It felt pretty cool being a multi millionaire when I was in vietnam. Not to mention their currency is called Dong.

mikes > millis.

The thing is there has to be a ton of filtering for financial types to even get that second glance. It's easy to dismiss if you don't see the benefit or the promoter of it is fanatical. A lot of Bitcoin fanatics are exactly that, have completely unrealistic expectations, etc..., and it will set off those filters where you don't take it seriously.

I think a lot of people underestimate the network effect and think bitcoin is just another myspace.

I've never met a professional trader from a bank or a venture capital/private equity professional who said bitcoin was a bad idea, and nor have they been uneducated on the subject. They just don't believe the idea is investable for the long term. It's quite ignorant for people here to constantly think that anyone who thinks bitcoin won't be relevant in 20 or so years are "noobs who spent 15 minutes looking at it."

In my personal experience that hasn't been that case.

I'm sure they said the same thing about computers or the internet 40 or 20 years ago. Some people aren't very creative thinkers.

Professional is a funny word in this line of work, what even constitutes a "professional" anyway? someone wears a suit and tie or if its their sole source of income makes them a professional? Because then id be considered a "pro". People who work at hedge funds or other financial institutions means they're never wrong?

I've seen wallstreet-ers take both sides on bitcoin, I wonder why..maybe because different people have different views of the world which formulate into what we call opinions. giving time scales of 20 years just gives someone more time to claim they aren't wrong and trying to guess that far in to the future is exactly that.. a guess

The government has stated their stance on BTC you're welcome to have opinions but saying it won't be here in the foreseeable future Is somewhat ignorant.. In the grand scheme of things bitcoin is undervalued market cap wise for a global payment system and the longer it stays around the more trust and legitimacy is gained

As for long term investing in bitcoin I don't see how its bad so far, perhaps the volatility is scary but had you invested 4 years ago you'd be guaranteed a millionaire today

Wow I can almost feel RaineTech's tilt after reading this post

It's not that unfair, there are tons of things that might be easy to invest in and make a lot but if you don't get it or don't see the benefit, you are going to pass. Everyone is all over 3D Printing, I think it's mostly a joke. Or you don't see how you have an edge or how to make the right play or evaluate it, you stay away from what you cannot be an expert at.

On the adoption curve, certain people are going to fit into different parts. Some people want to see a lot of parts in place before getting the bigger picture, some don't want to take any chances. It's not really a big deal. Bitcoin could very well be nothing in 20 years. Cryptocurrencies could be nothing in 20 years. Or they could be quite large. To dismiss something as completely new and potentially revolutionary as guaranteed failure (and to even stupidly say it will die THIS YEAR) shows you just aren't thinking about things well.

Early stage, innovation driven VC is getting involved right now. It's not going to be everyone because it's not mature enough for that. Bigger institutional money will trail behind that once there is a track record. Again, they are going to ignore it until it's big enough on their scale to actually matter. If you have a $5B fund, how much can you reasonably through at Bitcoin? $100M? Even if it goes up 10x, it's small potatoes for you, you need to not waste big effort into something that isn't ready to hop on yet and to just gambool.

I'd be interested in seeing major investment in both the computer industry and internet and see when various VC firms and institutional money came on board. We are seeing some trickles now, although it's growing fast. Last year was the first big year for VC to even get involved, and this year it is accelerating. The price of Bitcoin has risen such that you are more likely to get a return on your investment funding businesses who can exploit the technology rather than just buying coins (which is good!). I looked at this 3 years ago, and it was too immature even for me to screw around with anything in it, and that caused me to exit. The investment made in the last year has made me change courses and possibly make major life changes on this opportunity. It's going to be a very interesting year.

But I'm sure it is useless for a trader (for now). I'm sure it's useless for big institutional money (for now). Raine is suffering from shoeism, where he can only see the present, and realize that things can change over time. Although he does seem to see some potential for it to exist, so I'm a bit surprised that he is so certain it will die so quickly. Without a fatal flaw, a fatal series of governmental actions, or an amazing replacement, it at least will die slowly.

I see the present, intermediate and the future. I am allowed to have my opinion on them. I am merely stating what I've experienced from the institutional type investors that this thread believes is pouring into bitcoin when in fact it is not. Look we are all entitled to our own opinions. So long as the logic behind our reasoning is sound then it should be respected as such rather than outcasted. It's easy to say the internet didn't look promising 40 years ago as the example of a success. But look at how many great ideas don't exist. How does AOL look to you as an investment right now when it seemed like the greatest investment ever a decade ago? A lot happens in a decade. The iphone didn't even exist then. Just quit telling me that I suffer from "shoeism" based on what you think I think when you in fact have no idea what I think.

You are making a strawman argument. We aren't claiming it's pouring in. It's just merely growing quickly (which is easy from 0). There is VC money coming in, there is Institutional money coming in, and it seems to be coming in at a greater rate every month. Just because the 5 people you talked to have one opinion doesn't mean it speaks for everyone. A bunch of traders? Why should their opinion matter ONE BIT? They are either bozos who are too small useless to matter, or they are big boys who Bitcoin is too small to matter to them yet. There's a VC guy ON THIS FORUM who is already looking into Bitcoin stuff.

This isn't about picking which company will or won't make it, such as picking AOL vs. Google. This is a technology and a platform. You are damning the entire platform, the entire technology, as irrelevant, due to the greatness of such wonderful innovations of the banking industry, such as low balance fees, or overdraft fees, or rape your mother fees, or charge you a ****-ton for not even beating the market fees on mutual funds.

