Quote from: runpaint on January 15, 2015, 11:57:23 PM

Quote from: flipstyle on January 15, 2015, 11:14:49 PM

> assuming the price will ever recover to the same levels you bought in at

No, what I said doesn't assume anything. It's plain English and logic.

If you want 1 Bitcoin for $1000, you lose $1000 and gain 1 Bitcoin when you buy.

If you don't sell the 1 Bitcoin, the changes in the market don't magically take away your 1 Bitcoin.

If you sell that 1 Bitcoin for $2000, you have lost 100% of your Bitcoin.

If you want to talk about opportunity costs, compare it to a vacation that costs you $1000 and 180 hours of your time. Can you later sell that vacation for $500, or get back any of your lost time? No, but if you sell your 1 Bitcoin for $500, then you're $500 richer than if you had spent that $1000 on a vacation.

I have no idea what you just said.

If you sell 1 bitcoin for $500 but purchased it at $1,000, you took a net loss of $500.

1 bitcoin is 1 bitcoin if you hold it. Is this a philosophical attempt at logic?

That's like saying 1 dot matrix printer is 1 dot matrix printer. It still doesn't detract from the fact it's damn near worthless in both utility and resale price from when it was originally purchased.

Your 'my 1 bitcoin is still 1 bitcoin' mentality is nothing but a hoarder mentality. Meaning, you will be the first to catch fire once the train leaves the station, because you bought a ticket, but never used it. Thus, it's basically worthless, because you never even used it for its intended use. It's worth simply the intrinsic value of the piece of paper itself (or in your case, a few bytes of data on a harddrive).

I think you have a hard time distinguishing between sentimental worth and purchasing power. Perhaps you should have straightened that out before you 'invested' in bitcoin.

People HODLING for ages remind me of those people hoarding retro release Air Jordans and call themselves shoe heads. They say they're the best shoes ever made, hype them to the moon on forums, but have not even so much as taken the wrapping off the package, for fear they'll destroy 'future resale value.' That's not a belief or use of technology, that's blind hype investing.

There's a fine, fine difference between the two, and it's easy to tell who's who in this bitcoin game simply by what they type. Guess which category you and the OP fall?