Board 8 > So... BitCoin.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's trading at nearly 10k per coin (~$9,650 as of this post). I threw some fun bucks a couple weeks ago when it was soaring, kind of expecting to get burned - and if I sell now it'll pay for the Disney vacation I'm planning to take this weekend.

I'm looking for some confirmation here since my memory is fuzzy: Bitcoin was first available for trading back in 2010. The internet generally did know about it back then, right? I remember it being a known entity on GameFAQs years ago, which would have coincided with the time it was only a few bucks per coin.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

It's trading at nearly 10k per coin (~$9,650 as of this post). I threw some fun bucks a couple weeks ago when it was soaring, kind of expecting to get burned - and if I sell now it'll pay for the Disney vacation I'm planning to take this weekend.

I'm looking for some confirmation here since my memory is fuzzy: Bitcoin was first available for trading back in 2010. The internet generally did know about it back then, right? I remember it being a known entity on GameFAQs years ago, which would have coincided with the time it was only a few bucks per coin.

You couldn't really just buy a coin for a few bucks. You had to mine them.
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Bitcoin wasn't really known much until like 2013/2014 fwiw. It had a long period of doing relatively nothing in 2015/2016 and then shot up a ton this year. I don't see the same thing happening next year, but who knows.
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Corrik posted...

You couldn't really just buy a coin for a few bucks. You had to mine them.

My very rudimentary understanding is that BitCoin was conceived and mine-able in 2009 and then became tradable the following year.
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is it even possible to cash out on bitcoin?

I remember following the buttcoin stuff years back. The "banks" were all bankrupt and you couldn't trade your coins for money
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Corrik posted...

CaptainOfCrush posted...

It's trading at nearly 10k per coin (~$9,650 as of this post). I threw some fun bucks a couple weeks ago when it was soaring, kind of expecting to get burned - and if I sell now it'll pay for the Disney vacation I'm planning to take this weekend.

I'm looking for some confirmation here since my memory is fuzzy: Bitcoin was first available for trading back in 2010. The internet generally did know about it back then, right? I remember it being a known entity on GameFAQs years ago, which would have coincided with the time it was only a few bucks per coin.

You couldn't really just buy a coin for a few bucks. You had to mine them.

this is incorrect.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

Corrik posted...

You couldn't really just buy a coin for a few bucks. You had to mine them.

My very rudimentary understanding is that BitCoin was conceived and mine-able in 2009 and then became tradable the following year.

Nobody really sold them for a couple bucks though. It was a long process to mine and was considered to be a gold mine basically. People would have like 30 computers set up specifically to mine them at all times.

The reason it didn't go into a full-blown.craze is that people do not understand how it works, even now.
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DeepsPraw posted...

is it even possible to cash out on bitcoin?

I remember following the buttcoin stuff years back. The "banks" were all bankrupt and you couldn't trade your coins for money

At one point some websites even had options to pay with Bitcoin.
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yeah but that's not cash
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i finally know how the people who could've invested in apple or something in 1980 feel
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Yeah I saw about them back when they were really cheap, but I wasn't about to invest in a penny stock. I feel ok about it since I would have cashed out at like, 3 bucks tops. The only way I'd have made HUGE money is if I completely forgot I even had any (and even then I'd probably have remembered when they hit 100)

And now I refuse to put anything in them since I expect them to plummet at a moments notice
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I was going to buy some last month.. whoops.
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I feel like around 2012 it entered the savvy nerd mainstream, where if you followed tech you would have heard about it.

Actually being easy enough to buy (Coinbase) must have been around 2014 during the first spike up to $1000 which crashed to $250. Then for the next 3 years it just slowly built up its technology and confidence again, and now it's very solid and starting to enter non-nerd mainstream (but still savvy).

But yeah I bought in around $850 during the first spike, and thought I lost it all when it dropped to $250. Kept it around though. And I'm still keeping it and buying into it. More ETH than BTC though.
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But yeah even today it's still super niche and the vast majority people either 1. don't know how to buy it, 2. think you need to shell out $10k at once to buy a whole one, 3. are afraid due to ignorance/propaganda

Imagine if everyone in the world knew just as much about bitcoin as you, a normal guy. How much higher would it be? That's why it's a super safe investment. It can only really go up, unlike Apple or even index stocks.
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foolm0r0n posted...

I feel like around 2012 it entered the savvy nerd mainstream, where if you followed tech you would have heard about it.

Actually being easy enough to buy (Coinbase) must have been around 2014 during the first spike up to $1000 which crashed to $250. Then for the next 3 years it just slowly built up its technology and confidence again, and now it's very solid and starting to enter non-nerd mainstream (but still savvy).

