Not sure which I find more interesting...the financial possibilities of crypto or the trying to get my head around stuff like forks, new tech like IOTA or taxes. Currently I'm wondering about futures and bitcoin taxes. Let's say I have 5 BTC that I've been holding for years. I see a price I like to sell at and I short one contract of BTC futures. We drop and I cover the short and pocket the gain. Is this a better alternative to outright selling ? If I sold I'd owe cap gains on the whole amount and lose my 1+ year advantageous cap gains holding period.
I'm confused when people compare crypto to tulips. As far as I understand the tulip thing lasted max 2 years. Hasn't the fact that we are 9 years in convinced them to at least come up with a more relevant analog ?
Forks...right now they are basically free money. Currently BTC is BTC + Cash + Gold + maybe that Clashic one. Haha. The more the better ? Or are we diluting the mining power and going to face a reckoning down the road. Also curious what HODLers on here are doing with their forks...accessing and selling, waiting to access or just HODLing everything.
Sorry, me again. I've got a TA bent but BTC is mystifying. We crater 30-40% and then rally back to new highs in weeks to months. We do a massive bearish engulfing on the daily....should be toast for at least a while and then, nope ATH within weeks ETH in 2006 went from 1 to 20 and DAO hack happened. I would have figured we'd revisit at 5...think we stopped at 7 which was just a little below before the DAO happened. Year later we hit 400. Maybe it's become more 'normal' but I find the space fascinating because it trades so differently to futures and equities. I guess its just a function of smaller size and low float.
Alrighty then, a better analogy you shall get: TSLA stocks, they have been around since 2006, highflying gazillion % returns, but it is going bankrupt. The company hasn't made any money and won't at least in the next 2-3 years. They are also running out money and without new stock dilution/junk bond issue they will sink. The constant money injections keep the unprofitable business model afloat. How did you like it? The point is, just because a business/crypto has been around for a decade it still can go belly up, if the underlying model is not profitable/viable....
I guess I want to see bitcoin succeed. I have never owned a bitcoin and I even think it's used for a lot of black market purposes and perhaps helps support North Korea through the recent Wannacry ransom-ware attack. But that aside, I welcome any currency that can compete with government-controlled and manipulated currencies that lose value over time. It also might provide some kind of cheap insurance to ward off inevitable wealth taxes in the future. So that libertarian side of me kinda wants to see it succeed.
Also keep in mind that it is very hard to short-sell and there isn't a developed options market either - BTC trading is extraordinarily one-directional at the moment.
Heard in the late '90s... "This is technology..." "You're too old..." "This is The New Economy..." "Old-fashioned thinking doesn't work here...." "This is how things will work in the future..." "'Value' will come." "You better get on board." "It'll never be cheaper." "Hey!!! What just happened???"