If anything, I expect a lot of overinvestment in the area, into just a ton of really dumb and terrible ideas, people throwing money without even understanding it just to hope maybe to hit a home run by getting lucky. You don't speak for everyone, so quit trying to pretend like you are so well connected you know the ins and outs of it all, and then fake some NSA connection that can crack SHA-256.

We are in the very early days still, where it's just starting to be big enough for anyone to care outside geeks and hobbyists, and still far too small for the big guys to really get involved other than keeping an eye on it. And the fact that you think some guys who will basically be obsolete if this thing takes off, who hold themselves in such high regard that they couldn't possibly be huge wastes on the economy and society as a whole, have an opinion that even is relevant? Reminds me of the newspapers making fun of the internet for getting news. Buh-bye.

Comments like these just show how ignorant this forum is about not only the banking industry in general, but about basic financial and economic sense as well. They are as extreme on the pro-side as are the basic articles you read on CNN as wrong about their understanding of what bitcoin is.

It's sad how unaccepting the bitcoin zealots are of those with a more realistic opinion, eventually it will all come crashing down. Despite much ridicule, I gave strong sell warnings at $1200 and again at $800, and still think for anyone that still has a sizable position the time to sell is now.

I'm not signaling your out your posts specifically Tom, just that yours were in the last couple posts and posts like these have been pretty rampant throughout the thread by several individuals, I know we this thread tends to attract more bitcoin supporters and those not involved or avoiding it tend to stay away, which also leads to a false consensus to what is correct since it tends to just be a ton of people telling everyone else they are all correct, so even reasonable arguments against bitcoin get immediately dismissed without any rational debate.

This post just made me realize the 'Bitcoin bubble' will in fact be like the dot com crash.

Bitcoin will continue to grow at an amazing rate, similar to how the Internet did in the 90s. People will start investing a ton of money into bitcoin businesses. At first these businesses will be successful because bitcoin as a platform will be huge and everyone will imagine endless potential for bitcoin related businesses.
There will be no fundamental analysis and the majority of these businesses will be operated without sound business strategy.
The majority of these will crash similar to pets.com and other such failed websites. A lot of investment money will be lost.

However, much like the internet, bitcoin itself will survive through this crash and be the greatest technological and societal development of the next couple decades.

Agree very much this is coming. We are already seeing it somewhat with useless alt-coins. Although at least there is starting to be some innovations in alts that are actually adding interesting features.

You gave sell warnings at $1, $10, $100, and $1000. A broken clock is right twice a day. Keep clucking, Chicken Little.

How is VC/hedge fund/institutional money not being introduced when several of them have been saying that they have invested examples wolfram alpha / secondmarket

If you have seen how far BTC has come from where it has not even 2 years ago I think many would have different views, bitcoin was literally an idea not even 4 years ago and as far as adoption goes it has barely even started, so many people even still have no idea of what bitcoin is or how it works

Once bitcoin ETFs are introduced and mass adoption of ATMs are in place even then it is just a start to really bring in the money from the general population

Also who is to say some of us didn't sell when it was in the 1000s? I almost always reduce my position in BTC as exponential price movements happen, I managed to get rid of around 400BTC at those highs and that is not even 10% of what I have

Bears have been saying the same arguments both shoe and rainetech have for as long as BTC has been around and most of them are kicking themselves since buy and hold would have been the better play

Things are just getting started with BTC until I feel we are in a overvalued state I'll be holding a vast majority of my BTC because right now the market cap is hardly the size of a single fortune 500 company, selling into a bear market is dumb the time to sell was a month or two ago, good investors are buying incrementally now not selling.

How can you have so much faith in the banking system when they were the reason the economy crashed notn even 10 years ago? The same people who threatened to make the situation so much worse unless the taxpayer aka you had to bail them out

You would rather trust this same cartel like people who mainly do things to purchase more multi million dollars vacation homes and new yachts beccause they can't figure out what else to do with the money they take from you because of your belief and faith in them

Banksters are evil and I'd rather have my money in my own control FYI telling me bank dollars is better because they insure it doesn't mean a thing to me, they only insure a dollars amount so small its negligible in comparison to many peoples net worths most importantly mine

Screw them I'd rather use a system that works and has no one controlling the system

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

You're absolutely right tomcollins (/sarcasm). I for officially the last time am done with this thread. Lol at all the things you just said. Seth quit posting here for good reason. You are so extraordinarily biased to the real world that it's no longer worth the effort of saying anything just to go to insane lengths to defend it. I surrender. Best of luck all.

Oh so Kimboslice has at some point held more than $5 Million worth of BTC

This would then seem like an interesting question for someone who at the time(early January of this year) had greater than $3 Million in BTCs in his possession....

Since you didn't get a direct answer when you asked this question I'll give you one. With $3 Million at your fingertips, you are sufficiently bankrolled to live and play in 99.99999% of poker games in the world.

Hope this helps, I know it was a tough question to answer.

Can somebody please explain the bolded to this newb. Thanks. Are these things going to make credit cards disappear, make ATM machines go away? What all will they do?

It's pure delusion, nothing more.

I'm taking RaineTech's lead and exiting too, good luck everyone.

From https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=475054

Time to get back to the discussion of the promising uses of Bitcoin.

I'm just now getting around to reading this thread. I know pretty much nothing about bit coins other than you can fund some poker sites with them. What sort of businesses will best exploit the technology?