Quoted from ExtremePinball:

Clearly you are referencing US Gov fiat paper, correct?
Fact: In the last 2 years, the value of U.S. fiat paper has decreased about 4%. U.S. fiat paper is regularly counterfeited. Finally, there is NO LIMIT to the amount of U.S. fiat currency being produced, therefore its value MUST decrease under the laws of supply & demand.
Fact: In the last 2 years, the value of Bitcoin has increased roughly 7,000%. Bitcoin cannot be counterfeited. There is a finite limit to the total number of Bitcoins which can be mined. That number is 21,000,000 coins. Additionally: Unlike stocks, bitcoin can be traded in fractions. No, you cannot buy 1/100 of a share of Berkshire-Hathaway. But, you CAN buy 1/100 of a bitcoin, currently costing you about $57.63.
Note: I own, and actively trade, Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin. These are the 3 most popular of the dozens of crypto-currencies. I also use Bitcoin as a method of payment for goods & services.
In my opinion, crypo-currencies are the future. Currently, there is a TREMENDOUS amount of short, and possibly long term upside in owning/trading cryptos.
Again, in my opinion, stocks & fiat currencies are far too easily and frequently manipulated. Therefore, I currently have no faith in either of these financial products.

Unfortunately this is incorrect. Bitcoin is a worldwide currency. The U.S. makes up a very tiny portion of the global crypto-coin market. It is unlikely that the entire world eventually wants a USD conversion. In fact, one of the largest trading platforms, Bitfinex, is ceasing all U.S. related trades and closing all U.S. accounts on Nov 9. In the global Bitcoin market, the U.S. is completely irrelevant. So, the reality is quite the opposite. People all over the world are trading in their fiat currencies for Bitcoin, etc. And the more businesses that accept bitcoin, and the more governments that accept bitcoin, the higher it goes.
Supply and demand at its finest.

Quoted from iceman44:

Here is what you need to know:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/13/jamie-dimon-says-people-who-buy-bitcoin-are-stupid.html

Quoted from vicjw66:

Ridiculous that this even exists. People need to google the whole tulip bulb crash that happened a hole back in Holland.

Quoted from Black_Knight:

backing - I don't trust the government, do you think I'm going to trust a corporate entity to back my money?

Quoted from KozMckPinball:

The USD is backed by the guaranteed probability that the economy will generate enough GDP to guarantee the amount of tax revenue that the US Government needs to collect. And that the Government is not constricted by a "rare" backing method to be able to grow and shrink the money supply to ensure the economy generates that revenue. It's why US Bonds are considered the safest investment in the world, the fact that guaranteed tax revenue will be used to pay off that debt. "Fiat" is a term bitcoiners or cryptos focus on to mean that the actual money is worthless and can be replaced by something, bitcoin or crypto currency, that truly is worthless. It's a completely naive belief. Running $1 trillion deficits is another story.....some day the amount of debt re-payment will be unsustainable if this continues.
The US proved in 1933 that basing money's value on a commodity's "rareness" is a ticket to economic disaster and the variables (money supply/interest rates) need to be more controllable to steer a huge economy.

Quoted from Black_Knight:

Which part, that a company might manipulate its product to make a buck at my expense

Quoted from Travish:

The "valuable" things will be food, clean water, guns, bullets and liquor.

Quoted from TRAMD:

So far, I have not been impressed by the level of understanding of Bitcoin by anyone in this thread or anyone else I have talked to in person.

Quoted from TRAMD:

This is because I still don't understand it

Quoted from BrianBannon:

I don't pretend to understand cryptocurrencies, or all the explanations offered here. My question or caution would be this, normally when something is wanted or needed there is a long line of people clamoring for it. In the case of these cryptocurrencies, I see this long line on the supply side of the equation with people offering a solution in the form of cryptocurrencies, but where are all the people on the other side? I think if we see a like demand for this type of currency, say acceptance by mainstream retailers, it will be here to stay, otherwise it looks like simple speculation to me.

Quoted from pezpunk:

Why did you fax that to yourself seven times before posting it?

