that was kinda the jist i got. it seemed like it would cost thousands to get into mining for at the time something that was only worth a couple hundred bucks.

You make so many fucky assumptions and statements I dont even know where to start. Replace 'Bitcoin' with 'U.S. Dollars' and everything you said is still true.

Also, why the fuck would I want to buy gold, when the government will just kick down my door and take it?

Bitcoin is here to stay.

I wouldn't buy-in at the moment, but that's just me.

I openly admit to having a very limited and basic understanding of all this.  I have a question.


What's to stop someone coming along and doing the exact same thing and calling it bytecoin? Like a whole new startup, same parameters, same mining opportunity, same limitations on the amount of them that exist, developed partnerships with merchants, etc.

Like why can't this happen again?  And why, therefore, aren't people doing it?  And if so, given the fact there could be limitless amounts of these companies offering a similar product, why would bitcoins maintain their value?


I remember when Bitcoin was a big deal a few years back, people had made the Dogecoin as kinda a funny joke of an alternative.  But it still has me thinking "why did everyone I jump on the Bitcoin wagon and why hasn't there been a serious alternative?"

A made-up currency with no accountable oversight body that is mostly famous for it's usage by ransomware and other underworld activities.  Cannot be used for legal tender pretty much anywhere people use legal tender.  Yea, I'll pass.

Considering it's competition to government currency (Governments hate competition), and it's disproportional appearance of the currency of discreditable underworld activity, it's a wonder governments haven't started to ban it.

Lots of money to be made, joke is on me I guess.  But I'm still passing.

I think, just like with any other currency, you have to amass enough people who BELIEVE it has value. Bitcoin has a leg up.

I remember when those things were a buck a piece, I snagged 10,000 for the fun of it

There are many, many others that offer a significant advantage over Bitcoin when it comes to data available in the chain (as I understand it).

Somebody more knowledgeable can speak on it, but there is a significant enough issue with Bitcoin transactions that it is forcing the "forking" discussion that they mention in the article.

There are hundreds (thousands?) of copies of Bitcoin already - some with major modifications, some with almost nothing changed. They're called "altcoins".

Bitcoin has both the first-mover advantage and is an asset class that relies upon the network effect for most of its utility.

They have - and every time, its value increases as a result.

Bitcoin is antifragile.

I bought in well before it reached dollar parity, no time travel required. I read the white paper.

I've dealt with your weak arguments in previous threads and am not going back into it now just because you've restated them.

If anyone is considering following this advice, I would urge that you do your own research.

I'm going to wait until it makes more sense to convert my USD to BTC.

Wow, you sir are a very lucky man!  No way would I have had the brass to drop $10k on such when it was only worth $1 - that's pretty amazing.

At this point, if you are employed - it's by choice alone!

Congrats sir, I love a happy ending.

The current increase in price seems to be driven by the fact that it's finally starting to see adoption in India, followed by speculators and new excitement around the capabilities of the platform itself.

As always, this will be followed by a correction. I've been at this long enough not to even try to call the peak.

like the federal reserve lol?

I've bought in on a regular basis since I began this journey in 2011.

I bet those poor saps that bought at the $23 peak are kicking themselves for being such idiots, since it crashed to $7 shortly afterward, huh?

It's not a matter of whether or not the "old rules" apply - there are no old rules for Bitcoin. It's an entirely new asset class.

Beat me to the punch.  Like magic, when I sell them, REAL dollars go into my checking account.

Step One   Buy Bitcoin
Step two    ?????
Step Three   PROFIT!!

US Dollars:
* Coinbase
* Circle

Gold:
* Amagi Metals

I'm recommending these sites as places I've personally done businesses with; there are tons more.

I cannot believe I am coming to a gun-community forum where people advocate buying invisible electronic money at a record high price, rather than buying GUNS MAGS and AMMO when they are at long-time LOW prices  

An  $1800 bit coin. Or another AR, optic, 3000 rounds of ammo, and 20 mags.

LOL. Spend 30 seconds to educate yourself.

Im saying it's in pump mode at the moment.  I'm telling you to buy at $7, not at $23

I agree that the current price is at least partly because of speculators. I don't know how much of it is, and neither does anyone else.

