, if you keep it in cold storage it is completely encrypted.

Most of its use is seen in countries where inflation has done far more harm than good where theyre literally using the currency as bonfire fuel.

Often people in El Salvador had to go on a bus 5 hours a week, have their 100 bucks a family member has been sent cut down to 60, and have to try and avoid gangs that hold them at knifepoint that hang out near the Western unions. With bitcoin this is eradicated. Tonga and some places in south africa are looking to implement the same infrastructure, no reason this shouldnt extend to every developing country where this is an issue. This alone is worth the electricity which is less than Christmas lights in the US every year.

heres some more shit

https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1340836877595594752?s=20
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RCB3

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #293 on: December 06, 2021, 10:14:39 PM »
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
Is anyone else completely enamored with bitcoin? It is the most fucked thing ever. The potential change it could have in the world is fucking insane
[close]

I'm generally not stoked on any of the cryptos. I'll tell you why and you can tell me what I'm missing:

1) Pollution/energy. 1 BTC transaction takes an insane amount of energy compared to a Visa transaction.


2) It is relatively traceable and not as anonymous as cash.
https://bitcoin.org/en/you-need-to-know#:~:text=Bitcoin%20is%20not%20anonymous&text=However%2C%20the%20identity%20of%20the,should%20only%20be%20used%20once.

3)It can be seized by the US Gov.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/08/1004223000/how-a-new-team-of-feds-hacked-the-hackers-and-got-colonial-pipelines-bitcoin-bac

4) It simply doesn't make sense as a currency. As far as I can tell, money needs to be printed and there needs to be inflation to make sure a currency keeps circulating. The US GDP was roughly 10 trillion in in 2000. Today, it is roughly 21 trillion. How the hell would things work if more currency wasn't printed?

We could have items cost less, but that doesn't make sense. For example, if the US stopped at circulating x number of dollars, the dollar would increase in value relative to goods/services each day. Spending it would be terribly stupid as it will always buy a little more tomorrow. Why would I sell you a carton of eggs for 1 dollar today when I know that the dollar will be worth 2 cartons of eggs tomorrow. Why would you spend your dollar on the carton of eggs, when you could get 2 cartons tomorrow? This would turn us all into misers, which Marx and Smith point out are bad at capitalism. As currency, it has a strong potential to halt circulation and thus kill what makes capitalism work.

It might be a place to store wealth, but do we really have that much surplus capital where we need to make thing up to store value?

5) A few people own the majority of BTC. It isn't some democratic revolution, it instead just another small group of people coming up into a position of power.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-18/bitcoin-whales-ownership-concentration-is-rising-during-rally



The key value I see in BTC is its ability to send remittence home to corrupt countries and sidestep import laws/"taxes/fees," but going back to the fact that it isn't anonymous as we think, I don't think this will last forever. Same goes for if we were paid in BTC, we need to spend it sometime and now there is a digital record of our spending/identity.



Overall, I think this stuff doesn't make any sense, but that doesn't mean I've avoided the speculation wave associated with it. FOMO has def encouraged my investment and holding on to this thing that I have no faith in.
[close]

2 billion people have smart phones but dont have access to bank accounts. All theyd have to do is download an app and theyd all effectively have a bank.

Anonymity is a weird one keep hearing arguments for both.

That article concerning confiscation is cos they kept it on an exchange, if you keep it in cold storage it is completely encrypted.

Most of its use is seen in countries where inflation has done far more harm than good where theyre literally using the currency as bonfire fuel.

Often people in El Salvador had to go on a bus 5 hours a week, have their 100 bucks a family member has been sent cut down to 60, and have to try and avoid gangs that hold them at knifepoint that hang out near the Western unions. With bitcoin this is eradicated. Tonga and some places in south africa are looking to implement the same infrastructure, no reason this shouldnt extend to every developing country where this is an issue. This alone is worth the electricity which is less than Christmas lights in the US every year.

heres some more shit

https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1340836877595594752?s=20

Lurper, I could be wrong, but I feel like a lot of what you're mentioning are shallow focus points that people use to argue if they don't like Bitcoin or you might see as headlines and you haven't done the actual deep dive of why those are wrong or at least the counter argument makes sense.

