All the reasons stated in the OP, with a heavy dose of this.

Yup.  Anytime someone tries to explain what it is, how to get it, how to store it and how to use it... it all just turns into gibberish in my head.

Incompetence and finances are a combination that scares me, so I sit on the sidelines.

Start here.

CaptainRob enters the discussion:

That's almost literally any thread in GD.

Been trying to figure out the rules and risks. Still haven't much of a clue, but I'm about to jump in later today when I set up a separate account for Coinbase to use when I buy.

Todays article I found was kind of informative, but governments still have enormous power to try and stop the cryptocurrency phenomenon. I just think they haven't really tried too hard...........yet.
But for people like Andrew Torba (Parler founder) who has been depersoned from credit cards it may be his only alternative to purchasing without having pockets full of cash.
Andrew Torba, the Gab CEO, also says we should look into it. Of course ... although GAB owes no money, does not break the law and pays their debts they've been banned from Visa transactions.
Plus he personally is banned.
Plus his wife is banned.
So they're a bit more "on the front line" of dealing with being banned by the the big banks due to political outlook.

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/can-governments-stop-bitcoin

Governments retain their power in part by issuing and controlling money. Bitcoin is a new model that mints and secures money without governments. So the big question is: Why haven’t governments or megacorps stopped it? And if they try to attack Bitcoin in the near future, what would that look like?

There is an enormous amount of speculation on the Internet about how Bitcoin might be attacked, but few stop to think about why it hasn’t already been destroyed. The answer is that there are political and economic incentives for more and more people to push the system forward and strengthen its security, and strong political, economic, and technical disincentives that discourage attacks.

Certainly, Bitcoin isn’t too small to draw the attention of governments. Previous attempts at parallel online digital currencies, like e-Gold and Liberty Reserve, were shut down by the US government before even making it to $10 billion in market capitalization. Bitcoin now has a market cap north of $1 trillion. Every day Bitcoin survives, it becomes stronger, and for many attack vectors, the windows are rapidly closing.
------------------------------------
Unlike every other cryptocurrency, there is no central point of failure. Bitcoin has no Vitalik Buterin, no Ethereum Foundation, no Deltec bank like Tether, no fancy offices in San Francisco, no team of lawyers, no governance token, no VC-backing, no pre-mine, no small council, and no whales able to manipulate the system. This decentralized architecture has already insulated Bitcoin from attacks at the highest levels. No matter how much Bitcoin you own, you can’t change the rules, print more, censor, steal or prevent others from using the network.

Arguably the most powerful financial force in the world—the US government led by then-Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin—just launched an attack on Bitcoin in December 2020. It was not a particularly strong one, but still, an attack nonetheless, which would have forced US exchanges to gather more information about individuals withdrawing their Bitcoin to wallets they control than even mainstream banks collect, handing the surveillance state much more intricate knowledge of Bitcoin’s flow of funds. But the crackdown failed, stymied by a broad coalition of opposition, and Mnuchin is now gone.

The problem with physical/ tangible items is you have to have a place to store them and be able to carry them with you. If you have to move or your house burns down, physical stuff is destroyed. Digital money can be moved in any quantity, anywhere at any time. There is no perfect system but not participating in the system of the future seldom works out. Crypto is a thing and isn't going away. To not have some knowledge and some assets in it is a bad choice long term.

Not sure how it can be used as a currency with the crazy daily fluctuations.  Congrats to all those who have made $ though.

Just made a CoinBase account, thanks!

I find it funny that the people who rail against crypto the most it seems, have no problem buying a lottery ticket they have no control over and the odds are hugely stacked against them.

I’m with this guy.

I want to really bad.  It's just ingrained in me I guess that cash is king and I am so dumb to the crypto world.  Trying to study and learn though.

1) I don’t get it
2) I figured when shit kicks off (localized or global) there’s not going to be any reliable grid for anyone to be doing computing on anyway. The grid is always a tier one target. It will be attacked any chance the enemy gets, whoever that may be. Better to have things in hand. If SHTF here, your going to be a warlord if you have bullets, booze, & metals.

Old guy thinking? Maybe.

L

So let’s FF to when all the bitcoins have been mined .

Why would someone continue running the software if they won’t get paid in bitcoins .

That guy’s vid said after they’re all mined people think it will stabilize it’s worth and be more like “normal “ money.

That’s 100% opposite of how supply and demand works .

Not to everyone. Most of the world has no use for 22lr, have never bought or seen any and never will. America is not the world. Billions of people will be using crypto in five years, not just Mericans.

Looked into it pretty hard on Monday. I couldn't decide on a wallet though. Considered printing it out on paper as well.

Cryptocurrency isn't going to do me any good when I go buy groceries, pay for gas, pay my mortgage, buy ammo, etc.  So I have no use for it

I thought about it but don't feel confident I could keep track of where I put the coins. And I don't think I would trust any of those exchange places that hold them for you. Too many of them have had their holdings stolen.

This.

How ?

The value of bitcoin fluctuates .

Will all sellers be running some sort of pricing system that updates it’s prices by the minute ?

No, you're correct. Online anything is SHTF useless.

Neither would a picture of George Washington prior to adoption. I remember the same hysteria towards credit cards in the 1970's.

Every GD crypto thread turns into crypto supporters being called names and crypto being "tulip mania"

I was simply beating them to the punch.

