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Bitcoin Businesses The Almighty Buck

SEC Warns 'Extreme Caution' Over Cryptocurrency Investments As Many People Take Out Mortgages To Buy Bitcoin (qz.com) 233

The head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission has warned bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investors to beware of scams and criminal activity in the sector. In the financial regulator's strongest statement yet, SEC chair Jay Clayton said: "If a promoter guarantees returns, if an opportunity sounds too good to be true, or if you are pressured to act quickly, please exercise extreme caution and be aware of the risk that your investment may be lost." The warning comes at a time when many people have begun to take out mortgages to buy bitcoin. From a report: Clayton's statement was also issued the same day the SEC took regulatory action to halt an initial coin offering (ICO). "Recognize that these markets span national borders and that significant trading may occur on systems and platforms outside the United States. Your invested funds may quickly travel overseas without your knowledge," he wrote, in a sentence that was in bold. Clayton's statement referenced some of the crucial debates that have swirled around the rise and regulation of crypto-assets like bitcoins. Are these currencies? Commodities? Or securities? The statement notes in a footnote that bitcoin in the US has been designated a commodity. But the broader answer seems to be that while it depends from case to case, initial coin offerings, at least, are more likely to be scrutinized and held to the same bar as securities offerings.
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SEC Warns 'Extreme Caution' Over Cryptocurrency Investments As Many People Take Out Mortgages To Buy Bitcoin

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  • Now (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @12:43PM (#55725277)

    Now is when you cash out, if you were wondering...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Now is when you cash out, if you were wondering...

      Well the bitcoin network processes only 4 transactions per second. This hard limit will not let you cashout instantly.

      • Well the bitcoin network processes only 4 transactions per second. This hard limit will not let you cashout instantly.

        Yep. This limit will make sure that Bitcoin crashes much harder than any other bubble in history.

  • Next month... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @12:46PM (#55725309)
    Next month, "Help me, other tax payers who aren't idiots! My mortgage is now bigger than the market value of my house. Make a law that makes the bank put my mortgage back the way it was! It's not fair!"
    • by penandpaper ( 2463226 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @12:49PM (#55725355) Journal

      Pay off your mortgage with this one simple trick that banks hate!
      The IRS won't tell you this one investment trick to pay off your mortgage.

    • Luckily there simply isn't enough money in Bitcoin to result in any political will to bail this greedy fools out.

      In the meantime, some of the big players will get richer and just enough of the fools will time it right to inspire others.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "People have been taking out mortgages to buy bitcoins" = "I read on twitter one guy said he might take out a mortgage to buy more bitcoin".

      Seriously, if PEOPLE are taking out mortgages, I doubt it's many. Probably 1 or two. People are stupid, but surely not many are THAT stupid.

      • Re:Next month... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ranton ( 36917 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:45PM (#55725865)

        Seriously, if PEOPLE are taking out mortgages, I doubt it's many. Probably 1 or two. People are stupid, but surely not many are THAT stupid.

        You are ignoring the most powerful motivator to make risky financial decisions there is: "So many people are making so much money and i'll be an idiot if I am the only one making nothing!"

        There are probably thousands if not tens of thousands of people who have already invested far more money than they can afford to lose on Bitcoin. The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates that 2 to 3 percent of adults in the United States (as many as 9 million people) have serious problems with gambling. Another 3 million meet the criteria for “pathological gambling” (also known as “compulsive gambling”). [americanbar.org] These are the types of people who would think Bitcoin is a good investment; the kind which can double their money overnight. "If I only invest $1000 instead of $10,000 I will lose $9000 when the price doubles, I need to invest more!"

        Many people really will make a lot of money on this (many already have). Maybe Bitcoin goes up to $50k and today's investors will make serious money. But it is no different than doubling down on a good black jack hand. Eventually most people will probably lose big.

        • Maybe Bitcoin goes up to $50k and today's investors will make serious money.

          The price limit for bitcoin is simply the amount of money that stupid people can get their hands on.

          It could go up to 50k if people can scrape enough money together to buy at that price, eg. by mortgaging their house.

          How much money is still left to find? I dunno, but it's fun to watch.

      • Spending their student loans on the other hand.

      • More to the point, you can only get a mortgage if there is unmortgaged equity in your house (and you have disposable income enough to cover the difference) and the process takes a few weeks / months. Most people will only be able to lose a few thousand, maybe a few tens of thousands of dollars (but much less than their total house value), because that's all the banks will lend them. Most of these will spend so long getting the mortgage that investing in BitCoin is likely to seem like a less good idea by t
      • by torkus ( 1133985 )

        TBH, if I'd taken out a mortgage and bought bitcoin even a month or two ago I'd be paying off the mortgage several times over today and still have more money invested than I started with.