But yeah I bought in around $850 during the first spike, and thought I lost it all when it dropped to $250. Kept it around though. And I'm still keeping it and buying into it. More ETH than BTC though.

I got $10 worth of bitcoin free from coinbase in May 2014 (as a promotion, for having a university email address), so that timeline seems like it checks out. When I checked last month, the fraction of a bitcoin I had was worth about $80.

Edit: its $211 now, wtf.
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I feel like Ngamer was big into this stuff a while back

@NGamer64

I've kinda checked out of investments that aren't reasonably safe retirement things at this point because that's all in really good shape...

but this right now feels like when Google first shot up and people were like "ooh should I invest in Google at 100, no, that seems high". So if you feel like you missed out on Apple 1980 stock, you're possibly in Google 2006 territory. but I reeeeally don't know the bitcoin market or technology whatsoever.
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Didn't ngamer mine like 200k's worth of Bitcoin back then?
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Come next contest, The Show's production values are going sky high, lemme tell ya.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

Come next contest, The Show's production values are going sky high, lemme tell ya.

you guys might actually get SBAllen to come on The Show for real
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voltch posted...

Didn't ngamer mine like 200k's worth of Bitcoin back then?

Is that why he doesn't post as much now? He's out being a millionaire playboy?
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I do understand the rationale behind a bullish attitude. What makes me hesitate, though, is that Bitcoin's already gotten huge (at least compared to traditional companies). As of today, Bitcoin has a larger market cap than companies like Disney or GE. If it hits $15k like I have seen speculated, it'll be right there with the world's 10-20 largest companies in terms of size.
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It's funny because 3-4 years ago I knew I was making a mistake by NOT just putting a couple hundred in Bitcoin and letting it sit there. I remember downloading Blockchain and then instantly forgetting my password because I wanted to use something really unique since... money. And then I never bothered giving it another go.
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I guess I don't understand how people make BitCoin work for them. A co-worker's bought a new computer just to keep it running and I am completely lost on how that makes him money.
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HaRRicH posted...

I guess I don't understand how people make BitCoin work for them. A co-worker's bought a new computer just to keep it running and I am completely lost on how that makes him money.

You lend computing processing power and they reward you with something that can't be (easily) duplicated. Like money it's worthless in a practical sense and it only has value because society says it does.
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Didn't somebody buy a couple of pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins in 2010?

You could get a couple of 20 inch pizzas totally made out of caviar, foie gras, and truffles, and served with a bottle of wine from the 18th century for less than those pizzas would cost now.
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What is all that processing power being used for? Updating the blockchain ledger?
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RySenkari posted...

You could get a couple of 20 inch pizzas totally made out of caviar, foie gras, and truffles, and served with a bottle of wine from the 18th century for less than those pizzas would cost now.

And the normal pizzas would still taste better.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

I do understand the rationale behind a bullish attitude. What makes me hesitate, though, is that Bitcoin's already gotten huge (at least compared to traditional companies). As of today, Bitcoin has a larger market cap than companies like Disney or GE. If it hits $15k like I have seen speculated, it'll be right there with the world's 10-20 largest companies in terms of size.

Bank of America's market cap is about twice that of ALL of bitcoin, and all it does is HANDLE money in the US alone. It doesn't even produce anything. Simply handling USD is enough to make it so massively rich.

There's like 50 TRILLION dollars out there in the world. Not to mention euros and other fiat. That's what bitcoin is replacing, not Disney, not Bank of America. So in that sense, bitcoin is still MICROSCOPIC.

I don't think it will replace all global fiat like that at all, but if it replaces even a 1% share of all global money, that's about $2 trillion at $100k each. Entirely possible.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

I do understand the rationale behind a bullish attitude. What makes me hesitate, though, is that Bitcoin's already gotten huge (at least compared to traditional companies). As of today, Bitcoin has a larger market cap than companies like Disney or GE. If it hits $15k like I have seen speculated, it'll be right there with the world's 10-20 largest companies in terms of size.

This is actually plausible though if you think of Bitcoin as a proxy for the "black market" economy in general.

I've met a couple Bitcoin millionaires who used this rationale specifically when they made their investment decision. They basically worked out the math of "What would the market cap be of all unauthorized/illegal activities on the planet if they all came together and had to use one common thing" and the answer was "Bigger than Disney and GE" and so they bought in. And here we are!
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

What is all that processing power being used for? Updating the blockchain ledger?

