The Lemon Fool

Perhaps this question belongs more to the realm of the psychology of investors. It does, however, intrigue me as I'm interested in that aspect of investing and human behavior in general.

I’d say perception. The wild swings go both ways. A lot of people are risk-averse and don’t want to catch it at the wrong time. This is especially strong since the public got burned in 2018. I think for some people it still appears as a criminal’s currency, and for the rest, it seems like a gamble.

Other than online forums, I don’t think most people care about the widespread adoption of cryptos. To them it’s just another electronic currency, like Apple Pay or Alipay. If it isn’t adopted, why use it? It’s just a novelty, which isn’t even backed by a familiar name. Libra will make significant inroads in this area, but I’m not sure if public knowledge will expand across all cryptos.

Price might also be a problem. At 10k USD (give or take 30%...), people think it’s already quite expensive. They don’t see the upside (last time the peak was 20k).

James Smith, [Deleted]

Q: What is the biggest hurdle stopping newcomers purchasing their first Bitcoin?

A. common sense

BusyBumbleBee wrote:

Q: What is the biggest hurdle stopping newcomers purchasing their first Bitcoin?

A. common sense

And an aversion to gambling

Bitcoin reminds me very much of the dot com bubble in the early 2000s.

People are only buying it because they think it will go up, much like they bought pets.com thinking it would be worth a fortune.
Nobody uses bitcoin to actually buy and sell anything, much like nobody bought their cans of petfood from pets.com

So it's basically another tulip mania - you might make money or you might lose money, but be clear that it is gambling not investment.

We probably will have a global currency at some point, and it may even be block chain based but I very much doubt it will be bitcoin, the currency is too unstable and transactions take far too long. Can you imagine being in the queue at a grocery store and the person in front is paying with Bitcoin: "sorry you'll all have to wait for 20 minutes while the blockchain finalises this transaction"

I'll repeat what I said to an earlier question about bitcoin from you:

Bitcoin is a form of gambling on the sentiment of a small number of people whose characteristics are unknown, and whose only track record is of violent swings of emotion for no known reason. It's absurd to try and tie it to world economics. It's not an investment (it doesn't go towards building up anything tangible), it's a bet.

The target market for bitcoin is not investors, it's the people Paddy Power and Ladbrokes are trying to reach. Maybe the limiting of fixed-odds betting terminals will encourage a few more people to turn to bitcoin in the UK.

Actually, there is a significant hurdle I didn't mention - the times that bitcoin exchanges have failed, or that people promising to keep bitcoin safe for people have run off with other people's money. And many people won't want to take the technical responsibility of maintaining their own bitcoin purchases safe. It's not like betting with a major company - it's like heading into a dubious dive you've never been in before and which has a reputation for drug dealing and drug-running, full of men who weigh twice as much as you, and saying "who fancies a game of craps? You can provide the dice". You might win, but you've got to have confidence.

Snorvey wrote:It's a fugasi.

I had to look that one up

RC

Mention of the technical difficulty of bitcoin is valid. It wasn't easy but it is getting easier.

Now you can purchase bitcoin and have a VISA debit card to spend them. Technical side is now mostly gone as it becomes easy to use. Google helps but this one was first on the list:

http://www.bestbitcoincard.com/

Of course, the card scheme owner has your bitcoin so it might be an idea to have multiple different cards each with a little crypto on to reduce risk.

DYOR of course but a card with a few crypto-quid on it is a cute present for sons & daughters.

mjbdreamer wrote:
DYOR of course but a card with a few crypto-quid on it is a cute present for sons & daughters.

Or how about a packet of cigarettes to get them addicted early? Nice present!

Aldumbell wrote:Perhaps this question belongs more to the realm of the psychology of investors. It does, however, intrigue me as I'm interested in that aspect of investing and human behavior in general.

Moderator Message:
Moved from Investment Strategies to Other Investing (leaving a link). - Chris

Well, if you can accept that the premise could be wrong -- i.e. that bitcoin has nothing to do with investing -- then things might become clearer.

GS
P.S. And if you can't then do explain WHAT exactly one is supposed to be investing in?

Aldumbell wrote:
What is the biggest hurdle stopping newcomers purchasing their first Bitcoin?

Probably the regular occurrences of these types of horror-stories -

'How I lost £25,000 when my cryptocurrency was stolen'

When the price of Ethereum rocketed, I was soon sitting on a decent pile of money.

Then that decent pile of money disappeared.

I hadn't used my private key to access my account for some time and was getting the jitters when the price of all cryptocurrencies began to fall in 2018. Maybe it was time to take some out. But when I tried to do so, I saw with horror that all of my Ethereum - about £25,000's worth - had already been taken out; the cupboard was bare.

It had been moved to another private key address and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. There seemed to be no-one to complain to. A transaction on Ethereum cannot be reversed and there is no safety net - nothing like the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) that guarantees up to £85,000 on UK bank accounts.

After contacting people in my extensive crypto network, I found out that my Ether money had been taken to the Binance cryptocurrency exchange and, according to Binance, moved again within 60 minutes.