Quoted from ExtremePinball:

Understand, I'm not pushing cryptos. I'm not selling this stuff. I'm a buy & hold player in this market when I'm not trading for profit. If I lose my entire $15k investment. BFD.

Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

It's pretty straight forward to buy. I use Coinbase, but there are a bunch of different exchanges out there that will be more than happy to take your money. I chose Coinbase because it was based in the US (San Francisco) and have worked to comply with governmental agencies where required. The downside IS that they comply with governmental agencies.
Anyway, the other option is to purchase through something like GDAX.
https://www.gdax.com/trade/BTC-USD
It's a little more complicated, but the fees are much lower, if not free (if you're a market maker). For your first few transactions, I'd suggest just buying through an exchange as opposed to a trading platform.
With that said, let's assume you're going to use Coinbase. All you really need to do is create the account and make the purchase. I think you get limited to $500/week unless you give them a copy of your driver's license. Once I did that, I think they bumped me up to $25,000/week.
Once you purchase your Bitcoin / Ethereum / Litecoin it gets stored in your wallet. From there you can do anything you want with it. You can leave it there, transfer it to a different wallet, spend it, give it away, etc.
Keep in mind that you won't actually get anything. They aren't going to send you a piece of paper saying that you own x.xxxxxxx bitcoin. Similar to the stocks that I buy. They don't send out a certificate anymore, it's just held by my broker electronically. What you get is a public key, a private key and a wallet address.
With that said, we need to define a few things before we move forward.
The wallet address is like a bank account number. It's where you would send the Bitcoin if you wanted to buy my shoes or pay me for a pinball machine in bitcoin.
The private key is mathematically related to the wallet address, but impossible to reverse engineer. This private key is what allows you to sign a transaction and prove you own the coins and prevents the transaction from being altered. This is something you want to guard very closely and never give to anyone. I don't have mine written down anywhere, nor do I keep it on my computer or anything else that's online or connected (more on this later). Keep in mind that if you have $50,000 in bitcoin, all someone needs is the private key to send it all to themselves.
The public key is what you hand to people to during the transaction. It's derived from the private key, but once again, it's impossible to reverse engineer.
Now that we have that out of the way, we need to talk about wallet and storage types. There are two types of storage, a hot wallet and cold storage. A hot wallet is something that you use and have online access to. In most cases the wallet is stored on the exchange. This is where you keep bitcoins that you want to use to buy coffee, a computer from Microsoft, stuff from NewEgg, or buy your neighbor's lawnmower.
What that means is that you hold the public key and the exchange holds the private key. This is how it's dangerous. If the exchange gets hacked and someone gets your private key, game over. All your stuff is gone. It has happened to exchanges over the years, which is why I don't keep much in a hot wallet.
Cold storage is the exact opposite. It's not intended to be used for day-to-day transactions. It's an offline storage repository that has no connection to the Internet. It's quick to move Bitcoin from cold storage to a hot wallet, so don't get the wrong idea. More like a checking account at a bank (hot wallet) and a pile of cash in a the safe in your basement.
The next option is cold storage. This is where you want to keep the majority of your investment. There are different types of cold storage, but what I use is a hardware wallet. There is also a paper wallet, where you can actually print out your bitcoins (weird huh?), but I never got into it so I can't comment much. I just know that I lose paper so it's probably not a good idea for me.
I use a Trezor. It's a hardware device that allows ME to hold the private key. Remember above, that when you keep it with an exchange, THEY hold the private key, not you. I like to be in complete control of my keys. You can also keep the private keys on your own computer in a wallet if you want, but that never sounded like a good idea to me.
https://trezor.io/
When I buy / mine coins, I send them to my Trezor wallet address where the private key is stored on my device. I'm in complete control of my coins. Unless someone were to steal my Trezor and my PIN, or my recover seed, it's worthless. The recovery seed allows you to recreate your private keys if your hardware wallet were to be stolen / destroyed / lost. The PIN just allows you to move funds from your Trezor.
Whew, I think my fingers hurt.
Let me know if you have any questions or if there is anything I can clarify.

