Ask HN: Is it too late to profit from Bitcoin?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6785336

by bubblepop • 13 years ago

7 16 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

officialjunk2• 13 years ago

is it too late to profit from [insert currency here]?

krapp• 13 years ago

yes.

officialjunk2• 13 years ago

lol. on a more serious note, op's question is incomplete. i assume the question is: "is it too late to buy and hold btc for a profit?," which is what most of the answers here seem to be implying, but that's the not the only way to profit...

wmf• 13 years ago

I'm tempted to say yes, but then I thought it was too late at $1, $33, and $266.

patricklorio• 13 years ago

I'm in the same boat.

OafTobark• 13 years ago

Given the short albeit brief history, although there is no way for me to know for sure, I'd say it still has a lot of growth to go for a long time considering Bitcoin's market position or lack thereof. Meaning, its only the beginning.

williamle8300• 13 years ago

You have to do your research.

Peter Blodget in the PandoDaily talk was pretty pessimistic about it. See: pandodaily.com/2013/11/18/blodget-and-the-rarified-air-around-bitcoin/

I, for one, am somewhat pessimistic about it since it doesn't tie to a national currency. Noble cause, but naîve, IMO.

Tech is about creating value for the long-term.

Morphling• 13 years ago

I'm mad at myself for not having balls/faith in Bitcoin ~1 year ago. The price was around $10 per BTC and I debated if I should buy 1 coin per month just in case the price went up, but I didn't... I could have had a ton of money now if I just had got the balls...

RachelF• 13 years ago

If I knew the answer to that I wouldn't be posting on HN :)

Seriously, though, you need to predict the behaviour of others - will they think that it is going up?

amish• 13 years ago

I think the future is in this TYPE of currency, but I think the premise that bitcoin is using to "generate" through mining is the wrong approach.

I've had in the back of my mind an idea for a long time that will take alot of ingenuity to implement, but I'm fairly confident it will be the kind of electronic currency that will sustain itself well after bitcoin.

The concept is based on the idea that there is no centralized or distributed mechanism for determining who has "mined" the currency. Each individual just creates an account, and over the lifetime of that account sustains itself based on comparisons with others whom they've transacted with. The algorithm would need to adapt to attempts to defraud it, but think about this.

If I am transacting with someone who has been spending the currency like a mad man, their currency can be seen as less valuable to the overall population (since they may be a statistical outlier in usage of the currency). When someone has spent too little, this can also be a negative, since new and unestablished accounts mean the person may be less trustworthy, etc.

I think the key to this may be in the ability to tie an account to a person's real identity somehow.

The concept around it really puts everyone on even footing when the currency first hits the market. None of this madness. Sure you can probably make money for a while with Bitcoin, but I'm not willing to bet too much on the long-term sustainability of it, just because it will be like most currencies in the past. Some will start with alot, and some will be left out to dry with none. It's simply not as appealing as a self-regulating currency.

2810• 13 years ago

there is no such thing as "too late".. the only thing you should be deciding on, is how high/low will bitcoin be, end of next year. If you think the price per BTC will soar up to $2000, then was it too late to buy now? Absolutely no!

throwaway1979• 13 years ago

The upside is much lower though if it goes to 2K at this point. I think a bunch of us want to kick ourselves because the insane upside is gone. i.e. 100x. Those crazy returns were usually reserved for VCs :-p

I bought a small amount now. Total speculation. Not enough to ever make a difference to me. I guess I'm like an entrepreneur who got heavily diluted.

My total guess is that there is a lot of pent up demand right now. A lot of tech people have already got into it but a lot more "normals" will take time to figure out how to get into bitcoin. Again, my guess is that it could collapse once the last of the "normals" has gotten theirs. Some chance there will be a day trading platform come out of it. Some chance it will become a lot bigger ... global currency level big. Who knows?

richardkiss• 13 years ago

21 million BTC divided by 7 billion people yields .003 BTC per human. That's 1 BTC for every 333 people.

There are fewer than 11.5 million addresses in use, so fewer than 11.5 million people have any BTC. There is a lot more growth to come.

yitchelle• 13 years ago

Given the volatility of Bitcoin, isn't this more like gambling rather than investing?

phaed2• 13 years ago

Short-term volatility.

phaed2• 13 years ago

That's what they said every month for the past 3 years.

Ask HN: Is it too late to profit from Bitcoin?

Related Stories