Bitcoin is one of the most amazing stories in world and finance history. That cannot be argued. It is the biggest bubble/mania in history, and it is still in the stratosphere, as far as that is concerned.

Myself, and many others bashing it obviously would have been far better off years ago...heck, even less than two years ago, if we had loaded up. We admit that. But we are still right about its price prospects going forward. Remember, all great manias and bubbles end in permanent price collapse....period. Now, I guess if you believe that, all things considered, 6K or so per bitcoin is early enough in the mania, then that is what you must hang your hat on.

But there is only so much money in the world that can be transferred to the lucky few, so I see 6K at an extreme high point of risk, no matter how much bitcoin is adopted in the future.

I used to watch Peter Schiff years ago, but I found that once I had seem most of his videos, that I could give his same speech, word for word. Each side of this bitcoin discussion is probably at that same point now. The arguments are the arguments. The results will be the results. Peter Schiff was bashing it at $100, and really bashing it at $1,000, yet he finally admitted that bitcoin was actually tailor made for him (in theory), and he missed out on a windfall. He still hates it, and believes it will collapse, buy he does acknowledge that it was the type of thing that actually was right up his alley, as he is anti dollar, anti government, etc. He missed it, even if he is maintaining his anti-bitcoin stance.

It is a good idea to give the other side some serious thought when you get wedded to a position, especially when you take a public stance against something. That is why Peter Schiff could never win with bitcoin...he could never change gears. He has good ideas, but is generally wrong about how the real world plays out.

On most all forums, the biggest threads that aren't related to the particular forum, involve Bitcoin and Donald Trump. Two monster stories of the last many years, that almost everybody was wrong about, and very few people profited from (as a percentage who had the chance to profit). That will be one of my angles going forward...looking for threads unrelated to a particular forum, that dominate the talk. Might find some good investment or speculation ideas there.

But the price of bitcoin still ends in total collapse from these prices.

Says the guy bearish since $250. You are as married to your position as any bitcoin bull.

Maybe when (if?) it goes below $250 you will have some credibility.

But again, USD price is the least interesting thing about bitcoin, I really hope the mods will give us a bitcoin-technologytalk-only thread.

You seem to see what you want to see. I mentioned that as bitcoin was rising through the years, I was always anti-bitcoin, as I did not want to be associated with the "loser" crowd. However, when I first started using it in 2015, I did begin to understand the mania a bit more, as it was useful to move money out of sportsbooks. It just so happened that the price was $250 at the time, and since I moved around 100 coins....25K at the time, of course I still did the math in late 2017, and could see that if I had left the bitcoins in the account, instead of exchanging them for dollars, the account would have a few million in it at the peak (assuming I was not hacked).

But I never had any intentions of ever buying it for speculative purposes. I used it for its original intention, so I don't have real regrets, unlike major hardcore bitcoin fanatics that have been pumping it for years, but still managed to not retire rich, or even make money at all. Those are the people who have the regrets. They were in the right place at the right time, with the right idea, and are still broke.

You probably ordered something from Amazon in the past year. Did anyone in your family become rich buying Amazon at $7 in 2002? Why not? They must not be too bright. Why didn't Warren Buffet's schoolmates become billionaire investors? He probably had good ideas then, too? Life is not so easy. Why didn't Buffet's sister become an expert investor? She actually blew an inheritance from her mother, and Buffet didn't bail her out....she put a brokerage firm out of business by using leverage and blowing up. Why didn't she just do exactly what her brother did?

Ok, so you used it for sportsbooks - enough about price. Can't you see that bitcoin (or a bitcoin derivative) is going to have truly decentralized sportsbetting with miniscule fees in the near future? Think a truly global Betfair with sub-satoshi fees. Don't you think that network would have some...dare we say...value? Same with decentralized poker.

I'm not putting any price on it, but this technology is a revolution in decentralized payments, smart contracts, digital assets, and you should be able to see that despite your bubble-coloured glasses.

All these arguments about still being up on investments because they got in hella early/before last year and arguments about bubble suckers losing 50-90% from ATH kind of serve no purpose when we're talking about unrealized gains...

I will say this one more time. Even if bitcoin adoption increases a ton year after year, I still believe that you are misguided in believing that it is worthy of investment and speculation. If you actually get what you wish for, you might just be shocked that the price doesn't go to 100K or more, and actually goes down from here, and down a lot.

That is a main part of my argument, that many of you are assuming that if bitcoin is used by more and more people, that the value of each coin will go up. I suggest that because it is already documented as the largest bubble/mania of all time, that you are past the point of no return...in other worlds....you have no chance of ever getting appreciation from here, to where every single bitcoin right now could be redeemed for 6 to 6.5K per coin (and remember, it isn't even a coin...it is simply text...like an email...and that is part of the "scam").

