Stock Market Thread

[ispoonwithmugen]

Let's talk Crypto's. Anyone investing in anything? Bitcoin cash is up 30% today and Bitcoin came close to $4,500. Ether has increased a ton. Iota is up 25% I believe as well.

Looks like a (sketchy) lucrative market. I want in but hesitant. What say ye?

Well shit I missed the boat on this one a tad. I threw some money into it this week. Can't sit on the sidelines anymore. Bubble or not there's definitely money to be made.

[Senor_Taylor]

Let's talk Crypto's. Anyone investing in anything? Bitcoin cash is up 30% today and Bitcoin came close to $4,500. Ether has increased a ton. Iota is up 25% I believe as well.

Looks like a (sketchy) lucrative market. I want in but hesitant. What say ye?

Well shit I missed the boat on this one a tad. I threw some money into it this week. Can't sit on the sidelines anymore. Bubble or not there's definitely money to be made.

I don't own much, but so far I've seen a 40% increase in value. Not sure when to hop off. We've got someone in the club that owns like, an entire btc.

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[WRXtranceformed]

And then a bitcoin exchange gets hacked and $64 million in bitcoin gets stolen...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber...SKBN1E10AQ

Texts from my brother this morning:

You know you're dealing with a bubble with bitcoin when an exchange is hacked and $70M is stolen and it is still up 9%
Tell me how that makes any rational sense
So my investment can be stolen by hackers easily and that's a good thing?  Let me buy more?

[Senor_Taylor]

I mean, saying it can get stolen easily if one bank somewhere gets robbed while your money is either in your bank, or stashed away in your house isn't very accurate.

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[WRXtranceformed]

I mean, saying it can get stolen easily if one bank somewhere gets robbed while your money is either in your bank, or stashed away in your house isn't very accurate.

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Wut

[JPolen01]

I mean, saying it can get stolen easily if one bank somewhere gets robbed while your money is either in your bank, or stashed away in your house isn't very accurate.

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Wut

You guys are nuts for investing in anything crypto with serious money. This is absolutely a bubble and backed back nothing. Not only can someone hack into the exchange and steal your currency as noted previously, you could fall victim to a phishing scam just trying to enter the market. http://fortune.com/2017/08/28/ethereum-c...n-bitcoin/
Play on, playas.

[CaptainHenreh]

And then a bitcoin exchange gets hacked and $64 million in bitcoin gets stolen...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber...SKBN1E10AQ

Texts from my brother this morning:

You know you're dealing with a bubble with bitcoin when an exchange is hacked and $70M is stolen and it is still up 9%
Tell me how that makes any rational sense
So my investment can be stolen by hackers easily and that's a good thing?  Let me buy more?

Well, if it can be stolen by hackers that's bad, but it also can't be regulated by government, (other than criminal penalties for it's use) which is good. 

Ultimately, it isn't really any different from Gold. If someone breaks into your house and steals your gold, you're SOL. If you have a soft wallet, that's basically what happened.

[Senor_Taylor]

I mean, saying it can get stolen easily if one bank somewhere gets robbed while your money is either in your bank, or stashed away in your house isn't very accurate.

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Wut

You guys are nuts for investing in anything crypto with serious money. This is absolutely a bubble and backed back nothing. Not only can someone hack into the exchange and steal your currency as noted previously, you could fall victim to a phishing scam just trying to enter the market. http://fortune.com/2017/08/28/ethereum-c...n-bitcoin/
Play on, playas.

So as with any investment, don't do it if you don't know what you're doing.

I think most people understand it's a bubble. I have ~$47 in bitcoin invested, I'll ride it out until it double, then sell. Nothing has value until people want it. People want crypto currency right now, so it's worth something. I'm fully prepared to lose my $50.

As far as I know if you're mining, you store your bitcoins locally, that was my metaphor about the banks. I'm fairly certain there isn't some central location all of the bitcoins are "stored". That's the point of it.

I may be completely wrong, so whatever. It's $50.

[CaptainHenreh]

Also, 100% chance of inside job.

[JPolen01]

 

As far as I know if you're mining, you store your bitcoins locally, that was my metaphor about the banks. I'm fairly certain there isn't some central location all of the bitcoins are "stored". That's the point of it.

