bitcoin price rising - alternatives for portfolio - tips for next big price rise

[Stanley]

Great post Hubs :-)

The problem I have with hard wallets - where you store your crypto on a memory stick - is that I'd be too afraid of losing it!

As long as you don't lose your pin and recovery seeds your funds will always be safe and accessible. The physical memory stick can just be replaced, if lost.

[Hove Ranger]

The really interesting thing to see is how much the big banks and financial institutions are starting to freak out about bitcoin now. Clearly a sign the tide is turning!

[Hitman34]

£20,000 barrier broken today

[Stanley]

£20,000 barrier broken today

Dollars mate, but still incredible nevertheless.

[Tarbie]

Dollars mate, but still incredible nevertheless.

It's a bubble that is surely about to burst, isn't it?

I've been doing a lot of reading on the crypto-currency thing, and pretty much every financial expert is saying this growth is hugely unsustainable and ripe for a huge crash at some stage in the not too distant future.

[Hubble]

Yes, it's a bubble that's lasted... what, 7 years now? All these so-called financial experts, what else were they right about? Sweet FA I'll wager. Bitcoin is not a bubble, because it represents something far more profound than tulip mania. It represents a store of value that is the digital equivalent of gold. Sure, it may have a crash, but it will then come back and keep on going up. Nothing is going to stop cryptocurrency now, because it offers such a profound alternative to the current scam of a financial system, which is rigged, bent and run by an elite for the benefit of themselves. Crytpo offers people a democratic, transparent, global alternative. It means you don't have to kowtow to banks or governments.

And that's not even looking at the tech, the blockchain, and what that represents: a transparent public ledger, for a start. A completely new system of running things that cannot be defrauded. How does that compare to the current system? I think you can see why so many people like it. And if it's all a bubble, then why are China, Russia and Venezuela all producing their own cryptocurrency? Why are all the hedge funds piling in? The naysayers are those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo - either from fear of change or the unknown (a huge factor), or because they want it to fail, because they want the current scam to keep on operating, and crypto offers the biggest existential threat to the current system that there's ever been.

According to an Express headline I saw recently, "BITCOIN SHOCK WARNING: Cryptocurrency could lead to END OF THE WORLD, experts say"

I'm LMFAO!

But for every financial 'expert' who says bitcoin is a bubble, you can find someone just, if not more knowledgeable, saying something different - even in the mainstream now. This, for example, is from Forbes magazine:

Why Cryptocurrencies Could Push The Dollar From World Reserve Currency Status

This year, blockchain technology has skyrocketed in popularity -- and for good reason. Blockchains have the potential to decentralize how trust is guaranteed in anything that can be stored digitally, which includes money, data, identity and ownership records. It is hard to exaggerate the potential disruption of legacy institutions and business models. In late September, the head of IMF, Christine Lagarde, cautioned that cryptocurrencies can displace central banks, conventional banking and national monies in the long term.
What has gotten less attention, however, is how blockchain will impact international politics in general and economic statecraft in particular. A key foundation of the predominance of the West, and particularly the United States, is the reliance on economic power. It is codified in the Bretton-Woods institutions and the role of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Since all financial actors need to function on the U.S. market, the U.S. treasury’s domestic powers are in effect international. If they designate an entity a money-laundering concern or suspect of terrorist activity, the possibility to do business or transfers would vanish.
Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, however, threaten to disrupt this foundation by decentralizing the operation of the financial system outside sovereign states’ control. This ties well into the goals of revisionist states, who long have sought to de-dollarize the world economy. The most noteworthy actor in this regard is Russia, who announced on the 15 October that it will issue a blockchain-based CryptoRuble.


Russia has been at the forefront of encouraging a national cryptocurrency as a way to avoid Western sanctions and economic influence. To this goal, Putin has met with Vitalik Buterin, founder of the second largest cryptocurrency Ethereum, and discussed its possible implementation in Russia. The more global cryptocurrencies are used, the less influence can be generated from the role of the US dollar.
A key vulnerability in the Russian economy is the access to SWIFT, the standardised network for interbank transactions. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there were many calls to prohibit Russia’s access to SWIFT. Among transfers between Russian banks, only 5-10% went outside the SWIFT system. It has sometimes been called the ‘nuclear option’ of economic warfare to block a state from its access to SWIFT and Prime Minister Medvedev have said that there would be ‘no limits’ to the Russian response if they were de-swifted. Russia is indeed right to be worried; when the EU imposed sanctions Iran’s access to SWIFT, the Iranian’s capability to move money out of Iran was disrupted. Hyperinflation ensued and the rial lost 50% of its value against the dollar and have not rebounded since.

When trust is guaranteed by a protocol instead of financial institutions, mostly based in the West, the capability of the West to leverage economic power is reduced, which has been a key component of its grand strategy since the Second World War. Decentralized protocols are impossible for one state to sanction. A successful implementation of a national cryptocurrencies, as pioneered as well in Estonia and Tunisia, or larger implementation of global ones, will mitigate the impact of Western sanctions in general and the option of sanctioning of SWIFT in particular.
Using public blockchains, transactions can be made quicker, cheaper and without the involvement of any third parties. Today, an international transfer requires several days and multiple institutions: banks, clearinghouses and SWIFT. Transactions with cryptocurrencies, such as Dash and Litecoin, cost between 1-2 cents and take seconds or minutes.
The use of Bitcoin already gives North Korea opportunities to circumvent Western sanctions. According to Recorded Future, a threat intelligence company, North Korea commenced a large-scale Bitcoin-mining operation on 17 May. Similarly, one of Putin’s internet advisors, Dmitry Marinichev, launched a $100 million operation to mine Bitcoin. All these cases offer opportunities for states to diversify value outside the dollar system, as opposed to commodities that are generally traded in dollars.
In Venezuela, mining Bitcoin has offered an opportunity for survival. In the midst of a hyperinflation in the bolivar projected to reach 1,600% year to year, many have started mining Bitcoin in order to pay for basic necessities. Since electricity is heavily subsidised, it is one of few commodities that the inhabitants have access to and can convert to Bitcoin with the rest of the economy falling.
The core impact of blockchain technologies is a powerful decentralization. For centralized incumbents -- the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, the financial system, predominantly governed by Western financial institutions -- their leverage is poised to decrease. For revisionist states, cryptocurrencies can be an attractive alternative to speed up this process.

from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurash.../#7a59a51d6a9e


Crypto is here to stay.