The pollution one to me is really silly because everything takes energy. If you believe Bitcoin is worthless, then sure, every bit of energy is a waste. But as G raham mentioned, there's so much more in the world that takes way more energy than Bitcoin and people who believe Bitcoin can help many facets of the world, that energy is more than worthwhile. But that's also not to mention that over half of mining is renewable energy and miners are incentivized to find renewable energy. Lots of mining is using leftover energy and harnessing energy that would otherwise be wasted. With Bitcoin mining leaving China, they were the biggest users of coal, and over time BTC mining will become greener and greener. Do you know how much energy is used to mine actual gold and how destructive it is to land? Also, take traditional finance. Wells Fargo has over 268,000 employees. Do you know how much energy is used for buildings, equipment, transactions, individuals driving to work, and all the other ways energy is used in running something like that? I just think it's hypocritical to mention BTC's mining without comparing it to everything else in the world.

As far as saying it doesn't make sense as a currency, look up what Lightning is and how it can be used for transactions. Lightning or BTC transactions aren't ready to have 8 billion people work on it yet, but remember BTC is only 12 years old and things will scale. Lightning already works great and will keep improving over time. But yes, you also could argue the points of it being a currency because someone like me doesn't want to spend my BTC because I believe it will keep appreciating over time, so I view it more as a saving mechanism where I transact in debasing fiat dollars that's inflating away every year. If you take a really long term approach, when returns diminish decades away, it could be a more stable form of currency that doesn't debase with a fixed supply.

As far as a few people owning it, if you look at the blockchain data, the whale wallets are shrinking over time, so it's becoming more and more decentralized over time. But the way Bitcoin was created, it literally was as fair as a way for something to be distributed by proof of work. I don't think there's a better way for something to be created as the origin of Bitcoin.

And questioning if we need to make things up to store value, as G raham also said, other countries that are losing all their wealth to deflating currencies need something like this. Every fiat (government backed) currency in the history of civilization has failed. Many people in countries who are experiencing hyper inflation not only are seeing their money debased away, they also don't have access to banking systems. The central banks are a scam and Bitcoin offers a way to be sovereign over their own money. When the Taliban recently retook over control of Afghanistan, people couldn't access their bank and a lot of people used Bitcoin to transfer money or as a way to control their money. I think it's easy being in a first world country to forget that 53% of the world lives under an authoritarian government where they aren't guaranteed freedoms, especially with their finances.

I'm not into trying to get rich off shitty crypto projects and think 98% of them are scams and complete trash, but Bitcoin is very different to me. I genuinely believe if anyone does an actual deep dive into what it is, how it works, and what it can do for the world, they will absolutely see it as an incredible world changing technology. And at this point, it's not a get rich quick scheme. I think it will continue to appreciate quite well in the coming decades, but it's not something that's going to 100x in a year or something obviously due to it's size and market cap. But when our current inflation in the US is somewhere between 10-15% (The CPI of 6.2% is definitely too low) and we just printed 40% of all dollars in circulation within the last year, thing's aren't going to get better. Sure they'll start tapering and say why inflation is transitory, but it's all bullshit. They'll need to keep printing money to prop up markets, especially after such shitty job reports and our dollar will continue to get debased. Bitcoin is a fixed monetary system that is decentralized and owned by no individual or group. It's a beautiful thing and I think as time goes on and shit gets worse and worse with global money issues and the amount of trillions of dollars of debt, Bitcoin will be able to help, especially for smaller countries who's money is being inflated away in bigger ways.

Alright, that's all for my rant. Just my thoughts. Feel freer to still disagree, but I would say if you do disagree, make sure to fully look in what Bitcoin is and I think even more importantly, the state of fiat currency and global monetary issues. It's pretty scary.

