Quote from: BlackHatCoiner on Today at 11:02:47 AM

Quote from: legiteum on March 07, 2024, 06:06:07 PM

You can buy the GLD ETF at whatever fraction you want, and this is all done on the Internet. But sure, if you don't like gold, there are millions of other investments you can try (and you can buy REIT shares if you want to expose yourself to real estate, for instance).

But, are these as flexible as Bitcoin? Bitcoin is really the investment of the layman. They don't need to sign any documents, nor trust any financial institutions. Just create a wallet, and have coins sent to it.

As an investment they would be more flexible than Bitcoin since they integrate with the rest of a typical consumer's investment dashboard. You can buy the products on margin, schedule purchases, do program trades, and all kinds of things. And things like tax reporting is built right in to the system so it doesn't leave you a nightmare filing mess at the end of the year.

And unless you want to engage in tax evasion, you absolutely need to sign documents, at least in terms of reporting any gains you realize.

And buying Bitcoin without presenting anybody with any sort of identification is exceedingly hard for the average consumer--it's practically tradecraft. (I personally wouldn't even know how to do this, and I've googled it before, and I'm surely far more savvy than the average consumer).

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Quote from: legiteum on March 07, 2024, 06:06:07 PM

Lots and lots of investors have been burned throughout the years by being convinced, "it will never go down" when discussing their favorite thing to invest in. I guess all I could say is, be careful with that, and keep a diverse portfolio. No financial instrument is "invulnerable".

By "invulnerable", I don't mean "always going up". I mean that it does not come with the aforementioned drawbacks of gold, stocks, real estate etc. That's why I consider it superior in terms of an instrument to put your savings to.

Yeah, believing it will never ever fall from it's current level is the same... judgement shall we say... as believing it's going to keep going up. Bitcoin fell by 80% just two years ago. Did something about it change since then that has made in invulnerable to such devaluation? Bitcoin's price is driven by masses of consumer investors being convinced the price will go up--consumer sentiment. In my experience, something like that can change in a heartbeat.