Quote from: deisik on June 19, 2015, 08:44:36 PM

Quote from: johnyj on June 19, 2015, 04:25:54 PM

Quote from: deisik on June 19, 2015, 08:55:02 AM

My point is that you can't satisfactorily gauge the Bitcoin risk at all (let alone set it to some specific value), since risk is a measure of deviation between annual returns of a financial instrument or investment, but you just don't have enough input to reach a conclusion that wouldn't be a wild guess. So how are going to accurately measure the risk of Bitcoin if it is only 6 years old and the majority of these years it languished in oblivion with its price next to nothing (yeah, I know it is painful to see)?

Risk is just measured by historical data. In future, any investment could be ruined to nothing. If you bought Russian government bond before 1998 and suddenly they defaulted, and many MBS/CDS etc... busted in financial crisis, they all looked good before the total collapse

Typically you don't want any data longer than 5 years to analysis, since market condition changes all the time, those old data are most irrelevant and misleading

The data itself may indeed be utterly misleading in the assessment of future risk (actually, any past data, for that matter), but its very existence is a factor that should be counted in. Gold being highly valued as long as humanity knows it has a lot of credibility in respect to its past performance (as a basis for forecasting its future performance). Bitcoin, on the other hand, having been "there" for just 2-3 years (I mean since it got out of total obscurity), doesn't have such basis, thereby any assessment of its future performance (based on past data) is fundamentally erroneous and bordering on sheer guesswork...

Bitcoin's history is short, that's the reason bitcoin is still a risky investment. But anything has two sides: Maybe after another 10 years you have much less risk with bitcoin due to more regulation clarity and mass adoption, but then you will also have reduced return, and even worse, the reduced risk/reward ratio

In 2010, you can get one bitcoin at a couple of cents, no one think it is a serious investment since there are just so many uncertainties that can kill this experiment, but that's the time it has the most risk/reward potential

In 2015, you can get one bitcoin with 220 dollar, still not so many think it is a serious investment, but it has gained some support in financial branch, the uncertainties are dropping, and the potential future return has also dropped

It is only when you don't know what will happen in future, you can expect a huge return (and risk)