Edit: I forgot to mention that if you want some good resources on where I think Bitcoin is helping the world, check out work by Alex Gladstein, who works for the Human Rights Foundation. "Bitcoin and Human Rights with Alex Gladstein" is a great podcast on The Pomp Podcast that goes into detail on how Bitcoin can help, especially in authoritarian regimes. Worth a listen for sure.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2021, 10:22:05 PM by RCB3 »


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Re: Investing?
« Reply #294 on: December 07, 2021, 11:57:51 AM »
@G raham . Interesting ideas, but I'm not so sure.

In terms of people with smart phones but without bank accounts. BTC is one of many solutions. There might be better solutions. Mobile Money Apps appear to be working well for Kenyans without bank accounts.
See: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21420357/kenya-mobile-banking-unbanked-cellphone-money

Building on the issue of lack of banking... lost passwords are a part of life. In BTC land, you're fucked if you lose your password. With a traditional bank account you can get that back. I'm out about 70 XRP cause my ex would break/lose her phone every 6 months and the app was on her account (and the password we wrote down isn't recovering the money). This is a huge issue.

As for cold-storage... everything is going to have issues. Although, I agree it currently seems pretty safe from hackers. However, it still has other issues.
https://enterprise.ledger.com/blog/cold-storage-isn-t-flawless.don-t-learn-it-the-hard-way

I think your El Salvador example is incorrect.


As for moving money into corrupt countries, yeah, I agree with that. It is one way to do this. 



@RCB3 These are interesting ideas, but I'm not convinced and there are a few things that I need to you explain a bit more.

BTC has incentive to find the cheapest energy, not necessarily the greenest energy (see https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-is-now-mining-bitcoin-for-a-utility-company/). What percent of BTC mining is done via green electricity?

In terms of comparing BTC to WellsFargo (a company I have disdain for since the Maloofs own a huge portion of the bank and a lot of private prison stock), you've simplified the role of the bank to just transferring and storing money. It ignores the business loans, personal loans, financial consulting/advice (not that I'd trust it), and so on. Not to mention, the benefit of direct interaction with customers while they are banking. And, in your example, we've ignored all the extra BTC equipment being manufactured, shipped around the world, and so on. If you have a broader calculation on the environmental effects of both that'd be interesting. I've presented the data that 100K Visa transactions use far less energy than a single BTC transaction. This is a huge difference, especially as BTC does so much less than a traditional bank.

In terms of gold, I haven't argued gold was good. It, like BTC, might be good as an irrational place to store value, but neither work as a currency. Why would I ever give you a loan in BTC or gold when I know it'll be worth more tomorrow? How does our current economy operate and continue to expand without people loans? How hard would it be to pay a BTC loan back when it is constantly worth more than you borrowed?

My question to you, is why is some inflation bad? What would actually happen if currency didn't change in value? The whole point of capitalism is to turn money into a commodity/service/whatever and then back in more money... why bother with the commodity part, if I have more wealth by doing nothing? How much would this completely fuck poor people in terms of power in society?

This argument about just printing money... How do things work if our economy goes from 10 trillion to 20 trillion and we don't increase the amount of money in circulation? You pointed out, we've printed a lot of money recently. Ok, our economy has also expanded dramatically as well.

Also, when did Keynes fall out of fashion? As someone on the left, who sees the benefits of government intervention in the market to protect individuals, to keep the economy moving, and so on, why would I want the "market" to be completely unregulated?

Do you have stats for the BTC wealth being spread out? This would be super interesting, but I'm doubtful.

G raham's example is probably incorrect. El Salvador seems to have negative inflation, which is something BTC supporters seem to like. And, "very fiat (government backed) currency in the history of civilization has failed. " What exactly do you mean? As far as I can tell there isn't a single country in the world that has money backed by gold. And, what civilization in the history of the world hasn't failed?

Afghan. This is false dichotomy between traditional banking and BTC. There are other options. The argument doesn't have to be pro traditional banking vs BTC. There are other options that may be far better for the world.

