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I hope that people who got in last year or earlier this year are starting to sell some of their bitcoins, at least enough to cover the cost basis. I wouldn't b
by niggler 14y ago
I hope that people who got in last year or earlier this year are starting to sell some of their bitcoins, at least enough to cover the cost basis. I wouldn't be surprised to see a very sharp fall soon.
- oleganza 14y agoUnless these people have invested extra money they can afford to lose for the reasons to save them from inflation and confiscation. Then they still have enough cash to pay the bills, so why should they get back to fiat? E.g. I myself and many of people I know are not going to sell a single Bitcoin unless any sort of personal or global disaster. And many of them are going to spend their BTC over time to avoid interaction with banking system as much as possible.
- niggler 14y agoYou could end in gold or silver or some other precious metal as well. The ultimate endpoint need not be USD.
- oleganza 14y agoPrecious metals are not easy: either you store it somewhere where people ask questions and can block your access to it, or you store it in your pocket and cannot easily spend portion of it when you need.
- tatsuke95 14y agoAnd the spread between bid/ask in the real world is large. Unless you own "paper" metals, you aren't exchanging them for the rates you see on the ticker.
- bonzoesc 14y agoFiat you can spend is more useful than fiat you can't. > I myself and many of people I know are not going to sell a single Bitcoin unless any sort of personal or global disaster. In the case of global disaster, who's going to be buying a fringe currency?
- oleganza 14y agoIf no one, then it's a total disaster. If it's recoverable, some will buy it.
- quasque 14y ago"And many of them are going to spend their BTC over time to avoid interaction with banking system as much as possible." What is the purpose of avoiding the banking system?
- niggler 14y ago99% of the people who ultimately argue about avoiding the banking system engage in behavior that is either morally questionable or explicitly illegal. I'd say about 1% are true "what i do with my money is my business and my business only" libertarians
- oleganza 14y agoBitcoin is less than in 1% of hands. Also, when did you ban cash transactions and made it morally required to pay wire transfer fees?
- stagas 14y agoMaybe you missed the fact that money in the bank are no longer trusted and can be confiscated for any reason by whatever government or entity?
- quasque 14y agoBitcoin is vulnerable too. A dedicated effort by collaborating governments could destroy or severely damage Bitcoin, by e.g. blocking the protocol, seizing powerful hashing equipment, downing exchange websites, performing a 51% attack, and so on. This notion that Bitcoin is some robust, untamperable currency system is simply incorrect.
- maxerickson 14y agoOr just make things uncomfortable for the people changing coins for other currencies. It's sort of interesting how the liquid dollar market for bitcoins makes it impossible to judge whether someone accepting bitcoins as payment trusts it much.
- iblaine 14y agoIf by sell you mean buy more things on silk road from bitcoins purchased in 2011, then you are correct.
- gwern 14y agoThat may not be a good idea. The SR pegs are based on a moving average, so even if the vendor you're buying from priced his goods to the dollar, you may well still be overpaying. (And given how fast the exchange rate has increased, if the vendor did not peg to the dollar, you'll probably be overpaying a ton.)