Canvas you'd have sold it long before it got this high.

Walleyed, I expect wha I'll do is shed a tear when I ride my bitcoin back down to zero.

I applaud your realistic view Seven !

White, when my friends ask me how high I think bitcoin will go I say 50 percent chance it's going to the moon and 50 percent chance it's going to zero. There won't be an in between.

What the figure I'd call the moon is the question. We won't know that number until it's an accepted method of exchange. We are still in the early adoption stage.

Exactly ! It is interesting to watch but I think the biggest problem is its volatility.

If I was a retailer I would not accept bitcoin as payment. I may sell a product for 1 bitcoin in the morning that I will need to pay two bitcoins to replace, by tomorrow.

I don't know what the solution to that is

I remain long on GBTC
I can't spot any bears on the horizon. Can you spot any?

As I said above, I think its own volatility makes it unsustainable. If I had to point to one thing I see as bearish it would be that retail investors are far more involved at this level than institutional investors. Usually........that is an indication that it is time to leave the party.

Also, as I have mentioned previously, the price relationship...or disconnect between BTC and gold is a red flag to me.

Good pearls. I realized it was a Vegas play when I plunked the cash upon it, but the retailers were one-upping each other with GameStop and I figured it's this same crew(s) that are one-upping with no expertise in fundamentals. It's just click and burn.

So, I went in and I have the app on my phone set to "stun" should alerts be triggered. So far it's been a lucrative two weeks for my stash of Vegas chips.
The bull market profits for years now, have allowed for funny money fun.

LOL ! STUN !!


I would not be at all surprised to see it shoot to 100K by the end of the year. Nor would I be surprised to see it drop 50% in a day.

Volatility certainly creates opportunities,and I like it for that reason. But this one just doesn't seem viable to me. If there was a reasonable way for US based investors to hedge a position, that would be a different story.

Ken when you quit looking at it as an investment you may realize it's potential.

I read today what you can do / can't do with Cryptocurrency on PayPal FAQwww.paypal.com. Interesting :-?

yea, i find it hard to wrap my mind around the disconnect given how big the differential is. one thing folks i know that are big followers of bitcoin for long term future use say is that they want the portability of bitcoin; that electronic wallet. these are folks that have piles of precious metal also but when you start looking at metals compared to bitcoin you need to hold it in quantities that are hard to deal with--basically pallets worth of metal that you have to store securely and it doesnt move electronically. i think that might explain some of the price disparity but obviously not all

Portability of bitcoin? Having to "carry" around a 256 digit number somewhere or X amount of coin / Paper $ / ounces of G / S? . . . at least I can carry and hold it :-)

We got it is pretty good in the US where we can't even imagine a use case where memorizing 12 or 24 seed phrase (the keys to your BTC) could be better than holding/carrying some heavy metals.

I don't know of any other way to look at it. I don't view it as an investment because I don't view bitcoin as an asset. If I understand it correctly, bitcoin is nothing more than a couple of bits of computer code. There is no physical manifestation of bitcoins that I am aware of. Maybe I am wrong in that belief.

Speculation ?? That comes closer to the mark for the way I look at it. But again, there is currently no way to hedge that speculation.

Someone above mentioned US equities as a way to gain exposure to bitcoin. That makes a lot more sense to me. At this point, there are only a few ways to do that.

Square and PayPal both are publicly traded companies that allow bitcoin transactions on their platforms. By owning shares of either of those two, a guy could also gain exposure to bitcoin while also owning a portion of a company with traditional sources of revenue and income as well as a growing market share.

The problem for me, with both of those companies is that they are anti-gun. I won't participate in that, even if I could make money at it.

Robinhood is supposed to go public within a few months. That would be another more traditional investment that will give exposure to bitcoin..............if you believe Robinhood is a viable concern.

Then there is MicroStrategy Incorporated ( MSTR) . A public company that issues debt and uses the proceeds to buy bitcoin. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen but at least there is an avenue to hedge against a decline. That is true of SQ & PYPL also.

As far as using bitcoin in a retail setting, I have a couple more questions that may have already been addressed.

Let's say you go out to dinner and the bill comes to 100$. You whip out your Iphone and access your electronic wallet and pay the bill with bitcoin.

1. What is the additional transaction fee you pay and what is it based on ? This would be just like using a credit card.

2. You just spent 100$ of bitcoin that you bought for 80$ two weeks ago. You have just triggered a taxable event. How do you account for the 20$ capital gain on your bitcoin ??

^ there's a reason Janet yellen and the fed hates cryptos. I think if BTC becomes a common currency the gov and big banks will step in.

Interesting thoughts White17. Thanks.

You can bet on it.

Ken I look at it as a hedge although a very very risky one. I have zero faith in the long term future of the dollar and other fiat currencies(surprise, surprise).

Do I believe bitcoin will become the digital gold many speak of? Not a chance but then I have to remind myself we are dealing with millennials.

As far as investing in bitcoin like any other equity, commodity or land? I don't have a big enough set of balls for that. Too much volatility. When bitcoin got in the mid to high 30k range I felt it would retrace to the 20k figure or possibly lower. It still might.

I agree Steven. It still could and with good reason IMO.

So you view it as a hedge against the dollar ? I can see that but I think there are better hedges with much less volatility.

If it doesn't say "In God We Trust" on it . . . I'll take payment in precious metals. :-)