rkbabang Posted March 23 Author Share Posted March 23 5 hours ago, wachtwoord said: 1. Bankman-Fried isnt on the other side. He was a scammer peddling scamcoins, NOT Bitcoin. 2. If you base your point of view in life on who says something rather than what they say you fully deserve any and all consequences/outcomes. Exactly. People talking about shitcoins and lumping Bitcoin in with them, it’s like if every time you tried talking about gold someone would bring up the price of tin and aluminum, talk about how their cousin claims he can use mercury to turn lead into gold, and caution you that they know 10 people who got scammed by fools gold and it’s all just a big scam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james22 Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 The thing is, you have to have studied crypto a bit to know the difference. And you've no reason to study if you've (not unreasonably) applied the authority bias heuristic. You can fault those for looking to Buffett/Munger for their take on a new technology, something they admit they struggle with, though you wouldn't think they take so adamant a position on Bitcoin if they weren't sure of themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 9 hours ago, james22 said: The thing is, you have to have studied crypto a bit to know the difference. And you've no reason to study if you've (not unreasonably) applied the authority bias heuristic. You can fault those for looking to Buffett/Munger for their take on a new technology, something they admit they struggle with, though you wouldn't think they take so adamant a position on Bitcoin if they weren't sure of themselves. Not really. This very straightforward post from 2012 summarizes all you really need to know in easy to follow language: https://medium.com/lux-initiative/bitcoin-the-libertarian-introduction-c616edd8496c Do you consider reading that studying? Come on, there really isn't any excuse. Buffet has been really disappointing in his old age. Not because of his opinion in itself, but for stating his opinion publically on something he clearly doesn't understand (if he did understand it's bad too as then he'd have publically and purposefully lied to vulnerable people). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james22 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 37 minutes ago, wachtwoord said: This very straightforward post from 2012 summarizes all you really need to know in easy to follow language: https://medium.com/lux-initiative/bitcoin-the-libertarian-introduction-c616edd8496c Do you consider reading that studying? Come on, there really isn't any excuse. You'd have to study quite a bit before coming across your article. The noise-to-signal ratio is high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james22 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Step 1) Create a free account at a trustworthy exchange like MtGox.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfan Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 (edited) Couple of old academic articles 1) On the traceability of BTC due to its open ledger system (A Fistful of Bitcoin) - misconception that large illicit activities are best done with BTC 2) On the fallacy of BTC immutability and a different form of governance/risk of 51% attack - BTC was smaller at the time of this article, but highlights that governance of BTC just in a different form Recommend reading Tracers in the Dark on the history of Silk Road, Mt Gox, Alpha-Bay, BTCe, Chainlysis and FBI investigations/corruption. A Fistful of Bitcoin.pdf The_Economics_of_Bitcoin_Mining,_or_Bitcoin_in_the_Presence_of_Adversaries.pdf Edited March 26 by jfan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave86ch Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 (edited) 6 hours ago, wachtwoord said: Not really. This very straightforward post from 2012 summarizes all you really need to know in easy to follow language: https://medium.com/lux-initiative/bitcoin-the-libertarian-introduction-c616edd8496c Do you consider reading that studying? Come on, there really isn't any excuse. Buffet has been really disappointing in his old age. Not because of his opinion in itself, but for stating his opinion publically on something he clearly doesn't understand (if he did understand it's bad too as then he'd have publically and purposefully lied to vulnerable people). Unfortunately, Bitcoin's success has also brought a lot of noise. This article is amazing, and unfortunately, a serendipitous mistake prevented me from accessing this resource earlier. As @james22 said, demonstrating this level of understanding and conviction is not trivial and required many hours of learning. Otherwise, my friends, coworkers, and classmates would have been wealthier instead of being overly indebted. I am still convinced that, because of this lack of understanding, many people are missing the opportunity once again. Many discussions I've read about Bitcoin in the last few years have been less straightforward and polluted with the consequences of adoption, making it not that simple to understand where the truth lies. However, the