Have you heard of a trading instrument called "options"? In 2013, you could have bought 1 bitcoin for $100 each. All you could lose was $100. In January of 2017, you could have bought 1 bitcoin for $1,000 each, all you could lose was $1,000. Today, you can buy 1 bitcoin for $8,000 and all you can lose is that amount. Come on now, it's not that hard. Options with no expiration.
Maybe you aren't getting it. Traders go where there is speculative trading happening so that they can participate. The daily volumes, the total open interest, the counter-party risk mitigation, leverage, regulatory framework, mass adoption, legal framework for the participation of public monies, timely and accurate dissemination of information, fundamental use by actors within the economy, total market size. Bitcoin wins on precisely zero relevant metrics in comparison to alternative speculative instruments. Nobody gives a shit what was happening in 2013. It would seem that the means on offer to speculate in crypto are the inferior instruments when compared to almost any trading on any regulated exchange today.
It could be that crypto goes to the moon. If you see that money does not yield or even has a negatieve yield in some places of the world, many people will look for alternatives to liqued assets besides money. In my country you have to pay to park money. In my country they try to controle the economy through easing money. That is a recipe to disaster if you have a lot of money and no hard assets. Gold is a save have, people think, but colored diamonds where a greater save haven in the year between 2000 and 2013. With the new generation, raised with the internet, they see 'real' value in crypto, just as we see real value in our currency that in reality is also nothing more then paper with an I owe you stamp on it. If you would go back in history when paper money came out, a lot of people believed only in hard gold and want nothing to do with paper.
The ignorance of the average investor that is shown here in this thread is the exact reason why I trade this stuff. You guys have no idea how this market works, what is moving it, how demand is created and how the supply chain is organized. Yet it is a market with so much edge to be found that even a shaved bonobo can make money trading it. This again is a perfect example why Joe Public will never make money. Instead of digging in and asking the right questions, you keep venting how useless and what a scam this market is. Let's wait another couple of years until even the last bucket shop offers you guys commission free trading, a combine and a couple of free orderflow seminars, because then everyone of you will jump on the bandwagon...or it dies and goes to zero. But guess what? It doesn't matter since you were on the sidelines while others traded coins long and short and made money. Now go back to trading ES 1 lots. At least this is safe and legit, right?
https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/hacking-monero-cryptocurrency.html?m=1 Official Monero Site Hacked to Distribute Cryptocurrency Stealing Malware November 20, 2019 What an irony — someone hacked the official website of the Monero cryptocurrency project and quietly replaced legitimate Linux and Windows binaries available for download with malicious versions designed to steal funds from users' wallets. The latest supply-chain cyberattack was revealed on Monday after a Monero user spotted that the cryptographic hash for binaries he downloaded from the official site didn't match the hashes listed on it. Following an immediate investigation, the Monero team today also confirmed that its website, GetMonero.com, was indeed compromised, potentially affecting users who downloaded the CLI wallet between Monday 18th 2:30 am UTC and 4:30 pm UTC. At this moment, it's unclear how attackers managed to compromise the Monero website and how many users have been affected and lost their digital funds. According to an analysis of the malicious binaries done by security researcher BartBlaze, attackers modified legitimate binaries to inject a few new functions in the software that executes after a user opens or creates a new wallet. The malicious functions are programmed to automatically steal and send users' wallet seed—sort of a secret key that restores access to the wallet—to a remote attacker-controlled server, allowing attackers to steal funds without any hassle. "As far as I can see, it doesn't seem to create any additional files or folders - it simply steals your seed and attempts to exfiltrate funds from your wallet," the researcher said. At least one GetMonero user on Reddit claimed to have lost funds worth $7000 after installing the malicious Linux binary. "I can confirm that the malicious binary is stealing coins. Roughly 9 hours after I ran the binary, a single transaction drained my wallet of all $7000," the user wrote. "I downloaded the build yesterday around 6 pm Pacific time." GetMonero officials assured its users that the compromised files were online for a very short amount of time and that the binaries are now served from another safe source. The officials also strongly advised users to check the hashes of their binaries for the Monero CLI software and delete the files if they don't match the official ones. "It's strongly recommended to anyone who downloaded the CLI wallet from this website between Monday 18th 2:30 am UTC and 4:30 pm UTC, to check the hashes of their binaries," GetMonero said. "If they don't match the official ones, delete the files and download them again. Do not run the compromised binaries for any reason." To learn how to verify hashes of the files on your Windows, Linux, or macOS system, you can head on to this detailed advisory by the official GetMonero team. The identity of hackers is still unknown, and since the GetMonero team is currently investigating the incident, The Hacker News will update this article with any new developments.
We'll agree to disagree, but we're discussing 2 different trade scenarios. The OP clearly states it's a long trade (i.e. buying AAPL x number of years ago with the intention of holding for a long time or buying gold with no intention of selling until it hits $10K an ounce or 20 years from now, whichever comes first).
Sad news. I'm a big fan of Monero, it used to be the biggest holding in my crypto portfolio. I always check binary hashes that are verified with gpg/pgp signartures from Fluffy Pony, the lead dev of Monero, so it would not have affected me. The hacked Monero website still leaves an uneasy feeling...
No one who matters (as in people who actually know what they are talking about) value these speculative poker chips. If you want to call it degenerate gambling and people only buy in on the off chance of getting rich then maybe we can agree. But, let's not pretend the current iteration of crypto is worth anything. You're trading greendot cards. All a government has to do is make converting it to cash a felony and suddenly you're locked out of converting to the only instrument that you can buy bread with. Don't tell me "governments cant stop crypto from being traded for goods" because if you can't convert it to cash Mr. Robinson down the street won't sell you his eggs and bread if you don't have the cash everyone else on the planet uses. How do you even value crypto without comparing it to USD? You can't. There's no coin-to-goods CPI-style measurement. That's because it's worthless without the existence of fiat (thank Nixon if you want). You may as well be trading pogs or beanie babies. I work with people who are big into crypto and they are all 11th grade tier armchair economists. Something like 70%+ of all liquidity is fake. Do you know whats moving it? Manipulators and fake liquidity. Thanks for playing.
I would say that you read about that fake volume thingy in a 6 month old gazette at your hairdressers and have discussed that with your one friend who HODLs 2 BTC from 4k back in 2017. The smartest minds are trading this stuff. Jump trading is into it very big, DRW, B2C2, Alameda Research, Pantera, Galaxy Digital, basically the top of quant/HFT and macro trading. You haven't even figured out BTC's real world use case and call those guys armchair economists? Cmon, dude, really?....why should I even bother discussing with you?