Let's Discuss Bitcoin

I personally think investing in bitcoin is crazy.  But what are its prospects for widespread acceptance?  Right now a lot of money is jumping in but it's a bubble waiting to burst.

Any thoughts?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2017/dec/04/winklevoss-twins-bitcoin-billionaires-mark-zuckerberg

Bitcoin miners used more energy than 159 entire countries, including Ireland, according to a report by bitcoin analysis blog Digiconomist. 

Bitcoin miners are using 30 terawatts-hours of energy because the process involves using massive amounts of computing power to run the complex blockchains. 

The energy usage partially explains why an estimated 58% of bitcoin mining takes place in China where energy costs are low. 

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

There’s a saying in finance —-if you don’t understand it, don’t buy it.   I done understand bitcoin.

Where does the money go?  If I mine some new bitcoins, do I pay for them or have I earned them from making all the effort to mine them?

cramer said:

Bitcoin miners used more energy than 159 entire countries, including Ireland, according to a report by bitcoin analysis blog Digiconomist. 

Bitcoin miners are using 30 terawatts-hours of energy because the process involves using massive amounts of computing power to run the complex blockchains. 

The energy usage partially explains why an estimated 58% of bitcoin mining takes place in China where energy costs are low. 

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

A tweet by someone I follow. I remember when Jamie Dimon said it (but I'm with Jersey Jack.)

"let's call Oct 13 the 'Jamie Dimon bottom' in bitcoin. it was 5,300 on that day when he said people who buy bitcoin are 'stupid'. a month later, JPM was getting into bitcoin futures trading. do as I do, not as I say!"  

eta - Bitcoin dropped $500 from its morning highs. It's back to $14,500.

I'm sticking with tulip bulbs.

nohero said:

I'm sticking with tulip bulbs.

No luck with tulip bulbs. Squirrels get them. 

So to me the irony is that the Bitcoin producer gets something for nothing, and we get the environmental degradation from the excessive use of power.  Perfect.

cramer said:
 

nohero said:

I'm sticking with tulip bulbs.

No luck with tulip bulbs. Squirrels get them. 

Not if I keep them in a climate-controlled warehouse in China, with excess electricity consumption (like a bitcoin).

https://www.coindesk.com/price/  

CNBC is talking about how much electricity Bitcoin uses. 

yahooyahoo said:

Where does the money go?  If I mine some new bitcoins, do I pay for them or have I earned them from making all the effort to mine them?

You’ve earned 12.5 Bitcoins. However ...

The computers involved in Bitcoin mining are in a sort of computational race to process new transactions coming onto the network. The winner — generally the person with the fastest computers — gets a chunk of new Bitcoins, 12.5 of them right now. (The reward is halved every four years.) ... Anyone can set his or her computer to mine Bitcoin, but these days only people with specialized hardware manage to win the race.

What Is Bitcoin, and How Does It Work?

DaveSchmidt said:
 

yahooyahoo said:

Where does the money go?  If I mine some new bitcoins, do I pay for them or have I earned them from making all the effort to mine them?

You’ve earned 12.5 Bitcoins. However ...

The computers involved in Bitcoin mining are in a sort of computational race to process new transactions coming onto the network. The winner — generally the person with the fastest computers — gets a chunk of new Bitcoins, 12.5 of them right now. (The reward is halved every four years.) ... Anyone can set his or her computer to mine Bitcoin, but these days only people with specialized hardware manage to win the race.

What Is Bitcoin, and How Does It Work?

Getting into the Bitcoin market reminds me of the saying about poker:  If you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.

It's not nothing to mine a bitcoin, you have to leave a computer - or in more realistic cases, a lot of them, on constantly. And they realistically need to be very powerful computers. The computational power and the electricity needed are both not free on the scale needed for success.

FilmCarp said:

So to me the irony is that the Bitcoin producer gets something for nothing, and we get the environmental degradation from the excessive use of power.  Perfect.

qrysdonnell said:

It's not nothing to mine a bitcoin, you have to leave a computer - or in more realistic cases, a lot of them, on constantly. And they realistically need to be very powerful computers. The computational power and the electricity needed are both not free on the scale needed for success.