Quoted from VacFink:

every new coin mined has blood on it the moment its in circulation

Quoted from Pintucky:

I have a question, if you would care to answer it.
Let's say I have a spare $5,000.00+ and want to buy just one (1) Bitcoin. I go to Coinbase to purchase it. I 'slide over' the amount needed to buy that one Bitcoin. If the value of the Bitcoins are moving rapidly up and down, how do they nail down the amount to the Penny for purchasing that one Bitcoin? Is this an easy process?
Also, let's say I park that one Bitcoin in 'cold storage', and in two years, after it makes a substantial gain, I decide I'm ready to cash it in. Do I just simply go back to Coinbase and put in a "Sell Order" and the REAL money appears in my bank account in the next day or two?
I'm not afraid of losing the money or the other security issues. I don't have time for complex things like 'mining', etc. I just want to buy one unit . . . leave it alone . . . and then hopefully cash it in for a profit.
Thanks for your time.
Mike in Kentucky

Quoted from ImNotNorm:

You pretty much just described gold too. And it has been used since the dawn of civilization....and will continue to be used until the end.

Quoted from vicjw66:

Mass delusion.
And when people start pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, it will snowball into most everyone pointing and laughing at the naked man.
This is basically what happened with the tulip bulb trade. Some genius looked at his bulb, and thought "did I really just pay $5000 for a flower seed?"

Quoted from guyincognito:

someone looking to invest their retirement in something that has "a 1000% return every year indefinitely..."

Quoted from wayout440:

The exhanges being hacked are probably not the biggest worry. From what I have gleaned on the subject, it's actually the wallets and such storage methods that are more often hacked to steal cryptocurrency. Brute force hacking is especially easy when the owners set weak passwords, ransomware is common and even cell phone data theft - but even more sophisticated methods are being implemented by hackers as well. This also gives rise to one of the cons of cryptocurrency: You can reverse a credit card transaction - but you can't with crypto, similar to cash. Once it's stolen, you basically would have to find the thief and execute your own brand of personal justice.

Quoted from guyincognito:

Any speculators have an explanation for why Bitcoin is trading on the markets at nearly 10x what it was just a year ago after sitting stagnant for almost 2 years?

Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

And when do you conduct your "How to day trading crypto" classes?
I really want to give it a shot, but I've been being a wus.

Quoted from vicjw66:

It's called bitcoin, because when people come to their senses and it all crashes down, 1 bitcoin will be worth exactly that. 12 and a half cents.

Quoted from vicjw66:

Did you buy in 2010?
If you invested early with Bernie Madoff and got out at the right time, you would have made a killing. My point has never been about whether you can make money investing in the emperor's new clothes.

Quoted from vicjw66:

So besides the wasted resources in computer hardware and Human labor, this endeavor is wasting tons of electricity thus helping pollute the planet for absolutely NOTHING of value. It should be banned. And it probably will be.

Quoted from flynnibus:

What it cost you really has nothing to do with establishing value... just sets an expectation of what someone would expect as the minimum to recover. Value is set by BOTH parties, not one.
You are confusing the term. It may have value as a TOOL/Technology.. that does not equate to value in terms of a intrinsic value as a tradable commodity.
If it costs me $10 to make a pretty piece of paper... that doesn't mean it has a market value of at least $10 or some inherent value at all. Just that it had a cost to produce.

Quoted from Taxman:

Does this generate a taxable event? Will I get a 1099?

Quoted from TRAMD:

It seems that Bitcoin will continue to rise until it doesn't. At some point, people will mostly stop buying and the first few to sell out will do well and the rest will lose their entire investment but since most of those people with huge gains on Bitcoin bought in early, they won't really lose that much and the whole thing will just go back to normal. The fools are the people buying in recently/now. They believed what the believers (aka, early adopters) told them ("Bitcoin is a great investment! I've made a 125,000% gain!") and they will suffer the loss of whatever they chose to invest. Anyone who thinks Bitcoin has a long term future is truly a fool. That doesn't mean that everyone who invests in it is a fool. Some will easily make a fortune in a few years, at the cost of the morons investing later.
Also, Bitcoin is a HIGHLY SPECULATIVE AND FRAGILE INVESTMENT, NOT A CURRENCY. As a currency, it's viability is tenuous at best.
Of course this is all just my opinion and I don't claim any of this with 100% certainty. Time will tell if I am right.

