Bitcoins

[ultrazenith]

My speculative purchase of Bitcoin to the princely sum of 100 quid has paid off with a 35% increase in value. Licking myself for not buying more. I guess I could use the proceeds to buy a new chain.

 

[greencat]

I have a small amount in Bitcoin. The underlying technology has a lot of potential and no doubt there will be crypto coins which end up being bought/sold/exchanged (in the same way that in-game objects for some video games are) but hard to see which ones will win out just yet.

I suspect bitcoin will persist because it has got brand recognition and will work a bit like kind of digital gold/diamonds ie those who need a store of value that is easily portable and probably will track inflation in the long term. As to where it will go from here, I suspect there's plenty of runway in the hype cycle to go (we had a small taste of that a couple of years ago) - but obviously not financial advice. Can easily see it halving or 10x - possibly even both!

 

[dyna-ti]

Bitcoin - Now the market has it, the point is only to fleece as much as they can.

Virtual money, and you could have it all vanish in an instant.
You want to invest, buy gold.
I bought 10 sovereigns @220 each a few years ago, which are now worth nearly 350each.

 

[greencat]

I wouldn't say gold was a great investment (yours was good timing), but it's a decent store of value, often does well when times are bad and for various historical reasons will always have some intrinsic appeal. The spread is often less appealing.

It can, of course, be stolen (inc. by the government), lost, manipulated etc. Still potentially worth having a small amount in any portfolio though.

 

[mattr]

Hmmmm, colleague of mine made a pretty packet from it, sort of clearing mortgage, banking a few tens of thousands of pounds and buying a nice classic porsche. All of that from a fairly modest starting point (this was when it was growing incredibly fast).

His second foray into it paid for a very nice family holiday. (SE Asia, NZ, Aus in comfort)
Doesn't play anymore though.

Got a few other colleagues who backed the wrong horse and finished up well out of pocket.

 

[ultrazenith]

The thing with bitcoin is there was a period when it was new and very few people knew about it, like most "investment" vehicles, that was the time to get in and take a risk. Basically, you have to get in before everybody catches on to it. Now that there are so many cryptocurrencies to choose from and the concept of crypto trading/investing is quite mainstream, the possibilities to earn big money easily from buying bitcoin are now quite small.

What I'm looking at now are space industry stocks. At the moment I'm slowly building up a stake in Virgin Galactic, and also trading in and out as I do it which is making me about a 10% profit on my capital each month.

 

[CTK]

10% a month is good!

I'd rather have shares in well established companies than Bitcoins. A company can go bust of course or the shares could go down but I really do not know enough about Bitcoin to get involved.

 

[dyna-ti]

I don't agree that you should buy as much as you can. The fluctuations on the market are big, and actually, you should buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrency only in case if you have a very consistent capital!

Plenty of stories online about folk getting fleeced and losing everything, so it would be prudent not to invest all your savings in such 'floaty air' currency that has no basis in the real world.

 

[al-onestare]

Re:

What is real?

 

[ultrazenith]

Re: Re:

What is real?

Steel is real, all the way.