truth itself is simple. “You can recognise truth by its beauty and simplicity” Richard Feynman The first tweet by Saylor about Bitcoin was notorious Edited March 24 by Dave86ch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 (edited) 6 hours ago, james22 said: Step 1) Create a free account at a trustworthy exchange like MtGox.com Would have worked fine. Yeah if you're going to give third parties uncollatoralized free loans on you don't you think it's you being the idiot? Hard to find? It's been the since 2012! And there hasn't been that much noise for the longest time (also I shared it here more than once: simplicity is key). It's just that most "educated" people didn't want to even look into this at all for forever since the arguments from those in their social class were negative. It's the same idiots that blindly took unneeded covid shots, believe thing like that Russia is the party to blame in the current war, man made climate change is proven, there's more than 2 human genders, BLM isnt racist etc etc. If you're going to believe people based on their social standing rather than the strength of their arguments and the accuracy of their words, you are going to have a bad time ... This societal problem is far from over. It's getting worse and worse (eg academia has nearly totally gone to shit now). Edited March 24 by wachtwoord Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james22 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 3 hours ago, wachtwoord said: Hard to find? It's been the since 2012! And there hasn't been that much noise for the longest time ... Bitcoin brings with it excitement, speculation, rumor, and downright confusion. To be sure, Bitcoin is complicated. There's been FUD since the beginning. (And worse: crypto discussion is actually prohibited on the Bogleheads forum, for example.) And one could have found the article and still walked away thinking it too speculative: Remember that Bitcoin should still be considered an experiment. As resilient as the system has proven to be, it is still new. The value of a Bitcoin could drop to zero tomorrow. Bitcoin is a highly volatile commodity with an extremely uncertain future. A prudent person should assume Bitcoin will fail, if for no other reason than that most new things fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 1 hour ago, james22 said: Bitcoin brings with it excitement, speculation, rumor, and downright confusion. To be sure, Bitcoin is complicated. There's been FUD since the beginning. (And worse: crypto discussion is actually prohibited on the Bogleheads forum, for example.) And one could have found the article and still walked away thinking it too speculative: Remember that Bitcoin should still be considered an experiment. As resilient as the system has proven to be, it is still new. The value of a Bitcoin could drop to zero tomorrow. Bitcoin is a highly volatile commodity with an extremely uncertain future. A prudent person should assume Bitcoin will fail, if for no other reason than that most new things fail. If one assumed in 2012 that failure was by far the most likely outcome (even >99% sure) it was STILL the wrong investment choice to walk away given the enormous potential gain. Only if failure was a nigh certainty walking away would have been the right choice. Of course that didn't mean throwing your net worth into it at the time ... I'd advise stronger self-reflection and to be honest with yourself rather than continue to seek excuses. It's the only way to self-improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharperDingaan Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 (edited) The actual FUD is 'everyday change'; framing it as Bitcoin is just gaming. 'Everyday change is a highly volatile commodity with an extremely uncertain future. A prudent person should assume everyday change will fail, if for no other reason than that most new things fail'. Folks just don't 'get' Bitcoin, don't trust it, etc., etc. .... Excellent!, that's the norm with change, and why we can all still buy it cheap. But the reality is that when the years of accumulating evidence demonstrate that Bitcoin acceptance is increasingly becoming the norm, and Bitcoin continues to rise in value; it's simply prudent to go with the evidence. It doesn't mean you're a believer; but the less folks are able to change, the more violent the eventual change will be. It's also not new. Different context; change Bitcoin to Hitler, and folks to German citizens in Germany, in the early 1940's .... German citizens just don't 'get' Hitler, don't trust Hitler, etc., etc. .... Excellent!, that's the norm with change, and why we can all still buy Hitler cheap. But the reality is that when the years of accumulating evidence demonstrate that Hitler acceptance is increasingly becoming the norm, and Hitler continues to rise in value; it's simply prudent to go with the evidence. It doesn't mean you're a believer [in Hitler]; but the less [that]German Citizens are able to change, the more violent the eventual change [to Hitler] will be. Nobody wants a repeat of the Hitler experience, but the contrast is very instructive. Overlay the increasing radicalisation of much of Europe, and the yin of Bitcoin to the yang of fiat currency; and the intrinsic value of Bitcoin becomes a lot more obvious. SD Edited March 24 by SharperDingaan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james22 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Do you regret missing NVDA, wachtwoord? MNST? VINC? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 16 hours ago, james22 said: Do you regret missing NVDA, wachtwoord? MNST? VINC? All extremely extremely capped. Completely and utterly incomparable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 You just have to lol at wachtwoord's comments. I'll say it again... arrogant. Recently Nvidia has outperformed bitcoin significantly, you have to go back to the first half of 2017 before you find meaningful outperformance of bitcoin. Warning - this requires 'stronger self-reflection' to acknowledge there was a better place for your money. Nearly all the gains in bitcoin was made from buying extremely early and just holding. Raise your hand if you bought in 2012 or before (date wachtwoord's article) and continue to hold those bitcoins? I know a two people that had bitcoin back then and not a single person held. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwoCitiesCapital Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 (edited) 1 hour ago, Sweet said: You just have to lol at wachtwoord's comments. I'll say it again... arrogant. Recently Nvidia has outperformed bitcoin significantly, you have to go back to the first half of 2017 before you find meaningful outperformance of bitcoin. Warning - this requires 'stronger self-reflection' to acknowledge there was a better place for your money. Nearly all the gains in bitcoin was made from buying extremely early and just holding. Raise your hand if you bought in 2012 or before (date wachtwoord's article) and continue to hold those bitcoins? I know a two people that had bitcoin back then and not a single person held. I started DCA'ing in 2019. I'm up near 20x on certain lots acquired in 2020. 7-10x on most lots purchased in 2019/2020. And even up 1.5-2x on the most of the lots purchased in 2021. Have I outperformed NVDA? Hard to say - I haven't calculated my exact performance, but not outperforming a single stock for me isn't a sign of failure. Its a recognition that I would have been unlikely to pick NVDA in 2019 as a conviction pick and commit to holding it for years like I did for BTC. What I did instead was allocated to BTC with the thought it would likely outperform the average stock. It has done so in spades. As well as outperforming all of my individual stock picks - even fantastic ones like Eurobank, Fairfax, and Rolls Royce - all of which were acquired at great prices from the 2020 drawdown. You didn't need to buy BTC back in 2012 to do well. You just need to DCA with a 3-5 year time horizon. Will BTC achieve the same level of returns it had in 2013 and 2016? I doubt it. But that doesn't mean it still won't be the best place for incremental capital for most of us. Edited March 25 by TwoCitiesCapital Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfp Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 Well james east convinced me to buy Microstrategy stock and it is already up 40%. Why do I even mess around with oil wells, student loans and hamburgers when it's this easy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 Is it not one of the absolute stupidest exercises imaginable as an investor to sit around trying to guess "this or that" in terms of "what will outperform"? First, many have a hard enough time as it is, just picking things that make money in absolute terms. 2) no one Ive seen, even amongst the greatest investors of all time, has consistently demonstrated an advantage guessing these things, they instead just focus on finding those one or two high conviction ideas....and 3) isnt it also doubly dumb from a simple logic point of view given that theres like 10,000+ listed investments out there and there will also be one that "woulda done better"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkbabang Posted March 25 Author Share Posted March 25 There will always be some "best performing investment" over any time period. Hasn't it been something like MNST or something for the last 20 years? I've never owned MNST and never regretted it. Sure I regret selling NVDA after only 100% return a few years ago, and I regret selling Netflix at a spit adjusted $4 after a triple more than 15 years ago, but you aren't always going to be holding the best performing asset in the world over every time period possible. That says nothing about whether or not BTC is, has, or will be, a good investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james22 Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 2 minutes ago, Gregmal said: Is it not one of the absolute stupidest exercises imaginable as an investor to sit around trying to guess "this or that" in terms of "what will outperform"? First, many have a hard enough time as it is, just picking things that make money in absolute terms. 