        Now, we can say 'people would be stupid to do that TODAY' but we'd have said the same thing two months ago.

        Just like the stock market, it's more or less gambling.

        • by bws111 ( 1216812 )

          Yes, we would have said the same thing two months ago, and we'd STILL be correct. The only reason the price keeps going up is because no-one is selling. Once people actually start selling, that will be the end of the bubble.

          And no, it is not like the stock market. With the stock market there is actual information available to make informed decisions about your investments (note I said investments and not speculation). If you have a diverse stock portfolio, you will usually make money over time, the comp

          • > Yes, we would have said the same thing two months ago, and we'd STILL be correct.

            Uh huh, and 2 months from now you will be "right" again no doubt.

            Lol, if you do the opposite of everything slashdot said about bitcoin you'd be rich.

            I'm convinced this site is full of techno-geezers who have grown old and are now afraid of anything new. Rather than actually learning what this thing is, they just yell "get off my lawn" from their rocking chairs.

            Bitcoin is something new, something most slashdotters have bee

            • by bws111 ( 1216812 )

              Other than criminal activity, name ONE thing that makes bitcoin worth anything at all. What can bitcoin do that no other currency or cryptocurrency can? What can bitcoin do as opposed to a cryptocurrency backed by a government, or a cryptocurrency supported by some big financial players (banks,Visa, MC, even Apple, etc)? What can bitcoin do as opposed to a cryptocurrency traded on legitimate, regulated, exchanges?

              Cryptocurrency MAY (or may not) have a siginificant impact on the world. There is absolutel

          • And no, it is not like the stock market. With the stock market there is actual information available to make informed decisions about your investments (note I said investments and not speculation).

            Yep, and in the stock market a company like Apple might gain real, hard, value by taking market share from Samsung (for example).

            Bitcoin doesn't do things like that, it just exists.

        • It is a general rule that you don't take a dept, to speculate in some market.

      • Where did you read that?

  • Caveat emptor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @12:46PM (#55725313)

    Stupidity is never a good investment.
    They should have done that when it was at 11 bucks, not 11.000.

    • Re:Caveat emptor (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:07PM (#55725543)

      Stupidity is never a good investment. They should have done that when it was at 11 bucks, not 11.000.

      Unfortunately, the amount of stupidity in the universe seems to exceed the size of the universe. I read a quote to that effect on the internet so it must be true.

      This has all the makings of the Tulip Bubble combined with a pump and dump scheme. Folks who have a lot of BitCoins from early on are in a position to cash out and can manipulate the market to avoid a crash and run on it. The lack of liquidity on the sell side means the suckers ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H investors buying in now won't be able to easily pull out in a dip when they need money or take advantage of a rise in value to pay off the mortgage. All the big players need to is keep hitting new highs after dips to keep people from jumping in while they sell their cache for cash as tehy get out of the game. Volatility is their friend because all people see is a chance to make huge gains without understanding the underlying risk or fundamentals of the marketplace. Best of all, the manipulation is perfectly legal since it is unregulated and no one is selling BitCoin as an investment.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • When Bitcoin was trading below $700 I had considered taking out the maximum 401k loan I could and moving it into Bitcoin. I'd be a multi-millionaire today if I had done that.

      I bought in a few years ago at an average price of $500 or so, I'm doing very well on paper today, but I really wish I had continued putting money into it vs. my traditional investments. Even another $10,000 earlier this year and I could have retired on my gains.

      The situation with Litecoin is even crazier! I bought in at $9 and st

      • I'd be a multi-millionaire today if I had done that.
        You likely would not. Because you also have to sell at the right point ... which implies a buyer.

  • Its crazy that 40 bux worth of bitcoins at the start could be worth millions today and the facebook twins are billionaries off their 11 million dollars of btc they bought. Its driving up litecoin and ethereum due to the trading frenzy.

    But the exchanges are raking in the transaction fees right now. Can't imagine how much they are earning per day now.

    • the facebook twins are bitcoin billionaires

      You left out a word...

    • by torkus ( 1133985 )

      LTC and ETH are far, FAR more sustainable and higher levels of trading though.

      BTC ... it might not burst but it will have to fork (again) if it's going to live a happy and long life.

      I expect people will eventually move $ out of BTC and over to ETH/LTC on possibly some up-and-comer if that doesn't happen.

  • It's OK... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @12:50PM (#55725367)

    those of us that bought homes in 2008 will be more than happy to ...
    (1) take a HELOC
    (2) buy their homes at sheriff's auction when BTC crashes
    (3) rent them back to them (or evict them and rent to hard-working immigrants)
    (4) profit

    Every future crisis is just a path to profit.

  • by timholman ( 71886 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @12:52PM (#55725391)

    Are these currencies? Commodities? Or securities?

