Bitcoin drops 13% - now is your chance to invest in bitcoin, for a quick profit

[ssfc72]

If you act fast, now is your chance to invest in Bitcoin.

Elon Musk is down on Bitcoin and other digital currency and says that Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin as payment for their cars (Musk is still fully invested in Bitcoin).

The price of Bitcoin has, as a result fallen 13%.    https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-sinks-after-elon-musk-says-tesla-will-not-accept-the-digital-coin-for-transactions-223139231.html

I fully expect Bitcoin will very shortly recover ( I wouldn't be surprised if Musk buys up more Bitcoin, with the drop in price).

[gmiller1977]

No thanks

[ssfc72]

Too late.  Bitcoin is up 3.8%, today. :-)

[William]

OK, question for you guys:  Has anyone you know made money on these coins?  By "made money", I mean the money actually deposited to your chartered bank account!

[Jason]

OK, question for you guys:  Has anyone you know made money on these coins?  By "made money", I mean the money actually deposited to your chartered bank account!

Not personally but a rideshare driver told me he invests heavily in cryptocurrency. I didn't think Bitcoin would be worth putting money because I couldn't imagine it going up a lot but apparently it still is in the long(ish) term.

Btw, Brave Browser pays for looking at occasional ads in its browser (off to the side) and does so in cryptocurrency. You need a minimum of $80 to cash out. I haven't gotten that much yet but I did buy some with it. Mostly, I give it as micropayments to the websites I visit.

[Jason]

Looks like Elon Musk is has funded a lunar mission completely using a new cryptocurrency called Dogecoin. has a funny history behind it including that it was originally an imaginary cryptocurrency to make fun of cryptocurrencies. This snippet is from the linked article.

What is Dogecoin?

Basically, itââ,¬â,,¢s a kind of cryptocurrency that, much like the doge meme, was kind of a joke. Now, Dogecoinââ,¬â,,¢s market cap is around $80 billion, so itââ,¬â,,¢s a bit more serious.

At the height of dogeââ,¬â,,¢s popularity in 2013, software engineer Jackson Palmer tweeted he was "investing in Dogecoin,ââ,¬Â as a joke about the meme and cryptocurrency. He said he was ââ,¬Å"pretty sureââ,¬Â Dogecoin would be ââ,¬Å"the next big thing,ââ,¬Â which of course it wasnââ,¬â,,¢t supposed to be ââ,¬â€ until it was.

According to CNET, Palmer bought the Dogecoin.com domain in the spirit of keeping the gag going. He even Photoshopped Shibeââ,¬â,,¢s confused face on a coin. Eventually, Palmer began collaborating on Dogecoin with software engineer Billy Markus, who had previously created a cryptocurrency called Bells. After Palmer and Markus introduced Dogecoin in December 2013, it was embraced by pockets of Reddit, where news of the meme coin proliferated.

[gmiller1977]

The only reason he's able to make money is because it's an unregulated market, and it's open to the whims of the majority of buyers.

If he did such things on the stock market, he'd be thrown in jail.

I don't invest in something that isn't tangible.  What is a bitcoin?  Why does it have value?  Can I touch it?  Can you show me one?

I have things that are tangible, cash... stocks... precious metals...  I can SHOW you an ounce of silver or gold.  It will always be worth something, somewhere in whatever currency I want to exchange it in for.  Most Canadians will accept a Canadian dollar, if the CAD goes to shit, I can convert to the greenback, the Euro, the Yuan etc.  Stocks can certainly be manipulated, but they are far more regulated; certainly compared to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.

Right now, things like precious metals are on sale.  Look at other resources (Lithium comes to mind) that you can buy into, these are going to be HUGE resources and money makers in the coming years.  The world is decoupling in terms of globalization.... don't buy into the things that keep the world coupled. 

[Jason]

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.

Neither do cash, stocks, bonds. They have value because society has ascribed their value. Even precious metals, aside from those that have practical uses, have no intrinsic value. And most transactions today aren't even in cash. When you get a loan from a bank, do they give you a suitcase of money? Or do they add a number to a new account or an existing one and then tell you that you owe them that plus interest? It's accounting, nothing has changed hands. You can buy things that have intrinsic value, like a house, because it shelters you, but investment vehicles are just numbers on a balance sheet. We were once on the gold standard because people couldn't accept that cash didn't have to be backed by something real. But we're not now because we're not exchanging things that have built-in value, we're exchanging numbers and those numbers let us buy or sell things. The perfect example of all this is that banks create money. They don't loan money that was deposited, they actually add to the money supply every time they make a loan. Banks have a term for what actual cash on hand is. They call it leakage.

I'm not arguing that precious metal investments can make a lot of money, for sure, they can. Some of the metals or gems have value besides what we assign to it because they have a use, like Lithium but a lot don't. Aside from being used as a conductor, gold is pretty useless. At least, I can't think of another good use for it.

[gmiller1977]

Neither do cash, stocks, bonds. They have value because society has ascribed their value. Even precious metals, aside from those that have practical uses, have no intrinsic value. And most transactions today aren't even in cash. When you get a loan from a bank, do they give you a suitcase of money? Or do they add a number to a new account or an existing one and then tell you that you owe them that plus interest? It's accounting, nothing has changed hands. You can buy things that have intrinsic value, like a house, because it shelters you, but investment vehicles are just numbers on a balance sheet. We were once on the gold standard because people couldn't accept that cash didn't have to be backed by something real. But we're not now because we're not exchanging things that have built-in value, we're exchanging numbers and those numbers let us buy or sell things. The perfect example of all this is that banks create money. They don't loan money that was deposited, they actually add to the money supply every time they make a loan. Banks have a term for what actual cash on hand is. They call it leakage.

