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People who bought at the absolute peak of the last market, where it was for only an hour or so, are now up %2700 on that purchase in 4 years. You can hold and

People who bought at the absolute peak of the last market, where it was for only an hour or so, are now up %2700 on that purchase in 4 years. You can hold and you can dollar cost average, and if you weren't buying with the intention of holding for 5 or more years you weren't really investing you were speculating and if you're speculating you should be hedged or have a strategy that can handle a dynamic market. I know people who were early in bitcoin and they are still HODLing and using their BTC wealth to invest in other things like ETH and startups.

hueving 9y ago
And we're still waiting for tulip bulbs to return to their peak value. Just because it continued up before doesn't mean it will continue up in the future.
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  The difference is that tulip bulbs were not a new technology with a compelling use case that keeps reaching wider and wider audiences.
  - mikekchar 9y ago
    That's such a weird comment, because they literally were. I think I understand what you mean, but I also think that you underestimate the impact that the introduction of the tulip to Europe had on the economy. If you browse through the Wikipedia page, I think you will find it interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania Also interesting is the effect that it still has on the economy. Some of the big flower monopolies that still exist today (nearly 400 years later!) were created by people who speculated on tulip bulbs and diversified quickly enough (mostly by using profits to buy up land). We tend to think about things from our own perspectives, but when you are looking at that time period, imports of agricultural products to the wealthy is what ruled the world. Just like they were able to saturate their market, so will we with abstract financial products. Those who are able to diversify quickly enough will probably be the next big winners. Those who keep buying graphic cards will probably be the next big losers.
  - taw55 9y ago
    Pyramid schemes and appealing to ideologues isn't what I personally would call a compelling use case...
  - hueving 9y ago
    In addition to mikechar's sibling comment, keep in mind that the blockchain technology can still be used for all kinds of stuff even if Bitcoin and Ethereum completely collapse to zero. They are just specific implementations and there is nothing particularly unique about them technologically compared to any given fork of the same code.
    - rothbardrand 9y ago
      Your thinking is exactly where I was in about 2012. The network effects is why bitcoin has remained so valuable in the face of, say, litecoin which is arguably better technologically.
- ojr 9y ago
  closest thing to Bitcoin was gold certificates not the tulip bubble that lasted 2 years. Gold certificates stopped circulating when the US government said so with Executive Order 6102. Bitcoin is not gold to me, gold is a shiny rock, periodic element, and bitcoin is alternative to PayPal with less transaction fees and a better api. That's where I see the value. Programmable money without going through a too-big-to-fail central bank everytime is a valuable feature.
  - annabellish 9y ago
    >with less transaction fees and a better api Bitcoin has significantly higher transaction fees than paypal and a much less mature, much harder to use API.
    - popol12 9y ago
      Currently, fees are rock bottom, like 3 cents for typical transactions. And it should last, with Segwit's activation very soon.
    - ojr 9y ago
      You can't send money to multiple people using paypal without being approved by PayPal and with KYC and other regulatory laws there's a lot of friction using paypal send api with bitcoin on the other hand, no permission is needed that is way I think bitcoin has an easier api, I'm not referring to the actual C++ bitcoin api but there are javascript api clients to Bitcoin that are dev friendly. Bitcoin transaction fees are high? (Around $1 per transaction at the moment) versus 2.9% of the total with paypal. It is even cheaper with Ethereum which fall under the bitcoin umbrella.
  - _fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
    Do people really use bitcoin like they use PayPal though? It seems to me that the vast majority of people own bitcoin because they speculate that its value will go up and not to make actual transactions.
    - ojr 9y ago

hueving 9y ago

And we're still waiting for tulip bulbs to return to their peak value. Just because it continued up before doesn't mean it will continue up in the future.

rothbardrand 9y ago
The difference is that tulip bulbs were not a new technology with a compelling use case that keeps reaching wider and wider audiences.
- mikekchar 9y ago
  That's such a weird comment, because they literally were. I think I understand what you mean, but I also think that you underestimate the impact that the introduction of the tulip to Europe had on the economy. If you browse through the Wikipedia page, I think you will find it interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania Also interesting is the effect that it still has on the economy. Some of the big flower monopolies that still exist today (nearly 400 years later!) were created by people who speculated on tulip bulbs and diversified quickly enough (mostly by using profits to buy up land). We tend to think about things from our own perspectives, but when you are looking at that time period, imports of agricultural products to the wealthy is what ruled the world. Just like they were able to saturate their market, so will we with abstract financial products. Those who are able to diversify quickly enough will probably be the next big winners. Those who keep buying graphic cards will probably be the next big losers.
- taw55 9y ago
  Pyramid schemes and appealing to ideologues isn't what I personally would call a compelling use case...
- hueving 9y ago
  In addition to mikechar's sibling comment, keep in mind that the blockchain technology can still be used for all kinds of stuff even if Bitcoin and Ethereum completely collapse to zero. They are just specific implementations and there is nothing particularly unique about them technologically compared to any given fork of the same code.
  - rothbardrand 9y ago
    Your thinking is exactly where I was in about 2012. The network effects is why bitcoin has remained so valuable in the face of, say, litecoin which is arguably better technologically.
ojr 9y ago
closest thing to Bitcoin was gold certificates not the tulip bubble that lasted 2 years. Gold certificates stopped circulating when the US government said so with Executive Order 6102. Bitcoin is not gold to me, gold is a shiny rock, periodic element, and bitcoin is alternative to PayPal with less transaction fees and a better api. That's where I see the value. Programmable money without going through a too-big-to-fail central bank everytime is a valuable feature.
- annabellish 9y ago
  >with less transaction fees and a better api Bitcoin has significantly higher transaction fees than paypal and a much less mature, much harder to use API.
  - popol12 9y ago
    Currently, fees are rock bottom, like 3 cents for typical transactions. And it should last, with Segwit's activation very soon.
  - ojr 9y ago
    You can't send money to multiple people using paypal without being approved by PayPal and with KYC and other regulatory laws there's a lot of friction using paypal send api with bitcoin on the other hand, no permission is needed that is way I think bitcoin has an easier api, I'm not referring to the actual C++ bitcoin api but there are javascript api clients to Bitcoin that are dev friendly. Bitcoin transaction fees are high? (Around $1 per transaction at the moment) versus 2.9% of the total with paypal. It is even cheaper with Ethereum which fall under the bitcoin umbrella.
- _fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
  Do people really use bitcoin like they use PayPal though? It seems to me that the vast majority of people own bitcoin because they speculate that its value will go up and not to make actual transactions.
  - ojr 9y ago