But does that mean anything? You could have made this kind of ROI with many assets. For example with stock options.
I have been telling people for years that "I am sure Bitcoin will grow a lot. I probably should invest. I'm just too lazy to dabble with the tech.".
And I have not invested even though I thought it would be a great investment.
But what if I did? I would not have invested more then $10k. Because it's such a volatile asset. If I did that 3 years ago, I would have made $60k or so. Nice. But I made more with less volatile investments in the same time. Simply because I invested more.
That's actually the biggest issue with Bitcoin. And what I meant with "dabble with the tech".
There is just no way to securely create a secret key.
Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's software to create the key. How do you know that software is neither malicious nor buggy?
Thanks! That bitcoin-dice.html link is awesome. It links to a rather short bash script that seems to do the key to public address conversion. That is exactly what is needed.
> There is just no way to securely create a secret key.
That is wrong. You can generate one relatively easily with dice (google for it).
> Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's software to create the key.
You're conflating generating the key, which is just generating a random number in a certain range, with calculating the public address, which involves some operations on elliptic curves.
The algorithm is not that complex. Using a library like openssl/ec it is not that hard to generate the public address. It takes about 30 lines of C code using that library.
> How do you know that software is neither malicious nor buggy?
The source code of whatever software you're using.
Here's some C code I used when I played around with it 5 years ago. No guarantees that it is bug-free or does anything useful (you still need a double sha256 and base58 encoding to get a string representation), but it gives you an idea of the complexity/simplicity.
I refuse to visit this website in order to preserve my own sanity. I was floating around forums trading BTC while it was $5. Life moves on, trees keep growing.
If I had the disposable income I have now back then I probably would have build a mining rig when the price was around $15. It wasn't too difficult to mine around a Bitcoin per day with a decent rig.
On the flipside I have no idea when or if I would have cashed out. When it hit $100? $1000? Impossible to say.
As much as I see myself as wild person when it comes to offshoot bets, I still can't reason myself into buying bitcoins. Not sure I must be too Gen X to find this reasonable.
Anyone here comment "how well they did?" and if you've pulled out or are seriously thinking about pulling out?
I feel silly, but I'm still not going to put my hard earned cash in it any time soon... In fact, I wouldn't really know how.
I bought a dozen coins at $100 a coin. I eventually sold when they reached around $800 per coin. My rationale was that I was far too obsessive about it, I checked the price every day, I read and watched articles and videos and kept up with all the drama. The amount of brain time I was spending on it was just too much. I would have remained a holder if I wasn't obsessive.
The technology and ecosystem is very interesting in many ways, buying into it is probably a good way to kick start your interest -- nothing better than having your money on the line to keep you engaged -- but who knows where it's going to be in 10 years. Which would feel worse: buying Bitcoin now and having coins worth nothing in 10 years, or not buying Bitcoin now and in 10 years looking back and thinking "I had the perfect opportunity and I didn't take it, I'm an idiot!"? I imagine for most people they'd take the risk and buy in (hence the price growth) but for me personally it's too consuming and that's why I'm out.
Thanks for chiming in. I feel I would have done the same, become obsessed with the price every day. Not worth it in the end.
Seems the only reasonable way to do it is with 'fuck money', pardon the term. You know, money you happened to have forgotten about or came about that you didn't budget for.
You're conflating the value and price of an asset. E.g. if you own an asset like a stock that pays dividends, the value of that stock is the net present value of the future dividends. The price is determined by buyers and sellers and can diverge widely from the value.
It's related to the distinction between investing and speculating. Investing is based on whether the intrinsic value is below or above the price, while speculating is just based on the price.
Let me rephrase that: it takes a lesser percentage of bitcoin holders vs fiat currency holders selling their assets to collapse the value of their respective currencies.
Or even better: it's nearly impossible to do that with fiat currency, because there are checks and balances in place.
"Invest only what you can afford to lose" really are wise words. They aren't words that will get you insanely rich in the blink of an eye, of course, but they are words that mean you won't lose your house.
You're damn right, I worked in the online gambling industry four about 5 years, and that became the golden rule zero for all things, especially poker strategy.
Interesting site. It should have another graphic on the final page like what if i had invested the same amount in [google stock¦in a property in ny¦govt bonds¦etc] as comparison.
Funny, this could be extended to all sorts of investments. What if I spent 1000 USD on Apple in 1990? I'd have about 1000 Apple stock now, currently worth around 160k.
How about the return on PonziCoin everybody missed out on?
It's gone up about 10,000% in 2 months. Market cap should surpass global GDP mid-May next year.
I have been telling people for years that "I am sure Bitcoin will grow a lot. I probably should invest. I'm just too lazy to dabble with the tech.".
And I have not invested even though I thought it would be a great investment.
But what if I did? I would not have invested more then $10k. Because it's such a volatile asset. If I did that 3 years ago, I would have made $60k or so. Nice. But I made more with less volatile investments in the same time. Simply because I invested more.
So by not investing in BTC, I did not miss much.