Quoted from smalltownguy:

10k by Christmas

Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption = 0.10%

Quoted from vicjw66:

You couldn't possibly understand the intricacies of such a complex subject as bitcoin. Graduating medical school hardly shows you have the intelligence to grasp such concepts.
Best to leave it to the "experts" on here.

Quoted from RandomGuyOffCL:

What is Bitcoin?
Simply put, the smart money is already in and the dumb money is currently chasing...

Quoted from TRAMD:

How many bitcoins have been mined? Does the mining process always create exactly one Bitcoin? How many coins are being mined in a day/week/month/etc? Is this rate slowing down due to complexity of solving the equations or speeding up due to increased computation power usage?

Quoted from wayout440:

Bitcoin makes looking at pinball as an investment a wiser move. Lol.

Quoted from Pintucky:

Anyone want to make some comments on the volatility of the market(s)?
Speculate?
Offer some tall tales?
Some do's and don'ts?
I'm leaning toward buying a large amount of Bitcoin and then some small amounts of Ethereum and Litecoin.
Mike in Kentucky

Quoted from guyincognito:

Lots of volatility?

Quoted from pezpunk:

i'll PM you.

Quoted from pezpunk:

okay, okay.
I built a mining rig with five Radeon Vega 56's.

Excuse the mess. That's not it's final resting place, that's just where i'm putting it together. It's not quite finished, but it does hash perfectly (so far).

Here it is going full blast. those red and blue LEDs indicate the level of usage of the GPUs -- they're all pegged at 100% in that image. Hash rate is about 10k/second.
The rig is pulling a constant 800 watts. That'll add a little over $50 to my electric bill. (9 cents per kwh in my area)
Each Vega is currently netting me about 1 Monero per month apiece. For now, it looks like i'll break even on the hardware costs in about 3-4 months, but there are several variables. Worst case scenario, I can always sell those cards - they're desirable for gaming. So there's a bit of an escape hatch if things turn sour.
The rig is pretty loud and hot. I've got the windows open in my office, and even though it's like 40 degrees out, it's at least 70 degrees in here, haha.

Quoted from ninjabones:

Anyway, I did buy some bitcoin for giggles a few years ago and for the time being, I'm letting it ride.

Quoted from ExtremePinball:

Are you pulling money out?!?!?!

Quoted from RonSS:

See, that's what I'm talking about! I'm learning!
Who is the creator and what are they getting out of this? I'll be rich, with knowledge!
Craig Wright? If so, why keep himself secret? I guess that is part of my issue with Bitcoin - people "investing" without any idea (at the start at least) who was behind it.

Quoted from ExtremePinball:

But wouldn't it fun to be the guy that sold at all of his accumulated "real estate" for $975,000 15 1/2 years ago? Seems that it would have worked out pretty well for him.

It has run up to $9,675 as I'm typing this 7:40pm Pacific. It could hit 10k before I go to sleep.
Seriously, I see $10k within 2 weeks. And I've been doing what I can to help it along.
Litecoin & Ethereum have been running strong too. They actually gained multiple percentages over Bitcoin during the last year, resulting in a better overall investment for the time period. They just don't get the publicity that Bitcoin does.
I do suspect that when Bitcoin crosses $10,000, it will get a ton of press, and then rally even further to $12k before a much needed correction. But I'm in it long term, so these early moves are but a fart in a hurricane.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Quoted from jwilson:

It's funny, I've been watching people bitch and moan about BTC since it was $1/coin. I bought a couple on a lark at $100/coin.

Quoted from rai:

sorry didn't read the entire thread, but if someone created the bitcoins that can be mined, why did they do it? I mean it sounds like someone put them in a mine and you need to use a computer to solve (mine) a problem. But what is the point of the computer (is there any value to solving the problem?).
I'm just not getting this point, usually, when someone does work they get paid. For example, let's say you are stuffing envelopes and you get paid $1 for every 100 envelopes you stuff. The point being you are doing a job, and the person paying you needs the envelops stuffed and so both parties get something out of the work.
With mining bitcoins, what is the value of the calculation?

Quoted from RonaldRayGun:

Tulips.