But if you genuinely would like to learn how blockchain technology is going to revolutionize the world I posted a good starter video in the thread.

There are a lot of good Ted Talk videos explaining blockchain, smart contracts, and how important decentralization is. This tech is essentially rewriting the world wide web.

Pretty much this.   There is no "There" there.

This

I don't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not much of an investor honestly and my retirement accounts have been in safe but low return places for a long time + being tied up in my home and property (and gun collection) It's all fiat money in the end but crypto is especially volatile and sketchy... I'd rather be invested in real stuff, not something that is only 1 step above a casino slot machine.

I bought 3000 doge at 3 cents a piece, I'm hoping it hits a dollar and I can buy some more guns.

I realized a while back part of the genius of Crypto is that it makes the people involved feel like they are smarter than every one else.  When you try to nail them down on any details it always just devolves to "you just don't understand crypto".   All the while they make crazy claims about Crypto replacing the internet and general hand waving.   Truth is they just want to generate hype because that's the only thing keeping it from going to 0 in an instant.

A co-worker told me to get into it when a coin cost $5,000.  I wish I'd listened.

Fools gold

I'm in it because of the gainz. Not gonna lie.

I do think it has a possible future.

In my opinion, the gains are insane enough that it is risky to not have SOME exposure to it. I couldn't imagine sitting on the sidelines for this. I'm not saying to put even a significant portion of your net worth into it, but at least have SOME.

I have a lot of money into more traditional investment vehicles. I started out with about 1% of my net worth in crypto. Now it's about 8%, and I haven't put any more in. If I just left it in Bitcoin instead of playing around with alts, it would be about 25% of my net worth. Lesson learned.

I also buy one or two Powerball or MegaMillions tickets when the jackpot gets huge, because if I buy zero I have no chance of winning. Buying 1000 tickets is about the same odds as buying one, so I limit my exposure.

Watching all those gains and still sitting on the sidelines and not even putting a LITTLE BIT into it... well that's just boomers yelling at clouds.

Get the money while you can.

Wrong.

It's a new technology which has tremendous value. Triple entry digital accounting with no middle man. Digital assets which can be made scarce and which can't be counterfeit.

The security of the network is what backs it's value. If people didn't have faith in the security of this digital network then it would have a value of 0. So far the tech has seen a single digital token go for 58,000 dollars. This is despite forks, competing tokens, attacks, nation banning, early trading disruptions, etc. It has proven it's resilience.

That's allot of faith and it's evidence that people worldwide believe it to be more secure than the value of the U.S. dollar and/or their local currencies.

Ahh should of thought of this.

Referral link,

coinbase.com/join/welty_0?src=android-link

Spend $100 we both get $10.

I use binance US for altcoins that you can't buy on coinbase such as ada,

Referral ID 52569139.

I don't understand it at all, yet I got in a month ago. It's a hedge against inflation right now for me as I had a ton of cash sitting in an account doing nothing. Made 2x as much money in crypto with only 10% if my assets 'invested' than I did all of last year in my 'high yeild' savings account.

So yeah. I like $$ and crypto. Still don't understand it.

I’m not.  I don’t understand it enough to do it.

Hopefully someone else sees your link and makes an account. I dont think I can use your referral link now that I already have an account.

I'm going with this. I tried once, and then the company decided to not do business with Americans anymore. Then they changed their mind, and everything I had was gone.

Maybe you can help with my thought experiment .

Let’s says I have 1 bitcoin and it’s worth 58k right now .

Let’s further say I know a ram dealer who accepts bitcoin and has the exact truck I want .

Price is 58k

Sweet I can give them bitcoin and have my truck .

But I can’t go today as I’m busy , so I go tomorrow , get there and Bitcoin is now worth 51k

I now cannot buy said truck for 1 bitcoin .

How is that resolved ?

Oh well. I completely forgot about the referral thing until just now.

But $10 is $10.

I recognize it as a market of willing buyers and sellers.
I can recognize it as an opportunity for traders who think TA is relevant.

It doesn't really make sense to me from a fundamentals perspective, so it really isn't on my radar beyond buying what I need to take advantage of discounts for paying via BTC.
I use coinbase for that.

Name any type of money that isn't these things and don't name gold because gold meets all of those conditions you describe just the same.

I’m just here for the boomer bashing

Thought experiment fail. You are swapping an appreciating asset for a depreciating asset.

Wait one year. Now buy your truck for 0.5 bitcoins if you must.

Same way you go to the lumber yard and a sheet of OSB went from $5.00 to $30.00. You were going to pay with a $5 bill. Now you aren't. Prices of things go up/down.

Just think, if you did pay your 1 BTC for that truck straight up. Tomorrow BTC goes to $0. Do you care at that point?

You could say the same about IBM stock.

Or the S&P 500. Or DJIA.

The difference is that you can't straight-up trade IBM stock for a RAM.

If you want stability, you can buy a stable coin. The vast majority of investors would rather have an asset that fluctuates to get gains on their money.

From what I understand, after all of the Bitcoin is mined, there is still a fee attached to transactions that the folks running hash machines will get for verifying the ledger block. Fees can be adjusted to make the computation "worth it". As the hash rewards go down during mining, the value SHOULD go up and stabilize, opening the door for the big miners to transition their profit incentive to verifying transactions in the ledger, which is done the same way as "mining" is done. Hash found, first gets some fees, round and round it goes.