All I'm saying is that this rise will peak, and it will fall. It'll stabilize higher than it was before this spike, and in time it will exceed the point where it peaked this time. If you're seeing Bitcoin as an investment, the right approach is to set aside $x on a regular basis and set up autobuy on Coinbase or something. Dollar cost averaging works for more than stocks.

If you go and buy $10k work of Bitcoin right now thinking you're going to make a quick buck on this price increase, you're either delusional or playing a very risky game. If you decide that you understand how it all works and want to make a long-term bet, the smarter approach is to break it down in to several chunks and buy in over time.

Bitcoin was just a start. There have been a few digital currencies that have taken the code and tried to apply it to other technologies. It has been adapted to handle way more transactions than before. One I have been following is Digibyte. They have used the original code and worked with it to increase both transaction speed and volume. A few of them were premined and offered as "stock" for purchase, to put it very simply. A few were just jokes that are still lingering (Doge).

Ok, well how about we actually have that intellectual discussion?

The problem is that you are trying to view it from the perspective of being another type of currency and therefore it's usefulness depends on how it behaves as a currency in a traditional sense.  That's the reason why you are having trouble with it.

The best way to really describe cryptocurrency is as an internet protocol for currency.  Email, FTP, and The World Wide Web are all applications that operate on the internet.  Cryptocurrency is just another one of those things but instead of sending messages, files, or webpages, it is designed for sending money on the internet.

You have to think of Bitcoin as a transport mechanism for currency and not currency itself.  I don't see Bitcoin as a replacement for traditional currency but rather something that very much goes hand in hand with it.  The analogy would be that you can send a message via a physical letter or you can send it via email.  The message is the same, but the method of delivering it is different.

The other thing people have to understand is that cryptocurrency is a new concept.  It may have characteristics of many other long established tools but it's not going to necessarily fit into any of those particular molds perfectly.  It's the mix of things that it can do that make it interesting.  

Yes, you can send money over the internet using PayPal but can you seamlessly transition between currency types instantly in a nearly fee free manner?

Yes, you can use a bank to store value but can you put that value in a brain wallet beyond the reach of any individual or organization and retrieve it simply by remembering an alphanumeric sequence?

Yes, you can buy something person to person with a check but can you ever have near 100% certainty on the spot that the check won't bounce or isn't fraudulent?

Bitcoin is not the best at everything but it has some interesting features that are both useful now (as described above) and could be built upon in the future for applications that have not yet been envisioned.

As far as the fluctuations go, it matters less than you think.  You don't actually have to hold Bitcoin for any significant period of time to use it.  Retailers who accept bitcoin can (and do) have it automatically converted to cash the second it hits their account so that they never carry exchange rate risk.  Individual users can be in and out of Bitcoin only as long as they need to be to facilitate the transaction.  Holding on to significant amounts of Bitcoin long term is only for speculators, it is not essential to the usefulness of Bitcoin.

The one thing I will grant is that it's still at a very immature stage and it's got a long way to go but you can't ignore the 8 years of history already behind it and the numerous stress tests it's survived to get to this point.  The bubble has been popped several times now and it's still here.  Any reasonable person has to admit there is more to it than just tulip mania at this point even if it  does eventually fail.

I started mining Bitcoin years ago. I currently have around $9 million worth at today's price. I'd like to cash out. Can anyone provide some info on the best way to do so?

Anyone with 9 million in bitcoin that they, themselves, mined wouldn't have to ask that kind of question on a forum like this.

Lol...

If it helps you feel better, I wanted to buy $10,000 worth of TSLA shares back when it was at around $20 a share.  My dad said it was stupid because they don't make any money or pay a dividend, and talked me out of it.  They still don't make any money or pay dividends, but the stock is at like $320 now.

Dumb question... once you cash out on a portion or all bitcoins you have, do you have to pay taxes on the payout?

I don't believe you but if I did I'd start with Coinbase personally.

Uh huh
You did all that and you don't know how to cash them?  I don't buy it.

By law?  Yes.

Capital gains tax applies.  I've paid it on my gains because I don't fuck with the IRS.  I'd imagine most people do not report it because there is nothing making them report it.

It's a troll question from one of those few people out there left who don't realize that getting cash from Bitcoin was solved years ago.  He probably thought it would stump people.  

Interesting. Thanks for the reply

I remember reading about this stuff back in the day but I was confused by all the mining stuff and didn't even bother buying in like you do with stocks. I feel so dumb now.

MySpace was great until it got outdone by FaceBook.