Factoring prime numbers

That's literally it... it's a big waste and probably the biggest roadblock to bitcoin right now which people are trying to solve
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i was aware of bitcoin back in 2010, but it was a pain in the ass to get, and nobody had any idea that it would survive

wasn't easy to get until maybe 2012 or 2013, when various broker sites were introduced. they ironically take away the main benefits of the currency, but there you go.

not that i had any money back in 2010, but i remember feeling so smug when it crashed the first time (from 200 to 50), and didn't really notice it until it reached its second peak and second crash (1000 to 300). in retrospect, i should've bought more then, but i ended up selling at 2000.
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Some people in the accounting world have made a big stink that the blockchain is BitCoin's great contribution to digital currency (wiki says it was the first blockchain ever). I figured that all that processing power was put toward the blockchain in some way, as that's the main thing that made BitCoin unique in the first place. Guess not!
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http://bitcalc.beepboopbitcoin.com/

fun bitcoin adventure game
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how do I get in on this
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Punnyz posted...

how do I get in on this

Just sign up to a brokerage website, link it to your bank account, and start buying and selling.

I used Coinbase as that seems to be the biggest, but a buddy who's big on this told me Coinbase charges higher fees than some of the other services out there, so I might roll my coin into another service.
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link it to your bank account

xfd like pun has one of those

how many bitcoins can he buy with the two nickels he found in his couch cushions yesterday
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that 10 cents could be worth a dollars by this time next week!
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SmartMuffin posted...

how many bitcoins can he buy with the two nickels he found in his couch cushions yesterday

over 1000 satoshis!
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

I used Coinbase as that seems to be the biggest, but a buddy who's big on this told me Coinbase charges higher fees than some of the other services out there, so I might roll my coin into another service.

You can use GDAX which is Coinbase's exchange which has very low fees, but it takes a week to deposit your money, which can mean you miss out on a lot of growth, so the fees on Coinbase might end up being worth it
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

Some people in the accounting world have made a big stink that the blockchain is BitCoin's great contribution to digital currency (wiki says it was the first blockchain ever). I figured that all that processing power was put toward the blockchain in some way, as that's the main thing that made BitCoin unique in the first place. Guess not!

The blockchain was invented for bitcoin and it IS its greatest contribution

All that energy does go towards securing the blockchain so it's not exactly a waste in that sense I guess, but it's still just trillions of garbage calculations
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Oh yeah, one of my favorite things about looking into Bitcoin was reading Satoshi's Wikipedia article.

Such mystique.
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is the blockchain still a grotesquely ballooning, hundreds of gigabyte file that you need to download?
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I've been considering making the new gaming pc I'm making mine some kind of currency when I'm not using it. Anyone else do this?

Looking at it, depending on what I mine it can make like 80 a month
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I literally said aside $1000 of profit I got from a bankruptcy investment to invest in BTC back in 2012, but then I remember one weekend it dropped like really hard and I decided to wait.

Then I forgot about it.

I'm so sad. I'd be fucking loaded right now.
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I wouldn't feel too bad about it. As Dante already mentioned, had you bought it back then, it's very doubtful that you would have waited until today to unload it all. I've done the fanciful calcs in my head as to how loaded I'd be if I would have bought at $20... but I would have probably just sold at $100.
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Colegreen_c12 posted...

I've been considering making the new gaming pc I'm making mine some kind of currency when I'm not using it. Anyone else do this?

Looking at it, depending on what I mine it can make like 80 a month

Coin mining is like no longer profitable for individuals or has very limited upside due to the cost of actually running the machine
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The only regret you should be worrying about is when it reaches $20k and you kick yourself for not buying in at $9.5k when you had the chance
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KokoroAkechi posted...

Colegreen_c12 posted...

I've been considering making the new gaming pc I'm making mine some kind of currency when I'm not using it. Anyone else do this?

Looking at it, depending on what I mine it can make like 80 a month

Coin mining is like no longer profitable for individuals or has very limited upside due to the cost of actually running the machine

That's only for mining actual bitcoins.

According to http://whattomine.com/ I can make over 3 a day mining BTG
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

I wouldn't feel too bad about it. As Dante already mentioned, had you bought it back then, it's very doubtful that you would have waited until today to unload it all. I've done the fanciful calcs in my head as to how loaded I'd be if I would have bought at $20... but I would have probably just sold at $100.

This is so true.

I made a grip of money when American Airlines went backrupt in...2012(?) by buying for basically pennies and then selling when it hit $5.

It's at $48 now.
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SmartMuffin posted...

link it to your bank account

xfd like pun has one of those

how many bitcoins can he buy with the two nickels he found in his couch cushions yesterday

That's uncalled for
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