Absolutely I'm speculating, and it is so far a damn poor investment on my part. Silver is an asset just like anything else. There is nothing special about it and it has no intrinsic worth. All it has is a longer history of people thinking it is valuable, but that in itself is not intrinsic worth. When the time comes, I will dump all my silver like a bad habit. Hopefully it will be worth more that what I paid for it, but it's not really looking that way, is it? I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually the Chinese government that were responsible for keeping PM prices low, to enable them to accumulate more on the open market. But that is also speculation!
Anyone holding PM's is speculating. While they may tell themselves it is an investment, PM's have no cash flow or likely hood of cash flow in the near future (in fact, arguably PM's have a negative cash flow). The performance of silver and it's value is purely dependent on what a future buyer might pay, at a time when the buyer has a conflicting view on it's future performance than does the seller, on the opposite side of a trade. An asset value totally dependent on the amount a future buyer might pay, by their willingness to assume the other side of the trade that makes silver's purchase speculation. The motivation to speculate on silver is the risk of loss is perceived to be more than offset by the possibility of a huge gain - otherwise, there would be very little motivation to speculate. While it is often confused with gambling, the key difference is that speculation is generally tantamount to taking a calculated risk and is not dependent on pure chance, whereas gambling depends on totally random outcomes or chance. IMHO, this is currently analogous to BTC.
Yes, absolutely. With one very big difference compared to just about every other asset. Gold and silver are exactly the same price all over the world. They are understood and valued by every human being on the planet (even if they can't afford to buy any). Take a sovereign to any country on the planet and you will find a buyer for it.
When did ASICS come out? I didnt even know about an IPO! I would've jumped at that chance knowing a little about mining.
earthjade wrote quote I wish Bitcoin mania would get to that stage! But we're not there yet. The way you make money is to get onto something before everybody else does. unquote I am not an expert on bitcoin or other digital currencies But I am not bad at math This bitcoin mania has already been blown up bigger than the tulip mania was in percentage terms I read a few months back of a student who was studying cypto currencies, he said he bought 5000 bitcoin for US$20. That $20 purchase is now worth $4,000,000 in only a few years, so if anyone thinks that they are getting in early now, I cant see the forest, there is too many trees blocking my view. The hype is being well managed by those who are already set, look at the new doco about being able to live on bitcoins, who funded that, and yes people will take bitcoin for goods when it is going up, but probably wont on the way down, how can you use it for currency when it swings back and forth 50% or more in a day. I did look at buying a few months back, my son actually mined some on his laptop a year or so ago (but lost them when he reformated), I suppose the questions that stopped me buying back then are still stopping me buying now IMO There does not seem to be enough fire exits, if the fire starts, people will get cremated here. Will we see a bitcoin futures market created where instead of having 21 million bitcoins in existence we have 2 or so billion more paper bitcoins added, just like silver. And also being able to be shorted just like PMs A handfull of people who got in early have locked up nearly half of all bitcoins mined and then the early adaptors got set as well and are not selling either, so what is happening now is the new entrants are fighting over what is left, because those holding are not selling the only way for it to go is up, but when the selling starts will those handfull of now digital multi millionaires or near billionaires jump or watch their wealth slip away, I reckon that they will jump. But It seems I have been wrong to date. We might be able to tell our great grand kids of the great bitcoin mania that we witnessed, where people went from selling drugs on the internet to being billionaires all because of a what they used for money. We could be witnessing the birth of the one world currency Or we could be playing pass the parcel, I personally think it will be the later, but it doesnt mean the music will stop tomorrow there could be still more great gains to be had for those brave enough to hold the chips. I still may buy one just in case I am wrong cheers grant
Dont be so hard on yourself. I believe anything under 1000 USD is still cheap when your outlook is 5 plus years. Im assuming you still have some digital currency left right? If not, why troll? right? Anyhow, we will either look like geniuses or loonies as only time can tell. I do believe everything is going digital and so will money. Besides if one cant have everyone use digital then the said .gov cant tax 100% and we all know they need exponential amounts of tax revenues.
Bitcoin is young and volatile. Businesses can surely instantly trade out of Bitcoins as they receive them via online exchanges 24/7. This means they don't deal with wild fluctuations in Bitcoin vs other currencies. Most businesses are surely not interested in the speculative aspect of Bitcoins. They just want to sell their pizzas or whatever and make a profit. Bitcoin never was "all about speculation" as "got physical" folk can state. Silver has trended from around USD $32 -$18 and change per oz over the last 12 months. Where would a business stand with the silver price deviation?. This aspect never gets a mention from one-eyed silver stackers with "got physical" blinders on solely critical of Bitcoin. More businesses probably already readily accept Bitcoin than they do 999 bullion products as it is. Physical silver does not exist for near instantaneous transactions longer than ones arm length (it is useless for many trades). The basics of Bitcoin are amusingly poorly understood. Bitcoin is not perfect, IMOI've never heard anyone claim it is. More importantly, Bitcoin can't speak and make claims for itself because it is only a digital currency. People with Bitcoins keep them in a WALLET (what is a wallet for? think think think...).