Quoted from flynnibus:

But that's just it.... The future of Cryptocurency is not the same as the future of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just one iteration... there is nothing locking it in place as 'the winner' or even a player!
So saying "block chain is the future..." or "cryptocurrencies are the future..." may all be perfectly valid... but that doesn't mean anything about Bitcoin. The only thing holding bitcoin in place is the current bitcoin holders and the miner's willingness to participate.

Quoted from flynnibus:

hink about this... let's say you are a major player in a economic loop... a person holding goods of value or a policy driver.. like a government. You've decided that blockchains are the future... you are big enough to shape the landscape. Do you think that entity is going to pick bitcoin as the foundation when someone else has already created all the value you start with zero?? Hell no.
A disruptor will start another system and lure people into buying into their model... not take an existing one completely controlled by other people... that itself is only anchored by history, not holding onto anything that intrinsically makes it hard to dislodge.
Look at how quickly something like Pokemon Go propagated... in weeks you had tens of millions of downloads. That is the new world order... with purpose something can spread to millions of installations in days. "prior footprint" means almost nothing anymore.

Quoted from Pintucky:

I have been trying since October to open an account on Coinbase and/or GDAX but can't get either of them to accept my driver's license photo.
I've written on here before about this. But since there has been a flurry of new postings, I thought I would try it again.
I need some recommendations on what exchange to use other than those two. Some of you have surely bought on a different exchange. I read a lot today about Bitshares.org. I can't find any fee schedules on their site. Can anyone vouch for them?
One last question. If I successfully buy Bitcoin or Ether from, let's say Bitshares, can I sell them someday using another exchange? Just pull 'em outta my 'wallet' and sell them?
I'm trying SO hard to get rich and I can't even GIVE my money away!

Quoted from Black_Knight:

Pintucky- if you are buying it at 10k you are not getting rich, so there is no rush. :$

Quoted from rotordave:

Cash out and move on.
Any profit is a good profit.
Where people go wrong, is they ALWAYS get too greedy. “It could be $20,000 next year!” Hey, it could be. But hey, it could be worth nothing. Don’t be greedy, you take a profit and move on. If you bought low, you’ve done extremely well, take the profit.
I started buying and selling stuff at 16. (1986) Lets just say I don’t have to do that any more. Seen all the bubbles come and go. Too numberous to mention. It’s always the same. I’ve seen people lose everything gambling on the silliest things. It’s always greed that gets them in trouble. Always that carrot dangling in front of them “just a little bit more ...” ....
Anyways, as always, your money, you’re free to do as you please with it.
rd

Quoted from rotordave:

I can’t afford to lose any money. Ever.

Quoted from Astropin:

I can when I think there is a potential huge upside

Quoted from rotordave:

If it is a “good” investment, there should be no chance of losing your money. Worse case, you make a little profit or break even.
Anything else is gambling. You may as well go to the roulette wheel and keep betting on Black. You’ll be right around 40%.
rd

Quoted from Black_Knight:

Dave,
Can't believe you are spewing these rational thoughts in this thread. The pitchforks came out quick when I did it.

Quoted from pezpunk:

yes! (2 years ago)

Quoted from jwilson:

Now Coinbase is offline due to load. The big sell-off begins!

Quoted from jwilson:

That's the zillions of people waiting for the dip buying in.

Quoted from Black_Knight:

Can we please call it a mania now?

Quoted from XXVII:

I think the ratio of risk to reward is significantly in my favor.

Quoted from ExtremePinball:

At the beginning of 2013, Bitcoin was trading at about $25 per coin. A $4,500 (Avg cost of a NIB) investment then would have given you 180 Bitcoin.
If you sold it right now, at $9,475 ($2,000 Below its recent top) it would have net you $1,705,500. In 5 years. Doing nothing.
So, honestly, how do you feel about not having "invested" at that time?
I honestly just don't get it.

Quoted from ExtremePinball:

To date, I've accumulated 2.2+ Bitcoin, 326 Litecoin, and 38 Ether. I should have picked up more of all of them this morning when there was blood in the streets. There may be more downside to come but I'm also looking at the long term potential, not the daily ebb & flow.

