I just wanted to highlight a few things for any new adopters. I know i'm a newbie on this forum, and as such have little weight to my words, but hear me out and take it with a grain of salt if need be. I've learned quite a lot between toying with BTC since early 2012 and lurking on this forum without an account for a couple months. These simple lessons require little, if any, understanding of economics, just an ability to think critically.

1. Buy in soon, but not now.
You'd do best to get fiat in an exchange right now, but don't do anything with it until you're convinced the price has stabilized. If it starts a stable rise, roll with it for a day before buying. If you're worried about the dollar or two per BTC you might lose out on in doing this, good luck gambling. On the other hand, if there's more instability, Mt.Gox keeps price-fixing, or if there's a steady decline due to price corrections, you've saved money on your bitcoins.

2. Bitcoin will serve you best as a long-term investment.
If you look at all the Bit-millionaires, all the people who've paid their bills or got money for a car through Bitcoin, it certainly wasn't through day trading. The early adopters who waited x months and decided to sell off at $2-5 either reinvested or are still butthurt and crying. Don't put yourself in that position. Find a safe point to buy, decide on a length of time to invest, and if you're not sweating the market, keep those coins. If you start feeling nervous, maybe it's time to cash out temporarily. Regardless, saving them for a few weeks or a month won't do much. If you really want to see appreciation in value, ride through smaller crashes, don't panic, and sell only when you need to and buy prices will make you a healthy profit off your original investment. I personally made the mistake of pissing away all my BTC. I had BTC25 through August and September last year, but after the price jumped from 7 to 13 in quick succession, I got jumpy and spent/cashed them all. If I would have saved them until now, I could have made $2000-2500. Instead I got around $250. My butt still hurts from this.

3. Don't trust a frenzy.
Go and look at the postings on the Speculation board from last week. People were convinced BTC would hit $300, $400, $500, and what happened when this frenzy hit its apex? Poor saps buying in at $266, followed by a sharp decline back to double digits. Think for yourself and ALWAYS ask for the data behind someone's thoughts; often it's nothing more than a delusion brought on by said person's personal stake in BTC.

That being said, good luck to everyone and I hope I'm not the only person that will get Bitcoin-rich enough to pay for a college education, lol.

Proboscis

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