FilmCarp said:

So to me the irony is that the Bitcoin producer gets something for nothing, and we get the environmental degradation from the excessive use of power.  Perfect.

"Since 2015, Bitcoin's electricity consumption has been very high compared to conventional digital payment methods. This is because the dollar price of Bitcoin is directly proportional to the amount of electricity that can profitably be used to mine it. As the price rises, miners add more computing power to chase new Bitcoins and transaction fees."

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mining-electricity-consumption-ethereum-energy-climate-change

Buy stock in electric utility companies even though share prices usually fall when interest rates rise.   

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-hot-mess-new-futures-contracts-d-o-155516499.html

Big banks and brokers fear bitcoin volatility

Enter JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and just about all the other big (and small) brokers on Earth. They’re represented by the Futures Industry Association (FIA), which Thursday published an open letter to the CFTC, the US futures watchdog, attacking the new bitcoin futures set to launch on the CBOE, CME and Nasdaq exchanges. The big brokers care so much because, as clearing members of the exchanges, they’re the ones ultimately on the hook for losses if customers lose money and can’t pay.

The FIA didn’t pull any punches, saying, “We remain apprehensive with the lack of transparency and regulation of the underlying reference products on which these futures contracts are based and whether exchanges have the proper oversight to ensure the reference products are not susceptible to manipulation, fraud, and operational risk.”

The FIA is also criticizing the way the futures exchanges are bringing these bitcoin products to market. They relied on a one-day “self-certification” procedure that basically allows the exchanges to check off a few boxes and tell the regulators, “don’t worry, we’ve done our homework.”

That’s not good enough for the FIA, which says, “Unfortunately, the launching of these innovative products through the 1-day self-certification process did not allow for proper public transparency and input.”

The odds on bitcoin are much better than the lottery.  I bought $100 worth, just for fun.  So far I've doubled my money.  I'm too risk adverse to put in more.  Wish I had listened to my son, back when he was in high school and telling me to invest.  I just patted him on the head.

This just in from The Onion: Bitcoin On Path To Functioning Just Like Real Currency After Small Concentration Of People Acquire Majority Of It     

In the time I spent waiting for my keepkey to arrive off back order, the price shot up from like 1500 to 2400.  all I can say is, don't wait for it to hit 40,000, unless you hate making money. 

I like the idea of Bitcoin.  You can move $$ across the globe extremely quickly and inexpensively.  I have literally no idea how to assign a value(price) to a bitcoin though.  

terp said:

I like the idea of Bitcoin.  You can move $$ across the globe extremely quickly and inexpensively.  I have literally no idea how to assign a value(price) to a bitcoin though.  

The CBOE is going to use Gemini Bitcoin prices. https://gemini.com/auction-data/

It seems like a good time to buy high and sell low.

You can get delayed (10 minutes) futures here: 

http://cfe.cboe.com/cfe-products/xbt-cboe-bitcoin-futures?utm_campaign=bitcoin-futures&utm_medium=vanity-url&utm_source=na

Eventually, electronic money will be preferred, but we're in the teething stage, so it's definitely not for everyone. We really do want this to take hold eventually. It just doesn't seem smart to be an early adopter.

Here is an explanation:

Why Use Bitcoin?

For a currency to be widely adopted it needs to be stable.  Bitcoin isn't there yet....

yahooyahoo said:

For a currency to be widely adopted it needs to be stable.  Bitcoin isn't there yet....

For sure.

https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-happens-bitcoin-after-all-21-million-are-mined/

Bitcoin was originally set up to max out at 21 million bitcoins.

If you want to participate in Bitcoin but don't want to buy Bitcoin itself, you can buy Bitcoin Investment Trust,  symbol GBTC. One share of GBTC equals one-tenth of a Bitcoin. GBTC trades at about a 10% premium to the price of Bitcoin.

GBTC last price - $1850

Coindesk  Bitcoin last price - $17,253. One-tenth = $1725

GBTC  $2240  + $400  +20%