Dogecoin. Bought a lot now and I'm going to wait about 20 years. I might/could be very very wealthy. People laughed at the nerd with bitcoin just like people are laughing at Dogecoin holders.
Hey good luck. Does doge have any utility? Does it get progressively harder to mine as time goes on? I never really looked into it I just hear it being talked about from time to time.
In 2009, I bought $10,000 in Tesla (400 shares). In 2011 I sold it for $16,000. By any sane investment metric, I did great. 60% return in about 18 months. Of course if I held onto it, it would be worth over $1.5 million today. My only regret in selling it was that I wanted to invest in a "hot commodity" which was (ironic, given the discussions here) silver ETFs because precious metals were going bonkers at the time. I bought near the peak, just before the crash and lost about 1/3 of my investment within a couple of weeks. Gold and silver have a historic value as money (yeah, silver is mostly an industrial metal today). Bitcoin is still new. But one thing that they have in common, just based on what I've read over the last seven pages here is this: for gold bugs, it's never a bad time to buy. If gold is down, "buy on the dip!" If gold is up, "buy now, because it'll keep going up!" And it seems like most bitcoin fans are the same way. It's pretty much always a good time to buy, and never a good time to sell.
In practice, Bitcoin (BTC) is not a currency but a digital store of value. It costs too much to use it for smaller transactions. Governments and banks do not like it because it takes power away from them. If BTC threatens the rich, that's when regulation might occur. The rich and the banks like the status quo just the way it is thank you very much. I think a possible regulation for the US could enact would be to make BTC illegal to purchase goods (like a Tesla). You would always have to convert it to cash for a legal transaction of physical goods. The conversion to cash would be a taxable event. I do not think a law of this type would matter to the value of BTC. It might make BTC more valuable because now it would recognized and regulated to some extent. This point is valid and used to be my main sticking point to BTC. What is stopping someone from creating a new crypto that is better and more efficient than BTC in ever way? They can and probably have already. My conclusion: it just does not matter. Bitcoin is better than good...it is good enough. Bitcoin has worked, it is trusted, it has been around for "many" years, it is a "brand-name", and it is valued by people. It does what it is supposed to do. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. BTC HODLers would be 100x more skeptical of any new crypto. Any new crypto would be seen as corrupted with suspicious ulterior motives of the groups developing it. I think the race for the best crypto for small purchases is wide open. In the end, I am not sure it really matters which "small transaction" crypto wins. Think of all the small businesses that would save money not having to pay Visa fees. This would be a utilitarian coin that could be replaced in the future. The big bucks would still be stored in BTC.
The other issue about power and bitcoin is literal. The amount of energy being used to mine bitcoins and maintain the blockchain is enormous.
Trading crpytos is one of the few things i can still do during lockdown, that is keeping me sane. I have a bit of BTC and DOGE like others in here, and generally just make a few trades a day on others
My Speedy's and BTC are my two preferred forms of alternative assets. They take up a majority % of my net worth (especially with the recent rise in BTC prices.) Last time I bought more BTC was at $9.6k thinking I was buying at a high and boy oh boy do I wish I had a crystal ball to predict where the price would be a year later Like my Speedy's, I buy and HODL. Lost a good chunk of $ trying to trade on the Gamestop craze (got too greedy), that was an expensive lesson. My best performing investments were those I believed in and just HODL'd.
Digital currencies issued by governments (aka. CBDC) are no thread to BTC since it is a whole different thing. It is still fiat money, but "digital". in a nutshell no difference from todays money except gov gets rid of cash/paper money. Bitcoin ≠ Fiat
That's Bitcoin marketing and oversimplification at best. Banks can choose to trade in Bitcoin and many do but they have a lot more to loose and are bound by stricter regulations. Yes, even before there were fledgling laws around cryptocurrencies, most if not all regulated financial institutions have in house governance around high volatile trading which is where all major cryptocurrencies currently fall. The reasons governments don't like it is due to decentralisation and (currently) reduced control but not for the reasons some may think. There is a huge and very reasonable concern around anti-financial crime which covers, bribery, transparency, tax evasion, criminal activities and terrorist financing just to name a few. Sticking it to "the man" by taking away government control? More like handing it to the unscrupulous. We're not just talking about the much publicized Silk Road and Dark Web stuff but the day to day actions that plague the existing cash based systems as well. Bitcoin and other highly valued cryptocurrencies currently just make it easier. Hardly, the rich have a far greater ability to speculate than the "common folk". You really think the rich aren't profiting nicely off this? Just look at Tesla. The banks didn't like it at first since many were late to the game but there are many reasons for that (one example above). Every major bank has a separate department for Private Wealth Banking for a reason, it's very profitable to serve the needs of very rich individuals. Possibly, but it could introduce stabilisation which would erode the huge speculative spikes where financial institutions, large corporates and the privately wealthy like to make their gains. I'm not anti-crypto trading (or "investment" to some) but I dislike the mounds of misinformation surrounding it and motives from various sides. How many people who hold Bitcoins because it's a decentralised currency that can make international transactions without the need to involve banks (only in theory, you currently still need to "cash" out)? Virtually zero. The value in Bitcoin is its perceived worth which is rocketing due to it's inflation over the years. It's not part of any infrastructure or really anything we need (blockchain as a technology is very useful but a different topic). As you've mentioned, it's practically useless as a form of regular or mass transaction. Current cash (non-crypto) transactions, whether local or international are not truly "end-to-end" as the customers envisage it, even if the funds disappear from one account and appear in another a few seconds later. In many cases that's not where the transaction ends and there is a huge infrastructure behind that, cogs in the machine as it were. Verified and guaranteed transactions of this nature rely on bulking, repacking and settlement which is what any transaction fees go towards (and profit of course).
If you have a comparison between the two, I would be interested in seeing that. I assume you mean making actual bills and coins...
The vast majority of financial crimes and money laundering are committed with USD. Most blockchains are transparent public ledgers and there is little to zero anonymity. The argument that crypto facilitates financial crime is baseless. The real issue the government has with crypto is capital control.
When I read statements like this, I am puzzled. If everything is as transparent and open as you indicate, then how is it that crypto is able to be "stolen"?
As a counter-argument (I'm an expert because I spent nearly five whole minutes researching bitcoin energy consumption ) is that it's still much less than all of the vampire energy waste in the US (that's the small amount of current that plugged in electronics use, even when not in use). But it's something to consider. I assume some of the newer cryptocurrencies (there's thousands of them now) are addressing this.