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I am one of the skeptics who has been dissuading people from buying Bitcoin. At every high, my recommendation is to book profit and exit. Of course, people woul

I am one of the skeptics who has been dissuading people from buying Bitcoin. At every high, my recommendation is to book profit and exit. Of course, people would call me an idiot for being cynical and short-sighted. But I have zero regret about not buying Bitcoin. I think it's better to invest money with an outlook for how it can grow. Irrespective of future cryptocurrencies and blockchains, Bitcoin has no fundamental justification for its valuation. I don't deny many people would get rich with Bitcoin. Even $10k might be peanuts with respect to future valuation but I rather have my money grow 10-20% / year, than bet on something which is pure speculation.

fitman88 9y ago
Where does one achieve 10-20% gains outside of speculation or owning a bank?
- westiseast 9y ago
  Running a business?
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    That involves quite a lot more work than buying bitcoin, though.
    - SilasX 9y ago
      And even then you only get that by counting the value of your labor as part of the investment return. If you separated out your implicit hourly wage for working for your business, the rate of return on the capital itself is much lower.
- shubhamjain 9y ago
  I forgot to mention that I am from India where those kind of returns aren't unusual. Mostly because India is still in the high-growth phase of development.
westiseast 9y ago
I agree so much with this comment. Personally I think Bitcoin and/or blockchain could be the future, but the current value is 90-95% based on dumb speculation. It’s use as a practical currency are years away, and it’s still super risky (ie. it could easily lose most of its value overnight for one reason or another). I don’t begrudge people making money from it, but I’m fed up of people telling me how awesome and groundbreaking it is, when at the moment, in practical terms, it’s just a giant pyramid scheme.
- walrus1066 9y ago
  Bitcoin itself is useless as a currency, a currency needs to have stable purchasing power, i.e. One coin will purchase roughly the same amount of goods next year as it does this year. Bitcoin by design doesn't allow this. Hopefully one day we will create a currency where the supply is determined more by demand, so it has a stable purchasing power. This'll make it much more practical for businesses and consumers to use for buying goods and services.

fitman88 9y ago

Where does one achieve 10-20% gains outside of speculation or owning a bank?

westiseast 9y ago
Running a business?
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
  That involves quite a lot more work than buying bitcoin, though.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    And even then you only get that by counting the value of your labor as part of the investment return. If you separated out your implicit hourly wage for working for your business, the rate of return on the capital itself is much lower.
shubhamjain 9y ago
I forgot to mention that I am from India where those kind of returns aren't unusual. Mostly because India is still in the high-growth phase of development.

westiseast 9y ago

I agree so much with this comment. Personally I think Bitcoin and/or blockchain could be the future, but the current value is 90-95% based on dumb speculation. It’s use as a practical currency are years away, and it’s still super risky (ie. it could easily lose most of its value overnight for one reason or another). I don’t begrudge people making money from it, but I’m fed up of people telling me how awesome and groundbreaking it is, when at the moment, in practical terms, it’s just a giant pyramid scheme.

walrus1066 9y ago
Bitcoin itself is useless as a currency, a currency needs to have stable purchasing power, i.e. One coin will purchase roughly the same amount of goods next year as it does this year. Bitcoin by design doesn't allow this. Hopefully one day we will create a currency where the supply is determined more by demand, so it has a stable purchasing power. This'll make it much more practical for businesses and consumers to use for buying goods and services.