Quoted from Shoot_Again:

Couple years late for this question...
As for mining you would need so much processing power at this point in the game!

Quoted from guyincognito:

Sounds like the IRS is coming for the Bitcoin tax cheats.

Quoted from Black_Knight:

Astro, you need to check with your accountant on that. Once you convert it back to usd you have a gain, not when you withdraw.
Think of it like bank interest or mutual fund gains. You are taxed when the event happens not when u take money out of the account.

Quoted from Black_Knight:

Oh, i missed that detail earlier.

Quoted from BeaglePuss:

Once the CME futures go live, I might jump back in if there's a significant dip.

Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

but I don't want to pull away from my other saving habits

Quoted from ExtremePinball:

Bought 100,000 shares of a marijuana stock this morning. Came back home this evening and it was up 17.82%. Beat Bitcoin.
I also bought some put options contracts on MGM.
Plus I put an offer on 6,000+ sf retail space just off of Fremont Street this afternoon.
Now it's off to the Baccarat tables to close out the day.

Quoted from pezpunk:

ugh all anyone uses the stock market for is illegal purchases and speculation.

Quoted from snowvictim:

Bitcoin is basically the modern day tulipmania. It's purely speculative at this point, from just north of 2k to crossing 10k USD per BTC a few days ago. The worst thing is that it's not actually a tangible asset, it's just information. The mining process is weird and complex, and liquidity is an issue. Basically you've got people hyped up about it cause they suddenly have a portfolio that's worth tens of thousands, maybe even a couple hundred thousands, dollars. Good for them, but it's all an illusion. Nothing appreciates in value this much, and I mean nothing that grows organically i.e. the growth is a result of book value, not market value. Bitcoin is heavily overvalued, largely a result of the speculative actions behind it. Remember what happened to the US housing market 10 years ago? That wasn't the result of houses, that was the result of speculation in non-tangible assets. Bitcoin claims to be a currency, but there range of commodities you can buy with it is still limited (largely due to the liquidity problems). The problem is that it's self-proclaimed status as a currency makes it liable to being taxed as income.
My friend approached me back in September 2012 asking whether we should put up 500 British pounds each to buy some bitcoins. At that point, it would have gotten us about 50 Bitcoins each, so my portfolio right now would be worth around 500,000 USD. Would I liquidate? No, probably just because of the problems involved in it (it's not like selling stock on the market), the commissions and fees involved, etc. Also why would I? All Bitcoin had done was appreciate over the paste decade, it would be foolish to sell, right? One day Bitcoin will crash, and when it does it will really hit hard. This thing has an insane volatility rate. Fluctuation of 600-1000 USD are normal. When the crash comes, it'll take everyone with it just because it will be so hard to distinguish it from "normal" fluctuations.
If you're looking into alternative currencies, try Glint. At least there you have some tangible asset.

Quoted from guyincognito:

How high

Quoted from Black_Knight:

Astro, you are funny. I mentioned value manipulation on page 2 and you wanted to argue about it. Glad you saw the light!

Quoted from Black_Knight:

Just remember, the CBOE doesn't buy or sell the futures themselves, they are just creating a place for them to be bought and sold. They make their money on the transaction itself.

Quoted from Black_Knight:

It will be interesting to see how active this market is.

Quoted from acebathound:

I'm left wondering what the heck is going on in the world when millionaires and billionaires can be created overnight

Quoted from acebathound:

It has a potential impact (even at today's price per coin) to redistribute a large amount of the world's wealth to a HUGE number of illegal entities that were doing business in Bitcoin the last 8 years.

Quoted from acebathound:

The average Joe doesn't understand it *at all*

Quoted from acebathound:

Many don't know the illegal origins of the currency

Quoted from acebathound:have more purchasing power or control when they inevitably cash out and use whatever currency nets them the most to purchase weapons.

Quoted from acebathound:

the top dogs are already established YEARS ago when it was $1 or $10 or $100 a coin.

Quoted from vicjw66:

The thing that would worry me as a holder of bitcoin is not knowing who has large holdings in it that could manipulate the market or short it. Doesn't anyone find it strange that the creator of bitcoin has 1 million of them and hasn't cashed in a single one? Who is willing to risk billions of dollars by not diversifying and cashing out at least some of that. What happens if he cashes them all out tomorrow and starts a major panic sell off?