Trying to get information from Binance was a Kafkaesque nightmare - just an automated message saying it would respond within 72 hours when 72 seconds would have been more useful.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49177705

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

WHAT IN THE WORLD this is a world-class scheme I'm so sorry to hear

Lanark wrote:Bitcoin reminds me very much of the dot com bubble in the early 2000s.

People are only buying it because they think it will go up, much like they bought pets.com thinking it would be worth a fortune.
Nobody uses bitcoin to actually buy and sell anything, much like nobody bought their cans of petfood from pets.com

Criminals, possibly?

Lanark wrote:We probably will have a global currency at some point, and it may even be block chain based but I very much doubt it will be bitcoin, the currency is too unstable and transactions take far too long. Can you imagine being in the queue at a grocery store and the person in front is paying with Bitcoin: "sorry you'll all have to wait for 20 minutes while the blockchain finalises this transaction"

After which you find you need 10x more Bitcoins to purchase the same item the person in front of you just bought?

mjbdreamer wrote:Mention of the technical difficulty of bitcoin is valid. It wasn't easy but it is getting easier.

Now you can purchase bitcoin and have a VISA debit card to spend them. Technical side is now mostly gone as it becomes easy to use. Google helps but this one was first on the list:

http://www.bestbitcoincard.com/

Of course, the card scheme owner has your bitcoin so it might be an idea to have multiple different cards each with a little crypto on to reduce risk.

My! So much more convenient, then?

Am I the only person (lunatic) here pro-Bitcoin? It seems to be the case

Opening myself up to a flurry of abuse (I hope not):
- Bitcoin exchanges collapse and funds are lost. That never happens with banks.
- Storing coins on an exchange is optional and wiser people use exchanges to buy bitcoins then move the coins out to private wallets
- I tried to move £20k just yesterday and the bank (Lloyds) limited me to £10k / day. I haven't come across this before where someone else controls my actual money and dictates when I can use it.
- Bitcoin is used in criminal enterprises according to JP Morgan - https://cointelegraph.com/news/jpmorgan ... -judgement
- The Fed just printed another $75 billion to correct the lending market. That's now 16% of the entire $800 billion bailout in 2008.
- Recent fines for just the laundering of money:
Wachovia - $160m
Deutsche Bank - $670m
Bank of Australia - $700m
ING - $900m
Citigroup - $237m
Standard Chartered - $967m
Commerzbank - $1.45b
HSBC - $1.9b
JPMorgan - $2.05b
(And they all used the US dollar, not bitcoin)

I quite liked this definition I found; "Bitcoin is a Paperless Medium of Exchange that allows users to transact on an international scale instantly. The value of which is determined by those who use it. It is not a currency of a state or country, it is a world currency of the people."

Couple of interesting links:

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/08 ... r-company/ (Cute facts in there, excuse the swearword at the start of the text)

https://dickline.info/ (John MacAfee will eat his **** if Bitcoin doesn't hit a target he set. This site tracks progress amusingly)

and finally:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin- ... irculation


I don't think it's a fly-by-night fad. I do think it's the future and should be used as a savings option for small amounts each month with a view to that yacht and villa in Tuscany based retirement in 2030.

mjbdreamer wrote:
snip

Paperless Medium of Exchange

snip

I do think it's the future and should be used as a savings option for small amounts each month with a view to that yacht and villa in Tuscany based retirement in 2030.

These two parts of your post are contradictory. A medium of exchange implies relatively stable value. Small amounts leading to a yacht and villa implies significant appreciation.

With digital currency, the medium of exchange is perfectly stable at a point in time.

If you want me to nail my colours to one of the statements, I'm with "significant appreciation expected".

If you're serious about investing and preservation of wealth, and aren't seriously researching bitcoin (whilst avoiding conflating it with 'crypto'), then you are making a seriously big error. Yes it's become easy to bash it but it's an asset now in it's 12th year and in a topsy-turvy world of inverted yield-curves and record global debt I don't see how an objectively rational investor can avoid putting a small (e.g. 1%) allocation in this asset. If it works, you probably double your portfolio (or protect your entire net-worth in the face of some cataclysmic worldwide financial meltdown) and at worst, you lose a one-time 1%.

There is some incredible research available for free online, perhaps more than for any other asset class, and having been interested (and invested) in it for 3 years now there are no arguments that stand up to rational scrutiny that this isn't potentially a once-in-a-lifetime asymmetric bet.

Having lurked on this site for a while initially for my interest in FIRE I'm happy to take questions and point people in the direction of really good research on the topic but for now I would urge you to spend some time reading a couple of pieces which you will find by searching on Medium.

'The Bullish Case for bitcoin'

'Modelling bitcoins value with scarcity'

The second is academic-grade, peer-reviewed statistical research that would on the face of it show that bitcoin's value can be explained purely by it's stock-to-flow ratio, something that also accurately explains the value of assets such as Gold, Silver, Platinum and Diamonds.

Don't just write this off, it deserves some serious scrutiny but my personal view is that given enough research you'll view the risk of holding it far less than the risk of not.