rkbabang

Not that different? Sears went down and down and down the entire existence of the Sears thread and Bitcoin has gone up and up and up the entire existence of this one. Sears was a failing business burning through its capital, that happened to own some real estate, which it was going out of its way not to monetize. Bitcoin is a new asset class, the first digital property/commodity in existence backed by the most secure network ever built by mankind, which is now currently in its adoption phase. Yeah, it's uncanny, practically identical situations.

This is undoubtably true, I'm betting on it, but that doesn't mean the non BTC holder will be 'poor'. There are other possible investments that you could hold to make you not poor in 2035 and 2040. Unless you think we are in for a greatest depression where everything crashes for 15 years and the only thing that goes up is Bitcoin. You can stay not poor by investing in other things. I just happen to think investing in Bitcoin will make you very very rich in the next 15 years.

I keep saying and others have said. If you think the way you do, you should not own Bitcoin. It makes perfect sense for you to not own Bitcoin and for you to never own Bitcoin. A lot of people invest in things and in ways I never will. Art, antique cars, I know someone who makes a living investing in the spread between different currencies with automatic daily trades using bots and some algorithm, I'm not sure I even understand what he's doing. He makes thousands and thousands of trades and makes a tiny bit each time. (I can't imagine what his tax return looks like). I will never do that, but I don't try to talk him out of doing it. He seems to make money, so whatever.

I never got put to. I just sold 4 more puts ( May 2025 $40 ) for $1.45. I'll probably get put to this time. If not, I'll do it again for June.

100%. I would never keep all of my eggs in one basket, because everything has risk. And while I can estimate the risk, I don't really know what it is. Again, the future hasn't yet happened. I didn't predict the 2000 crash, the 2008 crisis, nor COVID. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. Ten years ago I was speculating on Bitcoin to a much greater degree than I am now even though I owned much much less of it as a percentage of my total portfolio. I'm more convinced of my thesis now than I was back then, so I think that I my investment is less speculative than it was. It is all a matter of degree, what you think is going to happen, and of your comfort level with the risks as you calculate them. Of course if you build up a thesis, but get one of the base assumptions wrong all else will go awry with your prediction. You fundamentally disagree with some of the assumptions I built my entire Bitcoin thesis on, so it is no wonder you do not agree with me about Bitcoin as an investment. To be honest one of my biggest fears is that I am 100% correct, but way too early. Bitcoin will go up and down and sideways for decades and take 40 years for adoption to happen with the largest moves at the back end. I'm trying to build a portfolio such that I will be able to retire in 15 years even if I'm wrong (or way too early) on Bitcoin, and will allow me to retire earlier and much wealthier if I am correct.

To further elaborate. I hold a few stocks mostly for their high dividend payout. SEVN, NVEC, and PBRA are 3. So far I've gotten back 30% of my SEVN cost basis back in dividends. 19.8% of my NVEC cost basis back in dividends, and 40.2% of my PBRA cost basis back in dividends. They've all been working out well for me (so far), but I'm not going to tell you that they weren't all speculative investments.

Already announced dividends are not speculative and thus already priced in to the stock, but if you are counting on holding long term then you are speculating that they will not be discontinued and not be reduced, both of which happen. There is some uncertainty in everything you listed the value of real property or inventory can change, you are making an assumption about what you think they are worth now and what they will be worth in the future. Yes, there is a good probability that values won't change overnight, or next week, or next year, but no certainty. And the longer out you are looking the less certain you can be. Ecosystems can be radically changed by new technologies or by government interference. Key employees can be hit by a bus. etc. etc. etc. The future hasn't happened yet, whenever you think you know what will happen and especially if you think this isn't priced into the investment you are considering, you are engaging in speculation.

I know you don't. You definitely shouldn't own any Bitcoin. If I thought the above I certainly wouldn't.

Absolutely. You can do all the research you want and look at all the numbers and trends that you want, but in the end it is all about what you choose to do and what everyone else choses to do. It is all speculation - even if you try to convince yourself that it isn't. If you find an "undervalued" company that has grown by 10% every year for the past 15 years, you are speculating that the growth will continue. You might be wrong. It always amuses me when people use "speculating" as some type of slur. When you go through an intersection on a green light you are speculating that the people coming the other way will stop on the red. It is usually true, but it isn't a law of nature, and sometimes it doesn't work out great for you. Everything in life is speculation to some degree or another. When you encounter something completely new all you can do is look at the available information, think about how people will react to this new type of thing, and speculate about what comes next. Bitcoin is the strongest, most secure, network on Earth and getting more secure by the day. It performs all of the functions of gold better than gold does. It is the only truly scarce thing we know of in the universe which can be owned and traded by humans. All of these properties lead me to believe (i.e. speculate) that people will put this to its obvious use as the best store of value possible in existence. But yes, I could be wrong. The fact that a lot of other people see this as well adds evidence to me that my hypothesis (speculation) may be correct. Enough so that I have put a lot of money where my mouth is. All I hear as an argument against is some variation on "it isn't a company that produces cashflow", "nothing has replaced gold in 5000 years", "it's just magic internet money backed by nothing", "anyone can create a cryptocurrency", "criminals use it", "it consumes energy", or the ever insightful "It's just speculation". None of which are very good arguments against my hypothesis. Let's take them one at a time. Argument: "it isn't a company that produces cashflow" Yes it is more of a commodity than a company. If you only invest in things that produce cash/income, then this isn't for you. "gold has been around 5000 years" Yes the Lindy Effect suggests that it will take something extraordinary to replace gold as a standard unit of value. Gold has been around 5000 years, so all else being equal it should be around another 5000. My argument that the information age changes things. The digitation of money is something that has only happened in our lifetime and has produced something less counterfeitable than gold, easier to hold, transfer, and secure than gold. More scarce than gold. This is the first time in 5000 years that any of that has been true. If gold is going to lose its monetary premium to something else now is the time that this will start to happen and Bitcoin is the only thing with the properties to do it. "backed by nothing" and "anyone can create crypto" It is backed and secured by an enormous amount of energy. Humans have never created a network this secure. No crypto has a network as secure as bitcoin and the gap is widening by the day. A store of value is a winner take all proposition and unless something fundamentally changes in the future nothing is catching up to bitcoin. "criminals use it" Yeah, criminals use all types of things to store value. Bitcoin, other crypto, money, diamonds, land, cars, paintings. If it is valuable criminals will use it. "criminals use it" is evidence that it is valuable, nothing more. "It consumes energy" Yes and it is worth it. Securing a store of value which no one can tamper with is one of the most important things humans can do with the energy we produce. "its speculation" Yes everything in life is.

