Milu

I always get a sense of smug satisfaction anytime Berkshire follows me into a position. First time happened with Apple and now dominos. Probably wasn’t Buffett through as not sure he cares to concern himself with small $500m positions.

I think Bitcoin should be added to Politics and Religion as one of those topics that shouldn't be discussed in polite conversation, it's too much of a heated topic. It's interesting because the two people who influenced my thinking the most in life are Charlie Munger and Nassim Taleb, both who have a strong hatred of Bitcoin. I think in Taleb's case he really hate the bitcoiners a lot more that the underlying technology and he's right that there are a lot of unsavoury folk who have latched onto the asset, perhaps gradually getting weeded out in each successive bear market.

No wasn't directing that at you and I don't think you are being that hard on the bitcoin folk either. Having skeptical people trying to get to the root of things is where I get the most value on these type of forums, having an echo chamber of 'bitcoin to the moon' isn't gonna do anyone any favours. I'm more than aware that the future is not guaranteed and many unpredictable things can happen that could derail the bitcoin story or any other investment story for that matter. I like to have nice civil conversations where people are willing to push back on each other's beliefs without getting too emotional. It's just investing at the end of the day, not life or death

As with most things in life it isn't black or white. The current stereotypes on this forum is into two groups of people, you are either a boring old-school value investor focused on cheap cigar butts, or a YOLO Bitcoin Bro going all in on Crypto. Neither of which I suspect are fully accurate. In reality the majority of the forum are in some middle ground. It's also ok to hold two different viewpoints at once, for example I hold some bitcoin as a means of protecting some of my purchasing power and because I believe its demand will continue to grow, while also believing that the stock market is ridiculously overvalued. I also have a rather large cash pile that I would love to be able to deploy in the next bear market, whenever that is.

Just wondering if any of my fellow bitcoin holders have any exposure to Ethereum? I have a little bit that I bought in 2020 (as a small gamble, rather than having any particular vision). It's up about 14x on my original price so have unrealised capital gains (33% cap gains rate in Ireland) I would need to realise if I sell it all. It's still only about a 2.6% of total portfolio position so I'm between two minds as to whether to just let it ride or just sell it down for cash and take the 33% hit.

That's a good approach and would have worked out well for you. I did all my buying over a 6 month period from April 2020 to November 2020 at prices of €7k-15k per bitcoin. Haven't made a trade since as I have a bit of a mental block about averaging up on an investment. Old habits die hard!

I wouldn't recommend now and don't think you should sell any of your existing stock to do so. If you are not fully invested and maintain a cash or fixed income percentage then maybe you could look to buy a small amount (1% of portfolio position), but that should only be done after you have read some of the books listed previously (Bitcoin Standard, Broken Money) to get a general understanding of the potential of the technology. Nobody should ever buy something they don't believe in as they would be unlikely to hold on during bear markets.

Yes, you are more likely right, I probably hedged my estimate a little bit to not put off the skeptics too much. I'm trying not to give them too much ammo to jump on even though I mostly agree with your viewpoint Any of these prediction about it becoming a global reserve currency, or having a part in everyone's portfolio are almost too grand of a pronouncement, so I tend to just stick with the Digital Gold comparison for now as it's the easiest one to 'get' for the people who are curious.

To echo some of the comments from above, I was also a massive bitcoin skeptic. It was only after I read the 'Bitcoin Standard' book in 2020 that it finally 'clicked' for me and I took a small position. That small position has grown into a decent sized position. For any of the skeptics I would say to read that book with an open mind and by the end you will either 'get it' and perhaps decide to hold a small amount in your portfolio, or decide it's not for you which is a perfectly valid decision too. I think the fact that I was a small bit of a gold bug before realising the value of bitcoin that made the transition easier for me. I don't see Bitcoin or Gold as investments really, more suitable for maintaining purchasing power. Although I expect bitcoin to do a lot better than just maintain purchasing power due to the fixed supply and ever increasing demand from global institutions/investors. Eventually this will find an equilibrium but that could be years off.

To answer your questions, So you think *someone* should own it right? Yes I think *some* people should own it, ideally somebody who already has the basics right (6 month rainy day fund, sizeable portfolio of high quality stocks or index funds, mostly stable job etc) then if they have a tolerance for some volatility then maybe they could allocate a small percentage to it. If no one else owns it, then it ain't worth shit, is it? Correct Therefore you have a vested interest in other people owning it. Am I wrong? Yes the price of bitcoin will most likley continue to increase as more and more institutions and individuals adopt it, that's the bet I am making, but as an individual I don't need to 'sell any vision' nor would that have any influence on future adoption. The massive financial institutions like Blackrock, Fidelity etc have their million dollar marketing teams looking after that, an anonymous poster on a chat forum like myself isn't gonna influence much. Hope that helps

I don't think most people should own bitcoin. If I could find suitable equity investment options my personal preference would be to be 100% stocks. I don't actually like holding non-income generating assets like gold or bitcoin which I fully agree with you are hard if not impossible to value. I've just always held a large cash balance in my portfolio (30-50%) due to never being able to find reasonably priced stocks, a 15 year upward march in markets will do that. As I've seen governments continue to print money since 2009 and then went crazy with the money printer in covid I just wanted to get some of my paper money out of cash and into harder assets. This didn't mean I was putting all of my cash into gold and bitcoin, but I did put a small portion in. I don't believe Saylor is the new Buffett but he is taking a unique high risk approach that could pay off big time if he's right or bankrupt him if he's wrong. Microstrategy isn't a ride I'm willing to go along for like some of the other posters. I'll keep my bitcoin holding which grew from about 2% of portfolio when I invested in 2020 to about 14% today as I have a very simple thesis that it has a decent chance of getting to a similar market cap as gold. Doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to happen and I wouldn't be recommending my family and friends to buy bitcoin.\ Hope that clarifies things a bit, you and James22 are obvioulsly on very different sides of things and perhaps some of the nuance is being lost.

“Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game You seem to believe that only people who don't hold any bitcoin are able to ethically give an opinion, otherwise they would be talking their book. For me personally I put a lot more weight in a person's opinion if they actually have money on the line.

I took the plunge and finally bought some LVMH at €585 per share. Price is at the upper end of the range I am comfortable with so intend to average down should things drop to the 500 or 400 level.

COBF adoption could be the trickiest one. Charlie Munger and Buffett are two of the greatest humans and investors that have ever lived and about the most ethical and intelligent role models any of us could have, the only disservice they did to their legion of fans is the negativity they expressed towards bitcoin (rat-poison squared etc). Because they are seen as such oracles they possibly cost some of their fans to avoid allocating some of their savings towards bitcoin and missing out on some very large gains. Despite his aversion to gold, Buffett has held the metal at least once in his career (possibly more) but I don't remember him expressing such distaste for that asset. He has indeed at times mentioned that he doesn't see gold as an 'investment' which is fair enough. I believe he has also owned land at some point (perhaps in his personal portfolio). Bitcoin is no different to Gold or Land, just a digital equivalent of property. Perhaps buffet/munger could have just said they didn't understand bitcoin which would have been a better approach, similar to how they would comment on most technology stocks. It can be hard for fans of buffett/munger to break out of some of the teachings of their heroes and take opposite positions but Charlie and Warren are human beings who can also be wrong at times.

I think Bitcoin will be a great long term trump trade with large drawdowns in the short term. If trump does want to go the route of a strategic reserve it's in his interest to talk down bitcoin so that they can buy it on the cheap. The last thing he wants is for the price to keep shooting upwards before he gets his chance to back up the truck.