rkbabang

+1, government action has always been part of the bear case from the start. I personally think new and as yet unknown technology at some point in the future is more of a risk long term than government, but the risk of hostile government action is real and people will bring it up over and over again. Nothing new.

With lumber prices the way they are, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's home insurance rates go way up this year. The re-build value has to be insane if you had to buy lumber now.

My house is in that ball park, or was until recently zillow puts it in the 7's now, and not too far away from yours (although across the border in NH) and I pay $1.4k. So you might be paying a little too much, unless prices are different from NH to MA for some reason. I'm with Safety Insurance, which is based in Boston, I used them when I lived in MA as well 10+ years ago.

"Bill Gates Meets With Donald Trump" https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/bill-gates-trump-criticism.html Trump meets with Ghislaine Maxwell, Gates meets with Trump and Epstein, Gates has met with Buffet on numerous occasions and was on the Berkshire board...

Nice!

Speak for yourself.

If Gates was being provided access to children by Epstein that, being criminal, would be a different story, but as far as what Gates (or Buffet) does with other adults, or their relationships and marriages, none of that subtracts from what they've accomplished and, unless you are thinking of dating him, isn't really anyone else's concern.

Say a company you like goes public and you know everything you need to about the current management team and the founder has nothing to do with the company anymore and hasn’t in over a decade. Would it bother you to find out that the founder was using an alias and no one knows who he is? That is pretty much the case with Bitcoin, Whoever Satoshi is or was, he has no control over Bitcoin today. And there is no management team, as it is just code. You have access to this code and can review it if you wish. The code can not change unless a group with greater than 50% of the mining power chooses to change it. So you don’t have to trust any management team, you just have to trust that most miners will act in their own best interests and that no individual, government, or small cartel ever invests in enough mining power to destroy it.

Very few people in the world own crypto, and even fewer institutions. Yes, retail discovering crypto drove 2017 and a few institutions discovering it drove 2021, but mass adoption by retail and mass adoption by institutions is yet to come. And using crypto on a daily basis by most of humanity hasn't even started. When it is owned by 50%+ of public companies, 50%+ of university endowments, 50%+ union pension funds, 50%+ of mutual funds, 50%+ of individual investors, and most people on earth make crypto transactions weekly (or at least monthly) then it will stabilize. When this happens any price you buy it now, even if you bought it at the top this year, will seem like a great price. If you don't think the above will ever happen, then you think it is all going to $0 it might be a good idea to stay away from it all together.

Yes, that is the counter argument to government will outlaw it. Every year that passes it becomes less and less likely, but they tried to ban alcohol for a decade, and marijuana for many decades, so never underestimate their stupidity, or how far they will go.

Had you invested equal amounts in Amazon, Yahoo, & eBay in 1999 (or especially in 2000-2001 after the crash, you would have done much better than investing only in Yahoo. Maybe admitting to yourself that you don't know and investing in a basket is the answer. Invest in new companies as they go public or things change (in the above example Google, FB, a transformed Apple after it was clear that they were no longer just the Mac company, etc). Amazon and Apple are the only companies mentioned in this thread that I own significant positions in. I own very tiny amounts of Google, Nvidia, and FB. And I own no Microsoft. This all gives me something to think about.

I have 2. One, like you said, is government(s). I don't think they can kill crypto dead, just like they can't get rid of weapons or drugs, but they can outlaw it and make it difficult for the average person to use or for legitimate institutions to hold, which will sharply reduce its value. Two, the bear thesis for all existing crypto, is some new technology that does it better/safer/faster/etc, in such a way that existing blockchains can't fork themselves to take advantage of. It is impossible to predict if and/or when that might happen.

Undoubtedly. No one can completely stop their emotions from having an effect on their thinking. All we can do is try to minimize it as much as possible. My thinking on crypto is basically the same now as it was 7 years ago when I started buying. I'm hopeful, but hedging my bets. Back then hedging my bets meant not buying a ton of it (much to my chagrin), and now hedging my bets means selling almost half and locking in some gains, a move that if I'm right about crypto I will regret as much in the future as I regret my decision to not buy more back then.

Jeffery Epstein, child trafficker/relationship advisor. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-gave-bill-gates-advice-on-how-to-end-toxic-marriage-sources-say

Contrast that with a quote from Munger about Bitcoin “I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization”. It goes to show that a crazy person can be at times right, while at the same time a genius can be short sighted and wrong.

Thanks. Absolutely, I'm still young (in my late 40s), so I'm not quitting my day job. I'll just be living even further below my means.

Today is the first time I've ever sold a crypto-currency. I just sold 42% of my crypto for a ~30,000% gain. I intend to hold the rest and add more on the dips almost forever. With the recent run-up in ETH my goal to sell less than half and be able to pay off my main mortgage, my investment property mortgage and have some left over to hold in cash has been met. I probably should have sold a few days ago, but you never hit the exact top and I will now be debt free and my airbnb property will pay my housing costs completely (taxes, insurance, utilities, cleaning fees, operating costs) for all of my properties even renting it just for a few months every year. Even if all crypto goes to zero from here this has been the best investment of my life and probably won't be equaled by me other than if the crypto I still hold goes up tremendously from here (and I suspect it will).

I wouldn't spend much time thinking about it, we will likely never know.

Of course there is a top, as you said, just like gold. But Bitcoin has a long way to go before it is as widely held as gold by banks and institutions. The top will eventually be reached, then it will just rise mostly against currencies which are inflationary at the rate of inflation. I personally think the price in dollars that BTC will reach before it stabilizes is in the $millions.

Everyone seems to be buying BABA. I bought more of something almost as risky. BTC I know, I know, Munger likes one and hates the other. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If I were more conspiratorially minded I might think that this whole thing was orchestrated along with gas shortages to give them an excuse to start cracking down now while the public opinion can still be steered toward a dislike of something they don't yet understand, before it's too late.

Access to underage girls?

No bet should be prohibited and no one should be bailed out. It is the "free" part of "free market". With freedom comes responsibility for your actions and the inability to control the choices of others. Many people don't like that.

Read the chart

BTC and ETH for sure. Maybe ADA or some others. But if you are just starting, buy BTC and ETH.