Beta Max was pretty cool too, I guess. Never had one because VHS came along and knocked them out.


Bitcoin is a GREAT IDEA.


Unfortunately, it is just as vulnerable as MySpace to being replaced by something else.

However, I love the spirit and the idea.......escaping government involvement.

Yeah, but you're a time traveler, so that's like cheating.

I'm very new to this. I bought some at 1500/1 bitcoin. .

From what i understand though, is that there are very easy ways to hide your sale so that the IRS would not be able to obtain records. For instance, there are sites where you can find someone local who wants BTC, and exchange with them for cash with no paper trail. But if you use exchanges linked to your bank account, like most do, not reporting would be taking a big risk

Not reporting is illegal.  You can evade taxes if you want but I can't recommend it.  Pay up when you cash out, no big deal.

Agreed

Read this before making your decision.

The Bitcoin ETF will get rejected again, for the second time in as many months.

But, it won't make one bit of difference to Bitcoin's adoption.

The butthurt and ignorance in this thread is staggering.

People calling Bitcoin and blockchain tech "tulip mania" are exposing their ignorance.

I guess to them, that fandangled thing called the "internet" back in the early-to-mid 90's was also a "scam"?  /derp!!

If you were given a mulligan and allowed to go back in time and drop a couple of $kk on AOL, Yahoo, Google, Amazon, etc., would you not?  Of course you would.

With the advent of blockchain technology now upon us, a rare second chance opportunity is presenting itself.

For the more critical thinkers in this thread, I urge you to go do your homework on Ethereum, Bitcoin, Factom, and Tezos -- you can thank me later.

If you're serious, PM me. I'll give you my phone number and we can speak offline about your options.

Waves platform is one I'm watching and have chipped in on. People should take a look if they want to get in on something early. About 1.36 for one right now

Just don't put in more than you can afford to lose, that's the rule for all of these things. Do that and you'll be fine at worst, or at best you'll get giant ROIs

What is waves

No.

Coinbase has a $15k / week withdrawal limit and charges a 1% fee.

Thanks, but it was a joke in reference to someone who posted a multi-page thread on here asking that very question. Short memories around here.

The concept of bitcoin is highly suspicious, at least it is to me.
You have a program that "mines" for bitcoins, when your program finds a bitcoin, you get to keep it or trade it.
Imagine replacing the "virtual" mine that "someone" created with a real mine. Lets say you had an island with 10 acres of land, and you had 21 million metal coins in the form of laundromat tokens, and you called each one a thingcoin. Then, you buried each thingcoin in your ten acres of land. First you dig super deep, drop some coins, then bury it. And you drop more coins, and bury them, and you keep on doing that until all 21 million coins are buried. Then, tell people to mine the coins, physically. As people find the thingcoin, they get to keep it or trade it. Its easy at first, and gets harder as the easier ones are found. Now, you have people trading laundromat tokens/thingcoins and the valuation is rising up to where one laundromat token is worth $1,800 US Dollars. That's bitcoin.

Now, the thing I think is the catcher in this scheme is that the creator of the bitcoin project has the ability to create more bitcoins just by running a program and it just generates it and puts it in his wallet. Now going back to my laundromat token mine, lets say the value of the thingcoins reaches $2,000 US dollars. The creator of the thingcoin happens to have 10 million thingcoins he kept outside the island and in a safe in the living room of a house in New Jersey. He can just sell the 10 million thingcoins on the market in exchange for as many US dollars as possible, thus draining all thingcoin banks.

It wasn't a sure thing back then and it isn't a sure thing now.  I wouldn't feel dumb about it.

This is the big part you're missing - it's mathematically impossible for anyone to create more Bitcoin outside the mining reward.

Even if they aren't linked to your bank account, you don't want to be in a position to have to explain yourself when some windfall you made selling bitcoin hits the grid one way or another.  

How would you like it if you sold $100k in Bitcoin, got a check from the offshore exchange, deposited in your bank, had some unrelated run in with the law, and now everyone wants to know how some guy making $60k per year (or whatever) got that much money in one shot transferred to his savings account?

At some point, all money ends up creating a paper trail unless you literally keep it in your mattress...or keep it in Bitcoin and spend it direct.

It's not a big deal.  Just keep a record of what you paid and when you go to sell you've got the info you need to establish your basis and calculate your liability.