There were actually publicly traded companies 15 to 20 years ago, based solely on profiting on email. Didn't work out so well, though everyone now uses email. Most car and airline companies in history have gone to zero, as have most cell phone/mobile phone companies, most retailers, etc.

I predict that bitcoin never sniffs 20K again in its history. If it does, you will make three times your money from here. My prediction may not come true. I see tremendous risk right now in holding bitcoin for investment or speculation. You have countless things that can go wrong, and even if it goes right, the price is so high right now compared to what the early holders got it at (some got tons of coins for essentially free), that there will be no way to cash out.

There really is nothing to talk about other than that, so I will try to exit this thread permanently. Bitcoin was 6.3K the last I checked. I will bump the thread when it is under 4K. I don't believe it ever hits 20K again, and probably not 13K....might not ever hit 10K again.

My god you are sooo focused on price. There are a lot of people who care about the technology - about not ever getting scammed by a shady sportsbook again. About not getting killed by high juice because of regulatory capture. About disrupting the high fees in the sportsbetting markets.

I'm not saying it's going back to 20k, and that's not part of this point. As a sportsbettor, if you are not excited about this you are braindead. Using it to bet at 1.99 instead of 1.91 (-101 instead of -110) will make break even or winning sportbettors rich.

Can't you at least talk about the technology? Or is that impossible due to your maniacal focus on price.

The price is 90 percent of why it is talked about. I'm out of this thread. Like I said a few pages back, if bitcoin traded at $250 for the last three years, give or take say $20, and it was being used about as much as it is being used now, hardly anyone would care.

The huge price accelerated the conversation, which had a self fulfilling effect of increasing speculation, and therefore, price, investment in the crypto space, etc. Without the price increase, the interest would have been about 10 percent of what it has been. Hardcore bitcoiners would still be pumping, but mainstream society would not care at all. You don't get it. Without the huge price increase, nobody really cares. So, it all comes back to the dollars. And once again, if the price had stayed in a 10 or 20 percent range or so in the last few years, your shouts would be meaningless, but it people in the real world who have never heard of it, can get through life just fine without it. Almost all of the other "scam" cryptos, only got real attention because of their price being pumped. Bitcoin is not needed, even if it is useful for mostly criminal transactions. I have used it probably 50 times in three years....technically all criminal activity, I suppose....depositing and withdrawing from offshore sportsbooks. It is great for that, but that again it was great for that when the price was $250, so price means nothing.

Eventually you will have to figure this out by waking up one day for a huge even.....you may call the event a black swan event when it happens, but you would be fooling yourself. There are all kinds of things that can crush the price of bitcoin. Having it currently be the biggest bubble/mania in history just guarantees that the current holders, at 6.3K, as a group, suffer catastrophic losses. Almost 100 percent guaranteed, considering all dynamics at play. Once again, it is one of the all time stories in world history, especially financial history, and to those who loaded up and cashed out, or who loaded up low and are up huge, that is something to tip your hat to, even if it was luck. They put themselves in a position to get really lucky, and some did.

If the big holders, who got their ledgers of text (not really coins, now are they?) early, really cared about anything other than cashing the text in on the backs of the public, for billions, they would not have hoarded them from day one. Congrats to them on pulling off the scam of the lifetime.

This will be written about for hundreds of years. Once the public who got trapped in this scam actually realize their billions of losses, and when there is no hope left, they will realize that they were scammed. There will be congressional hearings about this. An amazing scam, as nobody is quite sure how it all began, or who exactly is pulling the strings of the puppet....total scam price manipulation when 50 different cryptos at a time move in unison. It is mathematically impossible for that to be happening organically. Sea of red, followed by green, and they all move at once, for the most part.

My advice. Get out. Stay out. And don't come back. Or get crushed.

Seems like most are just in it for the Lambos tho

Not sure Crypto is the thing you want to get into if your goal is to avoid getting scammed/SFYL'd

Someone needs to mine data from 2p2/reddit/etc. comparing the amount of "In it for the tech" posts/comments with the price. Seems like when the price goes up, we're gonna MOOOOOON and when it falls, who cares, we're here for the tech.

If you want to talk solely about the tech, then you are in the wrong forum.

I'm still waiting for a response to these questions...

I've tried to answer them myself and I just don't see anything convincing on the BTC bull side other than blockchain technology is here to stay and will continue to grow its usage and use cases...

But that's not an argument for BTC. That's an argument for blockchain technology, and nobody has any idea if BTC is the next MySpace or the next facebook. ETF prospects don't even interest me anymore and may never even happen. I sold all my crypto and probably won't bother with it again. I'd rather just own VOO or sth

'Blockchain technology' is overhyped nonsense. The only usecase is digital scarcity. BTC is the only implementation of digital scarcity that is verified by tens of thousands of independent nodes worldwide and is immutable.