And, why exactly are the Afghan people fucked? Is it their shitty gov? Or the American Gov freezing its assets and no longer pouring money into its economy? Also, what if the Taliban or some authoritarian gov were immune to sanctions or freezing of their money in the global economy? Would that be ideal? Do we want the govs of say, N. Korea to be able to spend on anything anywhere outside of the traditional flow of money? (A counter point here would be to allow Cuba to trade without worry of the US embargo on them and whoever is fool-hearty enough to trade with them.)
« Last Edit: December 07, 2021, 12:08:10 PM by TheLurper »

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #295 on: December 07, 2021, 12:56:41 PM »
To add to the anonymity statements above. Bitcoin was never created for anonymity as the entire blockchain is public. Once you KYC with an exchange and/or cash out to your bank account it's 100% traceable. There's legit firms out there who specifically do blockchain analysis too.

Of course you can jump through hoops to make it more difficult. You can wash through Monero, etc. or if you mine untainted coins yourself but again you run into the problem once you bring your bank/ exchange into the equation. Unless buying/ selling directly with cash, your identity is going to be attached to most of your transactions. This goes for 99% of crypto too.

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #296 on: December 07, 2021, 03:37:37 PM »
Its not an inflaton issue in el Salvador its a remittance issue, sorry maybe my language was confusing. 25% of the money in El Salvador is from remittances, and western union, where people go to get the payment, charge 20-40% for the service of being the place where the money is being sent to. Bitcoin charges .1% and you can do it from anywhere with an internet connection. Western Union are just the epitome of rent seekers. They are collectively saving $400 million a year which is massive for a semi impoverished country.

The article concerning cold storage is saying that it was still in the custody of the exchange. Thats like me saying 'you need to keep your gold in a safe' but you keep it in the bank's safe. I mean keep it in your own safe. If you keep btc in your own wallet you can literally put it on the app, delete the app and redownload it whenever you need the btc. You could go anywhere in the world, go through any airport with any amount of money and it is literally stored in your memory of the password, so it is unconfiscatable. It is a pretty big deal. You could say you run the risk of losing the password but there are ways to circumvent this.

Inflation maybe in a controlled sense isnt bad but when shit like covid or the 2008 financial crisis happens (because it turns out a large amount of investment bankers are cunts) you cant avoid debasing the currency.
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Re: Investing?
« Reply #297 on: December 07, 2021, 10:45:15 PM »
@G raham . Interesting ideas, but I'm not so sure.

In terms of people with smart phones but without bank accounts. BTC is one of many solutions. There might be better solutions. Mobile Money Apps appear to be working well for Kenyans without bank accounts.
See: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21420357/kenya-mobile-banking-unbanked-cellphone-money

Building on the issue of lack of banking... lost passwords are a part of life. In BTC land, you're fucked if you lose your password. With a traditional bank account you can get that back. I'm out about 70 XRP cause my ex would break/lose her phone every 6 months and the app was on her account (and the password we wrote down isn't recovering the money). This is a huge issue.

As for cold-storage... everything is going to have issues. Although, I agree it currently seems pretty safe from hackers. However, it still has other issues.
https://enterprise.ledger.com/blog/cold-storage-isn-t-flawless.don-t-learn-it-the-hard-way

I think your El Salvador example is incorrect.


As for moving money into corrupt countries, yeah, I agree with that. It is one way to do this. 



@RCB3 These are interesting ideas, but I'm not convinced and there are a few things that I need to you explain a bit more.

BTC has incentive to find the cheapest energy, not necessarily the greenest energy (see https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-is-now-mining-bitcoin-for-a-utility-company/). What percent of BTC mining is done via green electricity?

In terms of comparing BTC to WellsFargo (a company I have disdain for since the Maloofs own a huge portion of the bank and a lot of private prison stock), you've simplified the role of the bank to just transferring and storing money. It ignores the business loans, personal loans, financial consulting/advice (not that I'd trust it), and so on. Not to mention, the benefit of direct interaction with customers while they are banking. And, in your example, we've ignored all the extra BTC equipment being manufactured, shipped around the world, and so on. If you have a broader calculation on the environmental effects of both that'd be interesting. I've presented the data that 100K Visa transactions use far less energy than a single BTC transaction. This is a huge difference, especially as BTC does so much less than a traditional bank.