2) no one Ive seen, even amongst the greatest investors of all time, has consistently demonstrated an advantage guessing these things, they instead just focus on finding those one or two high conviction ideas....and 3) isnt it also doubly dumb from a simple logic point of view given that theres like 10,000+ listed investments out there and there will also be one that "woulda done better"? I'm only arguing that in 2012, there was no more reason to believe in Bitcoin than any other long-shot stock. Since the ETF approval (and Blackrock, Fidelity) recognized it as an asset class, there is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luca Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 1 hour ago, gfp said: Well james east convinced me to buy Microstrategy stock and it is already up 40%. Why do I even mess around with oil wells, student loans and hamburgers when it's this easy? How large was the position? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfp Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Luca said: How large was the position? It's getting bigger by the second Luca! But now I have FOMO because Trump's twitter thing is up more than MSTR today... There's always something... Edited March 25 by gfp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luca Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 2 minutes ago, gfp said: It's getting bigger by the second Luca! Ahhhhhhhh....FOMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 3 hours ago, Sweet said: You just have to lol at wachtwoord's comments. I'll say it again... arrogant. Recently Nvidia has outperformed bitcoin significantly, you have to go back to the first half of 2017 before you find meaningful outperformance of bitcoin. Warning - this requires 'stronger self-reflection' to acknowledge there was a better place for your money. Nearly all the gains in bitcoin was made from buying extremely early and just holding. Raise your hand if you bought in 2012 or before (date wachtwoord's article) and continue to hold those bitcoins? I know a two people that had bitcoin back then and not a single person held. It's arrogance if one significantly overestimated one's one ability or abilities. My abilities were not even up for discussion. I was mainly pointing out he was being far far too soft on himself and that by doing so he would never fix that particular shortcoming. It was meant to be nice but ignore the advice if you want to. Won't change my life I'll go back to mostly reading. I consider this topic a very interesting data point (well above average investors, among the more successful in society, higher educated in general, dealing with something that if succesful upsets the status quo and is rejected by the status quo for that reason). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharperDingaan Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 (edited) Not to knock it, but this whole MSTR vs BTC thing is very funny ... No doubt MSTR has done very well, & continues to do so; power to them ... but it's only a 25.84B market cap. Whereas BTC is currently at 1.37T; and if it makes the much touted 'next level' 100K/BTC by year end; it will finish the year at around 1.93T - amongst the top 5 market caps in the entire world. MSTR is the mouse pissing on the elephants leg! BTC is barely out the gate. At this point, pretty much every wealth management & sovereign fund in the entire world now needs to have at least 2-5% of AUM in BTC. Every pension fund, large corporate, and state treasury around the world now also needs to have at least a 5-25% weighting to BTC within its cash equivalents allocation. And it isn't going to take years for adoption; it will only be as long as it takes for the various Investment Policy Statements to come up for renewal. And all this ..... is just the institutional side BTC is capped at 21M, but the number of BTC-ETF units is unlimited; hence as BTC rises, units simply get progressively split to keep the price around $20/unit, and the BTC-ETF becomes the ubiquitous equivalent of a $20 bill; backed by BTC and not a central bank. With central banks quite happy, as BTC-ETF's can easily be restricted within national borders; whereas BTC itself is borderless. Longer term, BTC is like owning Standard Oil and US Steel when Rockefeller/Carnegie/Morgan were still running the show. The players change, but the game essentially remains the same; may we all do very well SD Edited April 7 by SharperDingaan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james22 Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 1 hour ago, wachtwoord said: I was mainly pointing out he was being far far too soft on himself and that by doing so he would never fix that particular shortcoming. I've no problem swinging at a fat pitch. I went from 0 to 1100 MSTR shares since the ETF's approval. It's now ~33% of my portfolio (I'm up $1M+). How did you size your Bitcoin position in 2012? You must be up many millions, yeah? Have you held since then? Added? What percent of your portfolio is Bitcoin now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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