Chomping At the Bit! (Any Thoughts on Bitcoin?)

Hey Everyone,

I've been a member of several financial chats to learn about personal finance, and Bitcoin is always a hot-button topic.

From what I've seen, there seem to be 2 camps of thinking:

A. Bitcoin is the future and will save us from totalitarian governments, giving us full control of our own money.

B. Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, and the only way to make money from with it is to get some sucker to buy it from you at a higher price.

What are your thoughts?

For my own self, if Bitcoin could prove meaningful real-life value and was truly decentralized and unregulated, I might be somewhat interested. Some people say it's like owning gold as a hedge against risk, but I personally can't see how.

But the fact that cryptocurrency in general has been subject to fraud and attacks -- and seeing that people cried out to the government for reimbursement when Sam Bankman Fried took everyone's money -- has me more than a bit leery.

I might be misunderstanding, but the only way the government can really step in is if it's regulated, and I thought one of its main purposes was to act as currency that no government could regulate or control.

But I've also read about places in which the government electronically drains peoples accounts overnight, and I know there are fears that this will happen in the USA as well.

If crypto actually was a form of currency that would be readily useful and truly not tied to government control, I would be interested in at least further studying it.

But seeing as this doesn't seem possible any time soon, I've never chosen to invest into it.

* As Christians, what are your thoughts on Bitcoin?

* Is it a savior, or a scam?

* Have you or would you invest in cryptocurrency? Why or why not?

It is something that I, as a lowly fast "food" employee, will never have to mess with.

I can predict this thread will draw conspiracy theorists like a banana eater draws mosquitoes.

I'll be watching this thread though. There should be some interesting comments here in a bit.

total cock. only good for criminals and driving up graphics card prices.

The quoted is more or less my view. It's this generation's Enron, so to speak. I believe that the true value of Bitcoin and all similar coin that isn't sponsored by a govmint is exactly zero and the markets will eventually reflect that. Lots of people will get rich off of Bitcoin, but the vast majority will lose whatever they've put in to it when reality settles in.

Yeah, I think even dumpster diving is more profitable lol.

Yes, the FTX scandal is referenced in the first post when it mentioned Sam Bankman Fried stealing people's money, though FTX, his company, was not directly named.

I don't know much about bitcoin or digital currency. I just wish I hadn't dismissed it as nonsense when it was still only about $700. Its so high now (around $67k) that it's a bit like gold where it's so high that no one knows which way it's going to go long term, but I don't know what market or economic conditions make people sell or buy bitcoin or digital currency. With gold it's sort of tied to the overall economy and global unrest or stability.

@seoulsearch I just took a look at a 14 yr chart of bitcoin. It remained in the low hundreds from 2010 to 2016, then it started rising in 2016, I assume because of the improving economy, and by 2017 it was around $1k.Then it stayed high to a peak of almost $13k in 2017. Then in 2020 it spiked all the way to $59k at the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns. It stayed around $35k to $45k until it crashed to $19k in beginning of 2022 which is when Russia invaded Ukraine. It peaked again when the pandemic lockdowns ended in mid 2023 and has been on a tear since, all the way up to a high of $71k in December 2023. My off-the-cuff guess is that it's due for another crash.

Here is the chart. Choose "all" for the timeline.
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/BTC.CM=

From what I've heard (and I could be wrong,) it generally has a cycle that's tied to the election. Right now Bitcoin is considered to be in a bull run, but it's expected to drop into next year when the election results have settled in.

Many call it a Ponzi scheme because it doesn't have a real-world application yet (except for those who often want to move money for illegal things) and the only ones who make money with it are those who get in early and sell it to someone else at what they hope will be a higher price.

People say it's the new hedge (an alternative to gold,) but I don't see how (that might just be my own feeble little brain though.) Us regular citizens can't use it for anything, so I can't see how it could be of value if things collapsed.

Zero, you probably read about Costco recently offering gold and silver bars and selling out immediately?

I've never understood that either. Like if the government froze all our accounts (which happens in other countries, and is why Bitcoin rose to popularity -- marketed as an independent alternative,) how could anyone buy anything with gold bars?

Wouldn't they have to break it down into some other form of usable currency anyway? Like, how could someone go to the grocery store and buy anything -- it's not like the store is going to have change when you hand them a gold bar.

Maybe it's just something beyond my understanding.

I know some will say that even learning about money and its systems is putting trust in riches, but I disagree.

For me, it's about trying to do my best in stewardship of what God has given me, with the purpose of trying to look after family and loved ones.

I'll answer a bit later today. No pun intended! But as far as gold, I've never purchased any but I am pretty sure it's just like a stock. You own it but you never actually see it and when you want to turn it into cash you sell it back to the broker just like you sell stocks. I believe the bars they sell at costco are just so people can enjoy physically having them in their posession. I remember they cost a little more than their market value per ounce. Imean you could buy a bunch of them and then if you need to cash them in you'd have to find a gold dealer and exchange them for cash.
With bitcoin there are banks that accept bitcoin now so I assume you can withdraw cash from your bitcoin account.

Sorry this is late. I've racked my brain thinking of how the election might directly affect bitcoin but can't think of anything. If you look at the chart, after the last two elections occurred, bitcoin started a steady rise for a few months after the new president took office in January following the election. So you see a rise starting at the beginning of 2017 and 2021.

If you can't hold it, you don't own it. Bitcoin was trotted out to acclimate people to a cashless society. It's working. Buy silver.