In terms of gold, I haven't argued gold was good. It, like BTC, might be good as an irrational place to store value, but neither work as a currency. Why would I ever give you a loan in BTC or gold when I know it'll be worth more tomorrow? How does our current economy operate and continue to expand without people loans? How hard would it be to pay a BTC loan back when it is constantly worth more than you borrowed?

My question to you, is why is some inflation bad? What would actually happen if currency didn't change in value? The whole point of capitalism is to turn money into a commodity/service/whatever and then back in more money... why bother with the commodity part, if I have more wealth by doing nothing? How much would this completely fuck poor people in terms of power in society?

This argument about just printing money... How do things work if our economy goes from 10 trillion to 20 trillion and we don't increase the amount of money in circulation? You pointed out, we've printed a lot of money recently. Ok, our economy has also expanded dramatically as well.

Also, when did Keynes fall out of fashion? As someone on the left, who sees the benefits of government intervention in the market to protect individuals, to keep the economy moving, and so on, why would I want the "market" to be completely unregulated?

Do you have stats for the BTC wealth being spread out? This would be super interesting, but I'm doubtful.

G raham's example is probably incorrect. El Salvador seems to have negative inflation, which is something BTC supporters seem to like. And, "very fiat (government backed) currency in the history of civilization has failed. " What exactly do you mean? As far as I can tell there isn't a single country in the world that has money backed by gold. And, what civilization in the history of the world hasn't failed?

Afghan. This is false dichotomy between traditional banking and BTC. There are other options. The argument doesn't have to be pro traditional banking vs BTC. There are other options that may be far better for the world.

And, why exactly are the Afghan people fucked? Is it their shitty gov? Or the American Gov freezing its assets and no longer pouring money into its economy? Also, what if the Taliban or some authoritarian gov were immune to sanctions or freezing of their money in the global economy? Would that be ideal? Do we want the govs of say, N. Korea to be able to spend on anything anywhere outside of the traditional flow of money? (A counter point here would be to allow Cuba to trade without worry of the US embargo on them and whoever is fool-hearty enough to trade with them.)

I'm not trying to convince you otherwise because I don't think SLAP is going to be a great medium for rational debate, but just pointing out a lot of the things you brought up are the typical talking points of BTC of people who oppose it.

I think the energy debate is so vast because, again, since it sounds like you don't like BTC, so at what point would the energy be an acceptable amount if you don't see it as value? I see it as incredible value to the world, so if going back and forth won't change minds. A larger thesis on BTC and our current system and how it relates to environmental issue, which you mentioned also about why a little inflation is bad, is that our current system is built on an inflating economy that literally promotes spending and consumption for the economy to be perpetually growing. If the economy and consumption stops growing, the system collapses, so in my view BTC would vastly reduce consumption on a zoomed out view, which is way better environmentally.

Speaking about Wells Fargo or traditional banks, I think I just have a different view on the services provided as beneficial. Just because it's the only options around doesn't mean it's not shit. I currently can put my BTC up as collateral on a Defi platform and receive a loan at 1% and get the money in an hour and skip the bullshit middlemen and fees involved in traditional finance. I don't blame people working at banks necessarily because it's just the system we have in place, but I personally don't see their services as a benefit to society.

On your inflation point, I think I'd just 100% disagree with that statement about it fucking the poor. It's literally the opposite. Our current system of inflation is perpetually dividing the wealth gap further and further apart. The people who have money benefit from owning assets that appreciate while the poor lose purchasing power in the dollar. And when inflation is above 10% a year, it fucks them harder. I find it weird you don't seem concerned of our money supply doubling in the last 2 years and not think that has a profound impact on inflation and how that could somehow be healthy in some way. Again, that goes back to my critique of our system being locked into needed to be perpetually growing and consuming, which is a drain on this planet.

Regarding your statement about governments failing, I think you missed my point. I said fiat (government backed currencies) have 100% failed throughout history. And I consider myself more on the left of politics as well, but I just don't see how you can think the government is productive in spending capital that actually helps those who need it. I think all governments are slow and corrupt in how money is spent. That goes back to the beauty of decentralization of Bitcoin. I'm not for some anarchy like some Bitcoiners, but I think our government is absolute shit at protecting the vulnerable.