No I think you're right about that. My friend has about 8 coins that he mined a few years ago when this was heating up and he has them stored on a thumb drive in a safe.

[WRXtranceformed]

And then a bitcoin exchange gets hacked and $64 million in bitcoin gets stolen...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber...SKBN1E10AQ

Texts from my brother this morning:

You know you're dealing with a bubble with bitcoin when an exchange is hacked and $70M is stolen and it is still up 9%
Tell me how that makes any rational sense
So my investment can be stolen by hackers easily and that's a good thing?  Let me buy more?

Well, if it can be stolen by hackers that's bad, but it also can't be regulated by government, (other than criminal penalties for it's use) which is good. 

Ultimately, it isn't really any different from Gold. If someone breaks into your house and steals your gold, you're SOL. If you have a soft wallet, that's basically what happened.

Except legitimate financial institutions are backed by insurance and a lot of legal regulations to prevent your money from actually disappearing if a bank got hacked.  

The analogy makes sense if you had your crypto in a physical wallet stuffed in your safe where it would be vulnerable to anybody willing and able to steal it like they would anything else you own.  The point of a banking system is to have a safe place to keep your savings and investments that isn't stuffed under your mattress or buried in your yard. It's pretty clear that these exchanges aren't "safe"

[Senor_Taylor]

 

As far as I know if you're mining, you store your bitcoins locally, that was my metaphor about the banks. I'm fairly certain there isn't some central location all of the bitcoins are "stored". That's the point of it.

No I think you're right about that. My friend has about 8 coins that he mined a few years ago when this was heating up and he has them stored on a thumb drive in a safe.

If I was your friend, I'd be in a constant anxiety attack. His $100,000 could be $200,000 or $75 tomorrow

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[JPolen01]

^Agreed. We had this discussion for hours over many beers a few weeks ago. He invested about $6k into the rigs. When does he sell? It could keep going and going and going or it could crash tomorrow? I told him I would sell, but he wants to keep riding it.

[CaptainHenreh]

Except legitimate financial institutions are backed by insurance and a lot of legal regulations to prevent your money from actually disappearing if a bank got hacked.  

The analogy makes sense if you had your crypto in a physical wallet stuffed in your safe where it would be vulnerable to anybody willing and able to steal it like they would anything else you own.  The point of a banking system is to have a safe place to keep your savings and investments that isn't stuffed under your mattress or buried in your yard.  It's pretty clear that these exchanges aren't "safe"

I'm sure you could get an insurance company to cover it. If I put my gold coin in a local pawnshop to sell on consignment and he gets robbed, there's an almost zero chance I'm getting my coin back and I'm probably not going to get it's full value either. 

It's important to note that in the NiceHash hack, it was NiceHash's bitcoins that appeared to be stolen. They were a mining collective, and would pay out at regular intervals, and so needed a wallet for users to mine 'to', so they could pay 'out' when your contribution was high enough. Yes it was uninsured. But if you kept your cash in someone else's wallet you wouldn't cry for regulation of dollar bills if they got their wallet stolen. This isn't really any different. 

I do think it's dangerous to think of this as "investment" in some way that you're going to get a return. I like to compare it to gold, because if you have physical gold in your hand, it can be stolen. You can put it in a safe or a safe deposit box, but ultimately you're responsible for the physical security of your physical thing. My homeowner's insurance might cover the theft of my PM's, maybe we'll see the same kind of coverages for cryptocurrencies. 

But I'm not gonna ask Men With Guns to go require bitcoin exchanges to have insurance.

[Senor_Taylor]

Nice hash doesn't even give you bitcoins, right? They pay you in other currencies while you rent your PC to mine btc for other people. Sooooooo, the people that mine with it didn't lose anything?

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[WRXtranceformed]

How about the Mt. Gox exchange that filed for bankruptcy after 850,000 bitcoins (both customers' AND the company's) were "lost" / stolen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox

This isn't a one time thing guys.  