Quoted from PinballNewb:

Cashing in on millions / billions of dollars doesn’t make sense?

Quoted from PinballNewb:

The influx of supply would cause the price to drop before you could sell it all.

Quoted from Taxman:

What happens when they near the end of 21M Bitcoins mined?

Quoted from PinballNewb:

For sure, except when I have a million total to sell I’ll gladly take a tenth of the current price and walk away with my billion happy.

Quoted from jwilson:

The problem is, the instant someone accesses that wallet, the anonymity of the creator(s) is gone. It's long been a secret. So, that's part of the motivation on their part.

Quoted from ExtremePinball:

But in the future, will undocumented immigrants still be legal??? I kid. I kid.
Please hold your applause.
Who needs it to be undocumented?!??! One just needs to study IRS law, or hire a financial professional who has. Personally, I'm not trying to hide anything, from any entity, as clearly evidenced by this, and previous posts. I'll happily, and I mean very happily pay any and all taxes due on any capital gains. What's 15% anyway, if one is making massive amounts of money, essentially out of thin air. And if one is trading in a pre-tax Roth IRA, there are no taxes due on the gains.*
BTW - With $12,000 in the rear view mirror, I've got my eyes on $15,000.....
Before Christmas.
* Consult with a financial professional before investing any money. One should only invest money one can afford to lose. Past performance is not indicative of future gains. Do not attempt to emulate anything I do. I'm not an expert, I'm just an idiot with too much time and money, at the moment. If I lose it all, you'll be notified by the immediate sale of my entire pinball collection. Enjoy the show.

Quoted from vicjw66:

Yes but the inventor(s) haven’t cashed in any of that million. Seems odd.

Quoted from vicjw66:

Is it possible the inventor lost his key and can’t access it? Can you imagine the guy punch of knowing you’re worth billions, but can’t acc as it?
The nice thing about my fidelity investment account is that if I forget my password or account number, I am confident that eventually I will be able to access my investments and cash out when I choose to.

Quoted from guyincognito:

but here's one with a positive ending:
My $200,000 bitcoin odyssey
https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/05/how-not-to-store-your-bitcoins/
How I recovered cryptocurrency from a broken laptop.

Quoted from XXVII:

The whole IOTA naming convention is a bit convoluted. An iota cannot be divided into a smaller unit. It is analogous to a Bitcoin satoshi, which is the smallest possible fraction of a bitcoin (1/100 millionth of a bitcoin). Apparently the IOTA creators went with this scheme to help eliminate the misunderstanding people have with Bitcoin's divisibility, but the price you see for IOTA on the exchanges is for an MIOTA, which is 1,000,000 iota.
So to compare total units of IOTA to Bitcoin, you have to compare the number of sats (shorthand plural form of satoshi) to iota, or whole bitcoins to GIOTA (1 billion iota), or mBTC (millibitcoin, 1/1,000 of a bitcoin) to MIOTA.
There are 21 million total bitcoins * 100 million sats per bitcoin, which means there are a total of 2.1e15 sats vs. 2.78e15 iota, or 21 million bitcoins vs. 27.8 million GIOTA, or 2.1 billion mBTC vs. 2.78 billion MIOTA. If you want to get a feel for IOTA's comparable standing against Bitcoin, you would have to multiply IOTA's exchange value by 1,000 or divide Bitcoin's value by 1,000.

Quoted from toyotaboy:

bitcoin seems like a losing battle, especially after nicehash getting hacked (probably the most popular mining software out there). There are other crypto-currencies out there, many that are more secure than bitcoin. I just started mining Zcash, will probably run it nightly since my computer is running every night anyway. It's supposed to be anonymous (which bitcoin isn't), and JPmorgan is backing them. It's currently floating around $300 each.