And just a quick point about questioning whale wallets decreasing, it's literally just on chain data. I'm not telling you an opinion. You can subscribe to places like GlassNode that share all the data and charts on stuff like that. It's expensive to subscribe, but a lot of people cover the charts and data that you can see online. Also the wallets holding over .01 BTC is at its highest ever volume at 93 million, which is just the trend of it being more decentralized over time.

I'm sure this will all just boil down to agree to disagree. I just happen to see BTC as a way for people to opt out of current systems and think the world is fucked with it's current forms of monetary policy and BTC could, and will, bring immense change.


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Re: Investing?
« Reply #298 on: December 08, 2021, 08:38:23 AM »

I think the energy debate is so vast because, again, since it sounds like you don't like BTC, so at what point would the energy be an acceptable amount if you don't see it as value?

this argument is a logical fallacy that sidesteps the totally valid criticism of bitcoin. its like addressing someone pointing out vast inequality and responding "at what level would inequality be acceptable". just because the answer is somewhat flexible and subjective, does not mean that it is good that bitcoin transactions use a shocking amount of energy.

bitcoin does not address our capitalist model of constant growth.

bitcoin is not decentralized, its mostly owned by "whales" and mostly mined by a small minority. it is only decentralized in theory, not in practice.

bitcoin has been around for a while and has not changed anything save getting a few people rich. it is currently being used adjacent the financial system you claim to criticize. it has not changed the economy of El Salvador, and i think its kind of insulting when people bring up third world countries in an attempt to justify their portfolio going up.

disappointing to see someone claim to be "left" but justify absurd energy use for a currency that does not improve anything for the common man and lines the pockets of the wealthy. i expect this sort of thing from reddit but not slap.

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Re: Investing?
« Reply #299 on: December 08, 2021, 09:04:34 AM »
Expand Quote

I think the energy debate is so vast because, again, since it sounds like you don't like BTC, so at what point would the energy be an acceptable amount if you don't see it as value?
[close]

this argument is a logical fallacy that sidesteps the totally valid criticism of bitcoin. its like addressing someone pointing out vast inequality and responding "at what level would inequality be acceptable". just because the answer is somewhat flexible and subjective, does not mean that it is good that bitcoin transactions use a shocking amount of energy.

bitcoin does not address our capitalist model of constant growth.

bitcoin is not decentralized, its mostly owned by "whales" and mostly mined by a small minority. it is only decentralized in theory, not in practice.

bitcoin has been around for a while and has not changed anything save getting a few people rich. it is currently being used adjacent the financial system you claim to criticize. it has not changed the economy of El Salvador, and i think its kind of insulting when people bring up third world countries in an attempt to justify their portfolio going up.

disappointing to see someone claim to be "left" but justify absurd energy use for a currency that does not improve anything for the common man and lines the pockets of the wealthy. i expect this sort of thing from reddit but not slap.

I never said Bitcoin doesn't use a lot of energy. It certainly does. What I said is what that energy is used for. Obviously you disagree and that's fine. You won't change your mind, but my point is, I still think people like you would say it's terrible for the planet if 95% of it was green mining. It won't change that.

And it's just incredibly naive and uninformed to say it has not changed anything but getting "a few people rich." I personally don't like how El Salvador implemented it, and didn't mention El Salvador in any of my points. But how does having millions of people in places like Nigeria using it as a way to bank themselves and have store of value to transact with that isn't debasing away not helping? And if you don't think people using it for remittances isn't helping people in huge ways, then again you're just uninformed.

And saying it does not improve anything for the common man is just idiotic. Anyone can opt into the network. Doesn't matter if you put 10 dollars or 10 million. 

I'm curious, do you think our country and world are just fine in terms of monetary policy? Obviously you're critical of Bitcoin, but what's your solution? Do you think there's an inflation problem that can somehow be controlled? What's your idea of how to shrink the wealth gap in society? Those are genuine questions.

And what a depressing statement to feel like someone who claims to be "left" but apparently isn't 100% all in on every one of your "left" ideals. That's why so many people hate liberals these days. What a terrible way to live to not adjust your stances after learning more on a subject.


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