    No, more like a giant poker game where a few people will win and a lot more will lose. Oh, and the game may or may not be fixed, but if it is, there's not a thing you can do about it.

    Or more accurately, like the pyramid parties and pyramid letters that were so popular back in the early 1980s, where a bunch of people would pass money to the people at the top of the pyramid. You could make money at it, provided you brought in some greater fools to the next party to pass money to you.

    Bitcoin is a zero-sum game. No one is walking away from the table with any money that didn't come from someone else's pocket. Or in some cases, from someone else's credit card, mortgage, retirement account, or college fund.

  • Bubble Indicator (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TJ_Phazerhacki ( 520002 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @12:52PM (#55725399) Journal
    Isn't one of the key defining features of a bubble when a large number of relatively uniformed people decide to participate based on credit and margin? Tulips, the Great Crash, Great Recession, Internet Stocks, Great Recession...
    • by leonbev ( 111395 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:00PM (#55725471) Journal

      Well, that and people trying to convince you that "This time is different, $FINANCIALPRODUCTX is a new paradigm! The old rules do not apply!", where $FINANCIALPRODUCTX was .com stocks in 1999 and spec home investing in 2006.

      Not that I think what I say here will sway anybody. Don't say that you haven't been warned, though.

    • by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:18PM (#55725643)

      https://news.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]

      If you look at the history of crashes, nearly all have one thing in common: Many people investing with borrowed money. This happened with tulips, the South Sea Bubble, the 1929 crash, and the sub-prime mortgage crash. I am unaware of any bubble that did not involve a lot of people borrowing or buying on margin.

      So far that is not happening with bitcoin.

      "Less space than a nomad" in under 24 hours from ShanghaiBill.

    • by Megol ( 3135005 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:31PM (#55725729)

      Relatively uniformed? Stripper cops?

    • Re:Bubble Indicator (Score:4, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:18PM (#55726231) Journal
      The 'and margin' part of that is the real problem. If people are using secured credit, such as mortgages, then it isn't such a problem: worst case, they lose their house (more likely, they will just end up paying back their mortgage over a longer time), but all that's happening to the economy is money moving around a bit. The problem with margin is that you're borrowing against the value of the thing that they're investing in. In a system with fractional reserve banking, that borrowing increases the money supply (more money is created by the act of borrowing). As long as the asset increases in value, that's fine (that's what fractional reserve banking is meant to do: keep the amount of money in proportion to the value of the economy). As soon as there's a crash, these people no longer have assets that can be recovered to pay their debt and they have no option but to declare bankruptcy. This results in a sudden contraction of the money supply, which reduces liquidity across the entire economy and can cause a recession or depression. Bitcoin probably isn't large enough to have a serious impact on the global economy when it collapses, but it's likely to cause some localised problems.
    • Yes, you're supposed to get worried when the lower classes start discussing it in the streets and people borrow money they don't have to "invest" in it.

      There has been a lot of talk about cryptocurrencies and bubbles lately, but the great unwashed masses aren't the ones that have been buying it up. Even the institutional investors are just starting to put their money in. I expect the crazy price gains to continue.

  • No more need be said.

  • benis (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Mortgage guy here. While I'm sure SOME people have done this, there is absolutely no reliable tracking post-funding to see what people did with the equity in their homes. In our Loan Origination System, there is an option for "cash out debt consolidation" & "cash out home improvement" but no option for "cash out Bitcoin". I call BS

  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:01PM (#55725481)
    I wonder what the collateral damage is going to be when bitcoin bubble bursts.

    My cynical bet is that it will be used as a pretext to start the next crypto war. You know, government backdoors, mandatory key escrows, and restrictions to what data at rest can be encrypted.
    • I wonder what the collateral damage is going to be when bitcoin bubble bursts.

      Probably fairly insignificant. A few people will lose their ass because they have no concept of risk. Bitcoin isn't a big enough deal to impact the wider economy to any meaningful degree.

    • Maybe not a bad thing. Maybe we see a flood of used high-end graphics cards for ridiculously cheap prices.

      • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        Tell me more about this used high-end graphics cards for ridiculously cheap prices.

  • This is where contagions start. People taking loans out to level up with cryptocurrencies are just asking to get hosed when the price drops.

    All it takes are a small amount of losses for the knock on effect to hit.

  • by grnbrg ( 140964 ) <<slashdot> <at> <grnbrg.org>> on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:03PM (#55725501)

    If you are mortgaging your house to buy Bitcoin, you're a fucking idiot. You deserve the very real chance of losing everything, but your family doesn't.