Quoted from PanzerFreak:

We should all come up with our own coin, Pincoin. Built into the latest pins each new high score generates a QR code that when scanned grants 1 Pincoin for a high score and 2 Pincoins for a grand champion score. There will only be 21 million possible Pincoins, just like Bitcoin.
Games would need to be on a network together for "mining" (playing) and high scores would need to be regularly beat to generate more Pincoins.
A new glass on detection system and required video surveillance for verification is required for every game on the Pincoin network.
****
Here's another one, BeefCoin. Supporting super markets provide a unique code for every pound of beef purchased. Buy 2 lbs of ground beef? You get 1 BeefCoin. Buy 24oz of fillet mignon? You get 10 BeefCoins!
Lol

Quoted from Underspin:

I can single-handedly destroy Bitcoin's value. I will invest in it starting today. Prepare for the great crash of 2017.

Quoted from Underspin:

Either you're correct and Bitcoin will go crazy in the next 1-2 years, or you will be reading my viral article "How I destroyed Bitcoin with $400"

Quoted from Underspin:

I'm already down to $377.98 SUCKERS
update: $370.84 and falling

Quoted from guyincognito:

Is anyone still using Bitcoin as currency or is everyone just speculating? Steam just recently dropped Bitcoin as a mode of payment due to it's price volatility and the per-transaction cost.

Quoted from flynnibus:

Such a model always requires 3 separate parties to agree... The buyer, the seller, and the NEXT buyer. As such, the strength is only as good as the faith of the NEXT guy in the chain.

Quoted from flynnibus:

or if the thing traded itself has other uses, the buyer is confident they will be able to move it on again for value.

Quoted from XXVII:

If I were in your shoes, I would leave it there. You already weren't missing it, so why not ride it out and see if Bitcoin goes 10x again? Worst case is you lose something you've already once forgotten you had.

Quoted from flynnibus:

I might be banging a supermodel.. and get hit by a meteor at the same time. Maybe...

Quoted from TRAMD:

If he invested $1000 seven years ago he'd have more like $15 million now.

Quoted from Taxman:

investments though a "regular" bank

Quoted from PhilGreg:

So guys, if somebody has a few expandable bucks to gamble at this thing, what do you suggest?
BTC because it's the big name in the game?
Some others because they have more room to grow and aren't as wildly volatile?

Quoted from PhilGreg:

Oh and we made fun of him because he was worried about the singularity and an AI takeover too.

Quoted from acebathound:

Plan to just lose the money. I don't know how anyone entering the market now could throw major cash at this thing at its current price & feel comfortable. You're trading with a market full of gamblers that got in early and are as dumbfounded as everyone else at where this thing has gone. It's like Farmville currency being brought out into the real world and everyone that was just playing it as a game suddenly finding themselves overnight millionaires and billionaires. People sitting on tons of coins have nothing to lose & everything to gain by hyping it up more. They're trading between the cryptos to make money -- pulling out at the peak, buying back in when they (or others) cause a dip. Case in point, this morning around 6:30am Bitcoin dropped $2k for a bit. All the other major cryptos saw a spike. Then as Bitcoin was bought again, the other cyrptos went down. Major players (maybe the minors) probably have this stuff automated. Buying low, selling high.. skimming off the top.
https://www.deepdotweb.com/2017/04/30/tutorial-altcoin-flipping-cryptocurrency-trading-strategies-always-win/
The good thing is the new tech coming out of this will be useful for a lot of things & blockchain tech itself is getting a lot of press. It's also highly interesting that something was created that few under the radar long-enough that it's ultimately allowing for "the greatest transfer of wealth in history". Hopefully enough of the new-found rich will be doing good things for society.

Quoted from jorro:

But i just want to say, we had a thing here with tullip bulbs in our past.......

Quoted from acebathound:

I think we should figure out what family boardgame or street game Bitcoin resembles the most.
HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS
I saw someone mention musical chairs somewhere..

Quoted from Pintucky:

I, for one, appreciate your openness and candor about your financial trades. I'm dying to get in on cryptocurrency but have had no success in setting up on an exchange. I wanted to buy Bitcoin back when it was $3.000 and can NEVER find a way to make my application to GDAX or Coinbase work.
Mike

Quoted from ExtremePinball:

Last night in a smoky haze I decide to sell 160 LTC @ $97. It's trading at $130 as I type this. A $5,280 mistake there.