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1. You will never miss out. Even if you never by bitcoins and it becomes world money, you'll benefit from it indirectly (and taking no risk in the process). 2.

1. You will never miss out. Even if you never by bitcoins and it becomes world money, you'll benefit from it indirectly (and taking no risk in the process). 2. It's never too late. The bet is that Bitcoin becomes world money. If so, all the wealth stored in cash, gold, silver, bonds and other low-risk less liquid assets will go into Bitcoin. This will make it worth more than 10 million of today's USD per BTC.

sillysaurus2 13y ago
2. The bet is that Bitcoin becomes world money. It's also worth noting that the US government now owns 0.686% of all bitcoins that will ever be created. (They seized 144k coins in the Silk Road raid, and eventually there will be 21 million total coins.)
- oleganza 13y ago
  They must be motivated to preserve that wealth now.
  - mcv 13y ago
    I think they intend to sell it. Now seems like a good time for that.
    - greenlander 13y ago
      It seems likely that they'll be required to AUCTION them off through an approved process rather than sell them themselves on an exchange. And they probably won't do that until they've convicted "Dread Pirate Roberts"
  - gcb0 13y ago
    > right time to sell it And plummet the price back to sub dollar values
    - oleganza 13y ago
      There are enough of private investors willing to buy without crashing prices on the open exchange. Financially, it'll be a good deal for both a buyer and a seller. I heard SecondMarket's BIT (bitcoin investment trust) can't buy new bitcoins fast enough from private hands to satisfy the demand.
- toomim 13y ago
  And they have said that they will liquidate (sell) all of that back to USD, like they do any other seized asset.
- fastball 13y ago
  Was there every any concrete evidence that they did in fact have access to the wallet DPR was using?
  - shocks 13y ago
    Supposedly these ones. http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GN...
endriju 13y ago
...all the wealth stored in cash, gold, silver, bonds and other low-risk less liquid assets will go into Bitcoin This is rather utopic vision. None of the gold owners would sell significant part of their gold for btc - gold is used to store value for ages, bitcoin is a currency.
- oleganza 13y ago
  I personally know a gold owner who dumped all his gold (accumulated over past several years) for Bitcoin in February. Bitcoin has different risks than gold, but you can 1) move it cheaply and quickly to a safer location any time 2) you can buy stuff with it directly. Gold sits there and you always have to fear that government or someone else confiscates it, to makes it PITA to sell a portion of it.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Both are commodities and containers for wealth. If there's an arbitrage opportunity in exchanging one for the other, they'll likely be exchanged. The thing about "store of value" principles is that the ascribed value of things changes. It generally has a floor of the marginal cost of production / extraction / acquisition, though sometimes it can fall below even that (viz: inflated currency literally not worth the paper it's printed on). If someone's willing to pay more for bitcoin than gold, or you're betting that that the value of bitcoin will increase, trading gold for BTC makes sense. In terms of tangible value -- Gold is more likely a persistent store of value than BTC, but where you need to move wealth quickly and easily (say, you're fleeing an unstable situation), a BTC wallet somewhere else might be a lot easier than smuggling out gold ingots. Even a (moderately) modest amount of wealth, say, $50m, would be somewhat over a ton of gold. Hard to run with that in your pockets. If you want to limit yourself to a maximum of 45# of weight, you could carry slighltly under $850,000 at current market prices. Not insignificant, but depending on the loot you're trying to, well, loot, possibly less than you might hope.
- mike_esspe 13y ago
  Silver was demonetised in 20th century relative to gold, though it was used as a store of value. It can happen with gold too. http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/silver-a-brief-history-of-de-monetisation/ http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/silver-a-brief-history-of-d...

sillysaurus2 13y ago

2. The bet is that Bitcoin becomes world money. It's also worth noting that the US government now owns 0.686% of all bitcoins that will ever be created. (They seized 144k coins in the Silk Road raid, and eventually there will be 21 million total coins.)

oleganza 13y ago
They must be motivated to preserve that wealth now.
- mcv 13y ago
  I think they intend to sell it. Now seems like a good time for that.
  - greenlander 13y ago
    It seems likely that they'll be required to AUCTION them off through an approved process rather than sell them themselves on an exchange. And they probably won't do that until they've convicted "Dread Pirate Roberts"
- gcb0 13y ago
  > right time to sell it And plummet the price back to sub dollar values
  - oleganza 13y ago
    There are enough of private investors willing to buy without crashing prices on the open exchange. Financially, it'll be a good deal for both a buyer and a seller. I heard SecondMarket's BIT (bitcoin investment trust) can't buy new bitcoins fast enough from private hands to satisfy the demand.
toomim 13y ago
And they have said that they will liquidate (sell) all of that back to USD, like they do any other seized asset.
fastball 13y ago
Was there every any concrete evidence that they did in fact have access to the wallet DPR was using?
- shocks 13y ago
  Supposedly these ones. http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GN...

endriju 13y ago

...all the wealth stored in cash, gold, silver, bonds and other low-risk less liquid assets will go into Bitcoin This is rather utopic vision. None of the gold owners would sell significant part of their gold for btc - gold is used to store value for ages, bitcoin is a currency.

oleganza 13y ago
I personally know a gold owner who dumped all his gold (accumulated over past several years) for Bitcoin in February. Bitcoin has different risks than gold, but you can 1) move it cheaply and quickly to a safer location any time 2) you can buy stuff with it directly. Gold sits there and you always have to fear that government or someone else confiscates it, to makes it PITA to sell a portion of it.
dredmorbius 13y ago
Both are commodities and containers for wealth. If there's an arbitrage opportunity in exchanging one for the other, they'll likely be exchanged. The thing about "store of value" principles is that the ascribed value of things changes. It generally has a floor of the marginal cost of production / extraction / acquisition, though sometimes it can fall below even that (viz: inflated currency literally not worth the paper it's printed on). If someone's willing to pay more for bitcoin than gold, or you're betting that that the value of bitcoin will increase, trading gold for BTC makes sense. In terms of tangible value -- Gold is more likely a persistent store of value than BTC, but where you need to move wealth quickly and easily (say, you're fleeing an unstable situation), a BTC wallet somewhere else might be a lot easier than smuggling out gold ingots. Even a (moderately) modest amount of wealth, say, $50m, would be somewhat over a ton of gold. Hard to run with that in your pockets. If you want to limit yourself to a maximum of 45# of weight, you could carry slighltly under $850,000 at current market prices. Not insignificant, but depending on the loot you're trying to, well, loot, possibly less than you might hope.
mike_esspe 13y ago
Silver was demonetised in 20th century relative to gold, though it was used as a store of value. It can happen with gold too. http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/silver-a-brief-history-of-de-monetisation/ http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/silver-a-brief-history-of-d...