Neither...BTC isn't a fockin company man. It's an open source protocol that nobody owns or controls and one in which hundreds and hundreds of the smartest cryptographers in history have VOLUNTEERED their time to maintain, improve, and innovate on. It's the thing upon which the Myspaces/facebooks will attempt to build upon and around.

Towards the argument in here that "zomg there's no one left to buy into the ponzi".

there's ~5 Million BTC addresses with 100$ or more in them in the entire world.

Clash of Clans gets 100 Million users?

There was/is a gigantic disconnect between people who talked/watched/argued about the hype of Bitcoin and actually participated via buying/shorting/using it.

Ledger Nano S / Trezor sales for the past 2 years are probably better estimates of people who actually bought into the bull market because anyone slightly serious about crypto has one of those.

But that doesn't matter. My new "RT's Hot Takes" app has only 1 user, but all that sweet untapped potential is useless if nobody wants it.

Bitcoin got huge, mainstream exposure in the 2017-2018 bullrun. It was, and is, on CNBC FFS. If people (at least in the developed world) aren't buying in by now, they don't want/need the product.

^ Still a lot of hurdles for people and institutions that may want to buy but can't/won't because of custody solutions, regulations etc.

An ETF may help.

bullish:
made in 09, decentralized, $6300, innovative, Vegas O/U $18k by years end(at the start of the year), Venezuela/Zimbabwe stories(for the lulz), open-minded, futuristic, digital, even playing field, global, crypto ATMs, my daughter who is 2, entirely blew me away when she told me to let it ride, it's cool

bearish: Fud, bgrif, I wouldn't mind my btc equivalent in USD for more comfort, could tank hard at any time , could spike at any time

more pros than cons = let it ride for the lulz

Many of the pros are weird. How is betting line in pros list? Look at the odds at betfair for that now. Ridiculous Over/under line.

Decentralized. Not a pro for everyone. For nerds probably, but for regular people not. I'm glad someone else is looking after my money, I might lose it on my own. A bank has never lost any of my money, but I have lost ripples which I cannot get back in any way. And a lot of people have done the same. There are millions of bitcoin lost forever, that is quite a big percentage gone. So decentralized is rather a con than a pro.

How is current price a pro? It just isnt. Or that it was established in 09?

And many others. Just a bad overall.

lol if you owned ripple it's not much of a surprise you wouldn't "get" bitcoin. I also have some air miles to sell you.

I mean, I saw a Twitter post a while back where BTC had the highest sharpe ratio of all cryptos so that's cool, but it still doesn't really guarantee or shed any light on my analogy. I think everyone already agrees BTC is the best bet (and even risk-adjusted as I just pointed out) but that's not really saying much.

The more I learn/read/hear the less I'm convinced. Like, I get the implications. I get the potential for a new world, similar to my understanding of the implications of Silk Road beyond the zomg illegal stuff.

Some of these arguments sound like they're coming from bulls but actually limit the ceiling to which the value of a BTC can grow.

A company can be a small cap, invest profits into itself to grow. It can expand globally or optimize itself until it can't anymore, and continue to print money. At that point, it pays dividends. Forever and ever, fighting to maintain staying power.

A BTC can't do that. It is a representation of this idea/thing/force that is awesome and revolutionary, but it's price doesn't really seem predicated on that. It can't grow to a massive number and stay there, or at least nobody has put forth any plausible scenario where this is possible. It just seems as if, at full theoretical expansion, the price of a BTC just becomes a (for lack of a better word) currency of sorts. It'll just fluctuate in a more stable manner as time approaches infinity. Does this make sense? Is my thinking way off base? Doesn't seem like it can grow with the global production and population, increasing the price which is supposed to reflect its value. This is BFI, we don't have an interest in anything that can't beat the market. We lol @ gold, so I'd think it not a stretch to lol @ digital gold. At least that's clear for long term investment...

I'm only convinced that maybe a 10% allocation to an overall portfolio is reasonable. Or throwaway money I can gamble for entertainment. Or treat any investment into the space a part of my poker/DFS/sports betting bankroll. Anything more than that just seems unreasonably risky.

Crazy that you're not a believer and still willing to chuck 10% of your portfolio at it.

Not sure I'd recommend that high a percentage even if you're a firm believer.

Also not sure why you think the price is capped. Your thinking seems a little muddled.

Decentralisation is important for the monetary policy and censorship resistance.

You can store your BTC on Coinbase if you're so worried about losing them, they'll basically be a bank soon enough. UX still isn't great but it will become much easier to use.

And yeah, if you bought Ripple you have a long ways to go before you 'get it'.