I'm pretty sure the part @73 Reds will disagree with is "expectation is that the BTC will be worth quite a bit more in the future". If you fundamentally disagree with that, it is going to be hard to think about or even hear anything which comes next.

It really is that simple. I've said multiple times on this thread over the years, if you don't think Bitcoin will replace gold as the standard of value for all of humanity then don't buy any. Because if I am wrong and you are correct it is going to zero and will be the case study for bubbles, mania, and stupidity for centuries to come. I think it will be the base standard of value, you think it won't.

Bitcoin hasn't been adopted yet as a universal store of value and my proof that it never will is that it hasn't yet been adopted. How many different ways can you say the same thing? A: I think X will happen. B: X hasn't happened yet. A: I know but I think X will happen. B: X hasn't happened yet, which is proof that it never will. A: No, it hasn't happened yet, but these are the reasons I think it will. B: No one does it that way. A: I know, X hasn't happened yet, but here is some evidence that it is going that way. B: You are speculating. And on and on and on. You think we're wrong. We get it.

True. I know so many people that don't have stocks (no 401K, nothing), no house, owe more on their car than it's worth, literally own nothing. I've tried to talk to some of these people (as they are family members), do they need stocks, Bitcoin, a house, to stop spending every penny they make, to get out of debt? They don't think so. Who are we to say what everyone needs?

I may be buying 400 more shares of JOE at $38.70 in 8 days. I had a limit order fill yesterday, I sold 4 APR17 $40 puts for $1.30. Not a bad price if I get put to and I keep the $1.30 if I don't.

I was just saying something similar to this today. It's an insane move. I know he's generally unpredictable, but wow. I cringed when he said something about "beautiful tariffs" in his state of the union, but this goes so far beyond what I thought he would do.

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes which can, and should, be applied to every possible topic, human problem, and every possible human situation. "There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs." --Thomas Sowell

13-14 million BTC in circulation seems a reasonable number, but whatever it eventually is the number will never be known exactly by anyone. No one 100 years from now will know if a wallet from 2012 is lost or if a family has been handing down the private key for a few generations without touching it. It is impossible to ever know. The one thing that is for sure though is that, because losing a private key will always be possible, and creating more than 21M Bitcoin will never be possible, the number of Bitcoins that are lost will forever be an ever increasing amount and the total available supply will be an ever decreasing amount. It is like if a company could buy back shares, but it was impossible to every issue new shares. Even if the rate of loss is slow, it will still be an increasing net loss of supply over time. I can envision a day when a non-controversial soft-fork will be to add more decimal places beyond the current 8, to accommodate the increased demand for the decreased supply, causing 1 Satoshi (0.00000001 Bitcoin) to be worth so much that it needs to be divisible by another 2, 4, or more decimal places to make it practical.

I recently found this first video and was blown away. Why did I not know electric guitar versions of classical pieces was a thing? I then searched for others and found the other videos.

Suggestion. 2 of each of these stored at separate secure locations. Put something like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077CYKHZ6 inside of something like this: https://www.amazon.com/SentrySafe-H0100-Fireproof-Waterproof-Cubic/dp/B00GE586CY

There, of course, is more nuance to this than the list provides. There is a huge difference in dose. There is excessive, moderate, and low uses of all of these substances. I'd arrange the list something like this and group "sugar, fried, bread" into one, most people who abuse 1 abuse all of them. Excessive alcohol use would be #1 because nothing can destroy your life faster, except for hard drug use (which we are not discussing), where moderate or low alcohol use would be way down the list. Maybe something like this. 1. Excessive Alcohol use. 2. Excessive Cigarettes use. 3. Excessive Sugar, Fried, Bread use. 4. Moderate Cigarettes use. 5. Excessive Cannabis use. 6. Moderate Sugar, Fried, Bread use. 7. Excessive Coffee use. 8. Low Cigarettes use. 9. Low Sugar, Fried, Bread use. 10. Moderate Alcohol use. 11. Moderate Cannabis use. 12. Low Alcohol use. 13. Low Cannabis use. 14. Moderate Coffee use. 15. Low Coffee use.

Average day, not every day. I make exceptions. I prefer Oolong Tea with my dim sum.

I switch from coffee to green tea about noon everyday. I switch to water after 5pm. My average day: before noon: 2-3 cups of coffee. 12pm-5pm: 2-3 cups green tea. after 5pm: 2-3 cups water.

"“moderate” coffee drinkers (those who consumed at least three cups per month up to three cups a day)," 3 cups/month to 3 cups/day. That's a BIG range.

Yes, I expect the return from my Bitcoin to far exceed my investments in those others. That said, I don't put my all of my eggs in one basket and I'm keeping all 3.

Congrats. Depending on how much you bought. If you bought $100 worth you may not be rich, but you'll get an excellent return on your $100. If you bought 10 BTC at $78.3K, then yes you are going to be very rich someday.