So how long does it take today to confirm and pay for the price of the pizza in bitcoin 2 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes or longer? so at 9pm the pizza might cost me 1/100 of a bitcoin, at 9.30pm the price could half or double depending on what speculators are doing in another country? have you ever bought a pizza with bitcoins? with the volatility unless it can be instantly approved it is no good for merchants unless it only keeps going up of course, I watched the bitcoin value nearly half in minutes the other night. quote Bitcoin never was "all about speculation" unquote It may never have been all about speculation, but you must surely agree that speculation is what has taken the price to where it is now. It is the traders and gamblers not the shopkeepers that has got bitcoins chart going parablolic Why compare it to silver, silvers price now is probably the cheapest it has ever been in relative terms, silver went up 10 fold in a decade and it was supposed to be in a bubble Bitcoin has gone up astronomically, as I said many times more in percentage than the great tulip mania ever did, will it keep going up is the question. So what if it called a wallet, You could call it anything, it could have been called a cyptostack, the term means very little. At the present bitcoins are being used as gambling chips and not as currency or money, and not for buying pizzas with, even the newly married couple promoting bitcoins had to travel a couple of hundred miles to fill up with petrol and only because the attendant swapped the bitcoins, not the petrol station itself. I am not critical of bitcoins, but you have to see what has taken it to where it is now, can in the blink of an eye, return it to where it came from just a few years ago. I am not saying this will happen but you should be aware of this possibility I do have a fair understanding of the basics of bitcoins, but I have never owned or used one. Does any of you local shops accept them? cheers grant
It's ok, I wasn't really serious. I didn't calculate it but I suspect I made out better in fiat terms than GP so far. They were some of the first pieces in my PM stack, and it also served to be my first trade on here, and I knew I could send it to GP with extremely low chance of him running off with it or not sending the goods etc. So each party got a good deal imo. I live and breathe bitcoin and I do have some more. Hey bigsky, I just watched a youtube & Erik Vorhees addresses just about all your concerns/questions in it I think. If you check it out, he is on the second half of the show. Peter Schiff is on the first half, but it turns into a shouting match unfortunately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaBREg5rzlI
I like a nice cold beer, soI will pay a visit to The Old Fitzroy in Woolloomooloo. Welcome to the unreal world :lol:
All is not lost then, lol. Hey, worst case scenerio; this currency war isnt over yet and I still contend silver will one day have its shine-on, cheers! :lol:
Load of Bullion OK you may be able to buy a beer and parma at one pub in Sydney for now. But have YOU ever bought anything with bitcoin, have you ever used in all your everyday transaction a bitcoin to buy anything. Because you didnt answer that question before, I take it the answer is negative. Yet you espouse the opinion that the main utility of bitcoin is as a means of such transactions. You are probably holding your bitcoins hoping for the price to increase. When you do use bitcoin to buy yourself a beer, please tell us how long it takes for that payment to process, this is a serious question as I have no idea how long it takes to authorise. As I said in my first post, I am pretty good with math Does anyone have a problem with my assertion that bitcoins have already had a bigger percentage increase than was the case with the price of tulips, during the tulip mania that we all shake our heads at now. So does than mean the people buying in now are buying in early or late? This seems to be the biggest question. beeteecee Thanks for the vid, it seems that I am thinking along the lines of PS. I suppose that if I had bucketloads of bitcoins I would see things differently to how I see things now. When the couple had to drive a couple of hundred miles just to fill up their car with petrol in the good ol USA, and that was because the attendant who was on shift after 10pm did the trancaction with them, that shows to me how much of a farce that doco was, all this is is the people holding vast amount of bitcoins talking up their utility as currency, maybe one day they will really be used as currency, who knows. cheers grant
Bitcoin is about as close to the free-market as it gets, IMO. It called a wallet for a very good reason. If people are using wallets for anything else other than what a wallet is usually used forthey are free to do that. People don't have to use alt digital currencies at all.
Grant, if you want to quote me, use the 'quote' to the right side of the box (delete words within the quote as required to shorten it). Bitcoin is in it's infancy. I asked six strangers on the street in Sydney whether they had heard of Bitcoin a week or so ago (only one had a very vague idea via a TripleJ radio host). The couple obviously had to jump through hoops to reach their goal. That is what makes their achievement special and worthy of TV coverage. *It would be interesting to attempt the same using 999 PM coins. Ooohh lets not think about that though.Bitcoin is the only direction to waggle the finger. More business, rather than less are surely adopting Bitcoin as part of their transaction choices for customers. I have not yet used BTC for personal consumer item trade due to a couple of factors that I'm not going into. That will change. I'm genuinely excited about using Bitcoins instead of AUD for various future transactions. The sign in anarchist library/cafe window here in Sydney was designed and created by me (approx 16 years ago). My motivations in life are not the same as others might assume.