I'm not arguing that precious metal investments can make a lot of money, for sure, they can. Some of the metals or gems have value besides what we assign to it because they have a use, like Lithium but a lot don't. Aside from being used as a conductor, gold is pretty useless. At least, I can't think of another good use for it.

Banks don't create money.  Governments do.  They then add 0s to the balances at the banks.  They (governments) used to sell it back to people in the form of bonds.... you were a bond holder, and you were owed a due on the bond.  My grandmother made more money than I do right now (with investment vehicles), due to bonds. 

What you suggest is nothing has value.  At the end of the day, you are right.  What has value is things like food and fuel and connections; thats if you want to remove all value from everything.  However, we are not there yet and I suspect we won't ever be.   We're talking today.

Are you suggesting that Bitcoin has more value than a fiat currency, stock/bond, or precious metal?  It's a free and open market, and you are obviously free to invest your cash in whatever you like; but I don't see the value in something that is *literally* virtual.  Can you explain the value of Bitcoin?

A company has some value.  A currency has some value.  Metals and minerals have some value.  A bitcoin, created from thin air, has no value.

Is there money to be made on Bitcoin?  For sure.  You can also make money at the roulette table.

[Jason]

Banks don't create money.  Governments do.  They then add 0s to the balances at the banks.  They (governments) used to sell it back to people in the form of bonds.... you were a bond holder, and you were owed a due on the bond.  My grandmother made more money than I do right now (with investment vehicles), due to bonds.

Nope, banks create money. Any macroeconomics course tells you that. The Bank of Canada (if that's what you mean by the government) doesn't lend money to private banks which lend to individuals and private banks. Maybe you mean that the Bank of Canada creates currency. That's true. And it sets policy like the interest rate, which private banks use to determine how much they want to lend, and lends money to the government via savings bonds, treasury bonds and the like (in case I missed anything).

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-macroeconomics/chapter/how-banks-create-money/
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/about/
 

What you suggest is nothing has value.  At the end of the day, you are right.  What has value is things like food and fuel and connections; thats if you want to remove all value from everything.  However, we are not there yet and I suspect we won't ever be.   We're talking today.

I didn't say that nothing has value. I said that anything that doesn't itself do something practical has no intrinsic value. Money notes would be useless if we didn't all agree that it is are worth something to those we exchange services and goods with. Some things do have intrinsic (i.e. built-in value). I gave an example of a house as something with intrinsic value. I suppose you could argue that we are just assigning value to be sheltered but that's not what I was saying.

Are you suggesting that Bitcoin has more value than a fiat currency, stock/bond, or precious metal?  It's a free and open market, and you are obviously free to invest your cash in whatever you like, but I don't see the value in something that is *literally* virtual.  Can you explain the value of Bitcoin?

I didn't say that either. It has less value in that not everyone accepts it. At the point where it's as common as cash (if it ever is), it will have the same value. I mean that society will value it as much. But that's not likely to happen because it's not constant, like gambling, as you well put it. A dollar has to be worth a dollar next week or we wouldn't use it and just barter instead.

A company has some value.  A currency has some value.  Metals and minerals have some value.  A bitcoin, created from thin air, has no value.

Private banks create money, from thin air. Same thing.

[gmiller1977]

The Bank of Canada is owned by the federal government. 

Private banks create *debt*, the inverse line item and replayment of that debt creates money, assuming the debt is repaid.

Back to Bitcoin; given the current economic situation, it doesn't have a place in my portfolio.  No single asset should be at the whim of a single person and their ability to drive it up, or down.

[Jason]

I already said.... nevermind, it's not worth it. You're not paying attention to what I'm saying.

[gmiller1977]

I am very much paying attention to what you are saying.  I'm stating that the Bank of Montreal (or any other private Canadian financial institution) cannot "print", "create" or otherwise "inject" 16 TRILLION Canadian dollars into anything, tomorrow, if they wanted to.

What they are permitted to do, is create further DEBT for themselves (the private company and their shareholders), and the economy as a whole.  Adding DEBT does not equal money creation, it equals DEBT creation.  This DEBT creation gives economists and accountants hard-ons because they use a metric to show that the economy is "growing" as a result.  In many cases it does, but it can have serious downsides if those who are taking the DEBT are too aggresive and not fiscally responsible.

If you believe that any Canadian bank can make money from thin air, walk into a branch and ask them for more money than what is in your account; or walk into a bank you aren't a member of, and ask for "free" money that they can print for you; they're "allowed" to, right?

It's called a loan (debt), and you only get it if you credit is worth it; and the bank increases it's balance sheet as a result.

Do you actually think that $20 bill in your wallet is "currency"?

[gmiller1977]

Not personally but a rideshare driver told me he invests heavily in cryptocurrency. I didn't think Bitcoin would be worth putting money because I couldn't imagine it going up a lot but apparently it still is in the long(ish) term.

I just noticed this, and it literally made me laugh out loud.

A "ride share driver invests heavily in cryptos"...... he's an Uber driver.  Probably not the best place to take fianancial advice from.  He's leasing the car he has. 

Here's the thing - if you have the net worth to invest directly, or borrow cheap for cryptos, you might be able to make some money.

I work with a LOT of weathly people.  ZERO of them are doing this.  Literally ZERO.

Cash.  Property.  Physcal assests.

I don't give financial advice.  I'm also not a "Ride Sharing Driver".... whatever the hell that is.  I hope to never find out.  It sounds horrible.

[Jason]

As I previously noted, you're not listening to what I said (or wrote). An example of this is that I already admitted it's not a good investment, that it's like gambling, as you said. But you keep beating that dead horse anyway. And after I pretty much made it clear that I wasn't going to bother saying anything else, you kept on going. You're tilting at windmills at this point. When someone says they're done a conversation, it's a pretty good sign that they're done.