By May 2016, creditors of Mt. Gox had claimed they lost $2.4 trillion when Mt. Gox went bankrupt, which they asked be paid to them.[92] The Japanese trustee overseeing the bankruptcy said that only $91 million in assets had been tracked down to distribute to claimants, despite Mt. Gox having asserted in the weeks before it went bankrupt that it had more than $500 million in assets.[93] The trustee's interim legal and accounting costs through that date, to be paid ultimately by creditors, were $5.5 million.

One thing we can agree on:  no rational person is going to look at crypto as an investment right now.  It's something you can play around with, gamble if you will, and see what happens maybe make a little side money.  If you are moving significant investment into it you are WAY less risk averse than I am.

Another thing to consider:  what happens if the Federal Reserve or other countries worldwide develop their own cryptocurrency?  (yes, they are talking about it).  You'll always have those "I don't trust the gubberment" people who will use something that's not officially recognized as a currency, generally for nefarious reasons, but a legitimized crypto currency would probably wreak havoc on these "brands".  Ben and I were talking about this over the Thanksgiving break

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Also, this should be a big red flag:

Wired Magazine reported in November 2013 that customers were experiencing delays of weeks to months in withdrawing cash from their accounts.[35][3] The article said that the company had “effectively been frozen out of the U.S. banking system because of its regulatory problems”.

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But I'm not gonna ask Men With Guns to go require bitcoin exchanges to have insurance.

If you keep money in a virtual space anywhere that isn't insured or regulated and you are fine with that, I definitely don't feel bad for you if it gets stolen.

I'm not above throwing some money at Ethereum or BTC just to see if I can get a new watch out of it, but if I did you better believe I'm not leaving it in an online exchange somewhere.  I'll stuff that thumb drive in my safe

[Apoc]

Many casual investors don't have physical bitcoin assets on their possession and it's traded electronically, so the wallet and gold analogy is pretty weak. The value is driven by speculation, not actual value, and everyone is sitting on unrealized gains. In other words, they're only worth something if you actually sell them. I have no doubt a lot of people have made a lot of money, but not by any actual increase in value (Google the difference in price and value, if interested). Do I wish I made money? Of course... but I'm not a fan of putting my money in something that is so susceptible to currency manipulation. Anyone who was pissed about the mortgage crisis and pro bitcoin has incongruous beliefs, in my opionion.

[WRXtranceformed]

Many casual investors don't have physical bitcoin assets on their possession and it's traded electronically, so the wallet and gold analogy is pretty weak. The value is driven by speculation, not actual value, and everyone is sitting on unrealized gains. In other words, they're only worth something if you actually sell them. I have no doubt a lot of people have made a lot of money, but not by any actual increase in value (Google the difference in price and value, if interested). Do I wish I made money? Of course... but I'm not a fan of putting my money in something that is so susceptible to currency manipulation. Anyone who was pissed about the mortgage crisis and pro bitcoin had inconfrious beliefs, in my opionion.

I consider myself fairly well-versed in the English language and I had to look that one up (even though I could infer the meaning from the context)

Well played with the SAT word!

[CaptainHenreh]

 Anyone who was pissed about the mortgage crisis and pro bitcoin has incongruous beliefs, in my opionion.

Totally different. Even in your 'opionion'. Nobody's deceiving anyone about the nature of bitcoin (or eth, or major altcoin). "Yeah man, it's just some math proofs." The Mortgage Crisis was active deceit of investors with the assistance of shit-ass government policy in the name of "equality". 

Mt. Gox isn't a good example, it was a "bank" that was managed shittily. It's not like somebody hauled off with everyone's bitcoins, it's that they had shady and shitty management practices.

I have no money in BTC or ETH or anything else. If you want to buy some, you should know what you're getting into, know the history and the reasoning, and do it. But if you're just like "HEY THESE TULIPS ARE SELLING LIKE HOTCAKES!" then maybe, you know, don't.

[Apoc]

Saying it doesn't make it true. The catalyst may be different, but the nature is the same - a relatively unregulated market that drives increase in price based almost entirely on futures, not on intrinsic value. Your comments address how they're created and stored, which no one is debating, and nothing about how the price is actually driven. Think bigger.

It's not just my opinion...

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/31/bitcoin-...peaet.html