Hello.
im starting out in the bitcoin world and i want to ask you somethings:
1. do you use it mainly to make money?
2. how do you make money out of it? mining or buy&sell the coins?
3. how often are the big jumps in value? like 50$ differences.
4. is there any official value? or do i need to go by what sits like bitstamp says? (131$)
5. how much money do you usually make from buying and selling? im planing on starting with a small amount. like 3 bitcoins.
6. how risky is it? its not like the value drops allot for a long time so there isnt really a risk, especially if im going to mess with 3 coins... (?)
thanks.
1. I use bitcoin to make money, but also because it encourages economic freedom, so I use it out of principle too.
2. I neither mine nor day-trade. I make money by investing in bitcoin stocks (I use BitFunder.com and BTCT.co mainly)
3. You can check the historic price of bitcoins by checking
bitcoincharts. The price can go up by a factor of ten over a couple months, or it can stay withing a 10% range for months. Predicting the future price of bitcoins is hard.
4. No, there is no official value. A bitcoin is just worth whatever you and another person agree to trade it for. Check the "markets" link on the bitcoincharts.com to see what it is currently trading for at a number of different places.
5. The amount of money you make will be determined by your trading strategies, the movements of the market, and how well you can predict future movements. If you try to actively trade it you might get burned and lose your money. (Like I said, predicting the future price is hard, the price can move suddenly for no apparent reasons.)
6. Bitcoins are a high risk investment. There is a possibility that somebody will crack the bitcoin algorithm and they will all become worthless. There is also a possibility that people will just get bored and stop using them, so their value will drop. Or somebody will invent a competitor which is better, then people will stop using bitcoins and their value will drop.
Hope that helps.