[Hubble]

This is worth a watch if you want to understand bitcoin/crypto and why it's here to stay:

[Tarbie]

I'll give all of that a watch/read later Hubs.

I am genuinely interested in Bitcoin and have been for a number of years. I'm actually kicking myself that I didn't invest a few years back. I started taking an interest back in the days of the Silk Road, which as I understand it, was a huge factor in how Bitcoin took off in the first place. At the time I viewed it as a little risky due to the fact it was used in a large part for illicit transactions on the Dark Web. Had I have twigged it would grow to what it is now, I'd have been all over it.

My issue at the moment is fact that so many people are jumping on the bandwagon causing unsustainable appreciation of Bitcoins value. Down here in SA (where the Rand is on a steady decline) so many people are ploughing every available bit of cash into Bitcoin. Whilst in the short term, this is great news for those that hold Bitcoin, unless Bitcoin goes onto be the currency of choice for everyone, there has to be a correction at some stage.

I lived in Dubai through the property bubble over there, and I have to say that there are some huge similarities between what happened there and what is going on with Bitcoin. Like any investment, it's important to buy low and sell high. With what I know right now, I don't buy into the idea that Bitcoin will continue to gain value forever. I believe it will peak, there will be a correction and those that got in the game late will end up getting burnt.

[Hubble]

I think there may be multiple corrections Tarbs, but that will be along the way to bitcoin realising its true rate as a store of value second to none, and that could be way, way higher than it is now. And if you want to get on board with crypto, there are a plethora of altcoins you can buy that are still cheap or relatively low cost, but all have strong USPs. A few examples: Ardor, Enjin, Golem, Eos, Stratos, digixdao, BAT.... There are also the runners and riders in the second tier behind Bitcoin, such as ethereum, lite coin, dash and monero. And the current third tier, with things like ethereum classic.

[Stanley]

It's a bubble that is surely about to burst, isn't it?

Personally I don't see it as a bubble mainly for all the reasons Hubble details above.

Since Bitcoin's inception back in 2009 there have always been price corrections along its journey which is of course healthy, normal and the way things should be in any financial marketplace. So in that regard I draw a distinction between bubbles and corrections - two very different things and IMO erroneous to conflate the two. However when you consider now that there are well over a thousand cryptocurrencies, ICO's and tokens in existence then of course many of those will fail and go to zero, but here you would draw another distinction between the now established cryptos like Bitcoin, Ripple, Dash, Monero, Litecoin, Ethereum etc and this vast swathe of what's referred to as Alt coins.

[Tarbie]

Stan, Hubs. Yeah appreciated. The big question is what is Bitcoin's true market value, and how big will the correction/corrections be when they happen.

Again, I'll use Dubai property as an example. If you'd bought in certain parts of Dubai in 2007, you may only just be coming back into the black now 10 years later. A friend of mine lost over half the value in his property virtually overnight and had negative equity for a number of years, as well as deficit on his rental value against mortgage repayments.

I also worry that Governments may start to try to do more to regulate/control crypto-currencies. I suspect that the end of Net Neutrality in the USA may be a first step by the government there in trying to control and/or stem the growth of crypto-currencies like Bitcoin.

I'm an old cynic if I'm being honest. I'm always wary of investments that seem too good to be true. Typically they are the types of investments where somebody somewhere is going to get burnt. That's not to say you can't make good money out of trading cryptos. I just fear that those jumping on Bitcoin right now have come way too late in the day.

[Hertford Hoop]

Stan, Hubs. Yeah appreciated. The big question is what is Bitcoin's true market value, and how big will the correction/corrections be when they happen.

Again, I'll use Dubai property as an example. If you'd bought in certain parts of Dubai in 2007, you may only just be coming back into the black now 10 years later. A friend of mine lost over half the value in his property virtually overnight and had negative equity for a number of years, as well as deficit on his rental value against mortgage repayments.

I also worry that Governments may start to try to do more to regulate/control crypto-currencies. I suspect that the end of Net Neutrality in the USA may be a first step by the government there in trying to control and/or stem the growth of crypto-currencies like Bitcoin.

I'm an old cynic if I'm being honest. I'm always wary of investments that seem too good to be true. Typically they are the types of investments where somebody somewhere is going to get burnt. That's not to say you can't make good money out of trading cryptos. I just fear that those jumping on Bitcoin right now have come way too late in the day.

You have said exactly what I think and feel Tarbie, want to be involved but am very sceptical and probably too late

[Tarbie]

You have said exactly what I think and feel Tarbie, want to be involved but am very sceptical and probably too late

I'm keeping an eye on it all mate. If there is a major crash at some point and I have some money kicking around, I may invest when I feel it's hit rock bottom.

[Stanley]

My 3 golden rules:
1. Only ever invest in what you can afford to lose.
2. Never base investment decisions on FOMO, emotions and greed - only research, analysis and due diligence.
3. Buy on the dips, sell on the highs.

[Stanley]

...all very interesting though when you get the likes of John McAfee, founder of McAfee anti-virus software confidently predicting 1 Bitcoin to rise to $1 million by the end of 2020...