Is Bitcoin the Next Big Thing?

[RobM]

People not seeing the difference between Tesla stocks and cryptocurrencies says it all really. One is investing in the technology with an actual physical presence - the other is gambling your greed on others gambling. Amazing how you try to dress it up.

 

[ausername]

People not seeing the difference between Tesla stocks and cryptocurrencies says it all really. .

I see them in the same way in the sense that both are massively overpriced, and I wouldn't touch either with a barge pole.

One is investing in the technology

The argument put forward is that BMW and Audi are actually closer to having the required technology to win the race to dominate the market for a luxury driverless EV market and that the price of Tesla shares is massively inflated because those companies don't shout about their R&D every 5 minutes.

There is some pretty compelling evidence, and in that sense crypto-mania and tesla-mania have some striking similarities.

It is difficult to see the justification behind Tesla's current market cap and plenty of analysts have formally suggested that the price is inflated by as much as 6x true value, it could well become a bigger collapse than Enron.

Its up to you whether you decide to really examine this or not, I have.

 

[RobM]

Stocks do not trade merely on fresh air. There is an underlying value both in physical and in terms of what it can *produce* whether that be a service or a product. Investments are made with concrete evidence of risk. Cryptos are people trading purely on other people trading. If bitcoin goes to zero tomorrow nothing has actually vanished from the world except for the money of the people who invested. There is no service or product. It's fine to gamble on its movement but it is galling to see people refer to themselves as 'investors' when there is no investment actually going on - it's the same as punters in a casino or at a racetrack calling themselves 'investors'. Of course the people who have a vested interest have to keep the price going up so they can make their profit - the price doesn't move though based on production/service/contracts etc - it moves solely based on other people getting in or getting out.
There are several articles from the economic community showing how crypto gambling is *nothing* like stocks, shares, or even currency trading. That's fine - people just need to call a spade a spade.

 

[ausername]

Stocks do not trade merely on fresh air. There is an underlying value both in physical and in terms of what it can *produce* whether that be a service or a product. Investments are made with concrete evidence of risk.

Sorry but I know you are a very smart guy with some great products and that you trade forex daily.

But this is naive tripe, because the dot com bubble was exactly that... people throwing shed loads money at things with no underlying value. The similarities between the dot com bubble and the crypto bubble are astonishing.

People throwing money at "ideas", and to a degree that is precisely what people do when they invest in Elon Musk companies. They are investing based on projections which depend on Tesla achieving stated goals which they are highly unlikely to achieve before multiple competitors.

Even the exclusive IPO rackets that they had going on was very similar to a 'pre-Mine'.

And now you've got shares doubling or tripling in price when companies announce that they are pivoting to blockchain technology, with no evidence at all that they have done anything other than produce some board minutes which say "lets announce that we are doing something blockchain related to pump up our market cap".

 

[ausername]

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/26/15872468/tesla-gm-ford-valuation-justifying-disruption

 

[Edwin]

Written by somebody bullish on Tesla and an investor in the company, but still a fascinating article even if you take the Tesla bits with a bucketful of salt...
https://www.fairobserver.com/region...tesla-car-industry-business-news-today-43504/

 

[ausername]

Written by somebody bullish on Tesla and an investor in the company, but still a fascinating article even if you take the Tesla bits with a bucketful of salt...
https://www.fairobserver.com/region...tesla-car-industry-business-news-today-43504/

Stopped reading at....

"Tesla’s market value of $60 billion is conservative, in my view. I believe that Tesla will grow to 10 times its market cap within 10 years"

So as big as Amazon is now

Or 20 times bigger than Audi's current market cap

Still not as ludicrous as the $1 million bitcoin though, which would be a market cap equivalent to 31 Amazon's. Nothing gets more ludicrous than that.

I hope after the next financial crisis, which probably isn't too far away, there is some sort of crackdown on all of these people writing articles hyping up their own investments, like the author of the article you linked.. it turns everything into Multi Level Marketing. He hasn't even been willing to put his name on the article, who wrote it?

What they should do is have a rule where if you own a share in a company, and then write ludicrous things like this.... you should have to serve 3 years in a hard labour camp for the crime of "giving investment advice with a clear vested interest", and shot after the second offence.

How about we make these the reserve of market analysts who can be paid a fantastic salary, but ban them from buying and selling shares during their employment... like footballers who aren't allowed to bet any football match anywhere in the world.

You can buy and sell shares one year after hanging up your pen, but whilst publishing projections you are barred from trading.

 

[Edwin]

It’s a pity you gave up, because it was the story of the Swiss chap that was so interesting... But I assume you never got to him!

 

[Edwin]

Looks like Bitcoin is heading towards its recent low again. Though that will probably change by the time you read this

Incidentally, BTC just hit a 24-hour low on Bitstamp, according to http://bitcointicker.co and there was an instantaneous bounce with about 4x the volume so that must be something that automated tools had programmed in as a trigger.

 

[Edwin]

BTW, likely to be a fair few unhappy folk out there...
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how to buy bitcoin with credit

 

[martin-s]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7v438b/the_last_3_months_in_47_seconds/

 

[ausername]

BTW, likely to be a fair few unhappy folk out there...
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how to buy bitcoin with credit

Same with most phrases..... https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&geo=US&q=buy bitcoin

Seems that any bagholder, or person investing now.... is purely banking on an explosion of interest happening again at some stage in the future. Seems highly unlikely to me, that was peak Crypto.

Litecoin founder sold at peak. Smart guy, hilarious how people were in denial about this and still are.

I could genuinely see Bitcoin to $1000.

 

[scottmccloud]

BTW, likely to be a fair few unhappy folk out there...
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how to buy bitcoin with credit

Lloyds Banking Group has banned credit card customers from buying Bitcoin amid fears they could be left in debt as the cryptocurrency’s value deflates.

http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/05/bitco...card-customers-buying-cryptocurrency-7286878/

 

[martin-s]

Besides the fact that buying Bitcoin on credit card is insane, does that say more about the state of Lloyds finances than anything else?

 

[websaway]

Your credit card protects you against fraud.

 

[dee]

Your credit card protects you against fraud.

Yep. It's also instant as opposed to having to set up bank transfers. People were trying to get in quick a lot of the time thinking they were going to miss out.

 

[dee]

Seems that any bagholder, or person investing now.... is purely banking on an explosion of interest happening again at some stage in the future. Seems highly unlikely to me, that was peak Crypto.

Still early days really. I suspect it will only take a moderate amount of optimism and it will test that high again at some point as people do the same again.

 

[websaway]

Still early days really. I suspect it will only take a moderate amount of optimism and it will test that high again at some point as people do the same again.

In that case you would put every penny you could raise in now. How long now before people are stepping out of high rise buildings in the far east.

 

[websaway]

Yep. It's also instant as opposed to having to set up bank transfers. People were trying to get in quick a lot of the time thinking they were going to miss out.

My point was that you may in the future have a claim against the bank.

 

[websaway]

Even if ( it won't ) this coin rose to new highs, millions of people have lost money in an unprotected system of investment. They will never get their money back and the financial organisations of the world have worked to enforce safety controls to protect gullible people against these types of events. The government should have issued warnings last year about investing in these types of schemes, but as with the property market they were probably busy investing money themselves.