    IF Bitcoin succeeds, a value of $100k-$500k is almost certain (As a floor. No one really has a clue what value a successful Bitcoin will plateau at over the long term.) -- Too many people and not enough supply for it to be otherwise. But Bitcoin is not yet a sure thing. Crypto in general may end up a failed experiment. Bitcoin specifically could implode, and be superceded by a different crypto. And even if it does succeed -- Bitcoin has had serious drops in the past -- seeing your investment drop to 25% of current value, and not recovering for 2 years is entirely possible.

    If you've got some spare cash, and it won't cause irreparable harm if it disappears completely, sure, invest that if you think Bitcoin will succeed. But no more than that.

    • Absolutely this!! Even most bitcoin bulls say to only invest what you can afford to lose.

    • Can you explain why you believe 100k-500k is "almost certain"? It is quite a wide range, and looks like arbitrary round numbers. Why not $1B?

      You also call it an investment, I thought its value proposition was as a superior currency to fiat currency?

      • by thebes ( 663586 )

        100k-500k is only a 5x scale. BTC has already shown it is more than capable of exhibiting far larger swings in short periods of time.

        • As an example, compare today's value with the first ever Bitcoin purchase, two pizzas for 10 000 Bitcoins.

          The scale required to reach one million dollars per coin is a lot smaller than what has happened so far.

          • Mean while at pizza hut dubai: "And here we have our pizza, topped with melted strands of 24K gold, notice the thinly sliced tourmaline mushrooms, carved sapphire green peppers, and sauce made from crushed rubies."

      • >Can you explain why you believe 100k-500k is "almost certain"?

        Look at the overall message - you're responding to the post of a Bitcoin booster, which by definition means they're not particularly rational.

        For one thing, they think Bitcoin's workable at all as a currency.

        • by grnbrg ( 140964 )

          Check the context. " If Bitcoin succeeds "...

          I think crypto currencies will succeed, TBH. I'm less sure about Bitcoin specifically, these days.

          But I can't think of a single set of circumstances where Bitcoin hasn't failed, but isn't highly valuable. It might fail and become worthless, I'll grant that possibility. But if that is not the case, then the current value can only be a small fraction of the long term.

          • >Check the context. " If Bitcoin succeeds "...

            If I shit gold I'd be rich.

            • by grnbrg ( 140964 )

              If I shit gold I'd be rich.

              If you crapped gold, your net worth would increase by around 35 grand each time you took a dump.

              That's how logic works. You might also note I have not anywhere asserted that Bitcoin is a sure thing, now or in the past.

      • by grnbrg ( 140964 )

        $100k-$500k is just a number pulled out of my ass, tbh. But I don't think it's unreasonable. If Bitcoin is a success, that means it is going to see widespread global use. Whether that is for online person-to-person payments, a value store for the rich, currency for the poor, all of that, or something else. But there will only ever be 21 million tokens to go around, and several million of those are already irretrievably lost. For billions of people. $100k is only another 10X away, and there is still at

        • by bws111 ( 1216812 )

          There are 'billions of people' with $10K of bitcoin? Do tell!

          While bitcoin may or may not see widespread global use, it certainly will not be the ONLY currency in widespread use, and that will greatly limit its value.

          As long as there is a 'bitcoin market' that remains wildly speculative (which it MUST do to keep gaining value) bitcoin is utterly useless as currency.

          And once the speculation ends, guess what happens to the value?

    • Absolutely. I have a standing order to buy $50 of BTC each week, because it's fun. If it goes to $1 next week, I'll be slightly bummed but not hurt in the slightest (but I'd also be scooping them up in case their price ever recovers). I play with BTC exactly the same way I'd play with a weekend in Vegas or betting on sports with my friends: it's fun to participate in a wild ride, but only to the level where you're willing and able to lose everything and still be OK with it.
  • Look at how much my House is worth! Everyone KNOWS that the old Economic principles don't apply anymore!

  • by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:10PM (#55725573)

    Though here in the USA, the socialist utopia pushers do try.

    Folks don't seem to realize what the 2000 and 2009 crashes were about or what caused them.

    Students of history are condemned to watch while the ignorant repeat it.

    • >Students of history are condemned to watch while the ignorant repeat it.

      I like this variation of the quote very much.

  • by plopez ( 54068 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:14PM (#55725597) Journal

    I am very uneasy. There seem to several bubbles going which in aggregate or perhaps 1 to 3 happening at the same time spells disaster:

    1) Cryptocurrencies. Yes, plural.
    2) AI
    3) Financial markets
    4) Housing
    5) Student loans
    5) Health care
    6) Tech in general, a run up in price of things such as FB and Tesla.
    7) Foreign and domestic real estate

    And probably more I can't think of right now. A collapse in the NYSE exchange would have a large impact on the global economy but 2 or 3 smaller ones together might have a ripple effect causing a larger collapse. I think we live in fragile times. If you look at history there were bubbles about every 10 to 20 years after the lessons of the last collapse fades from memory. We're about due.

    • You missed the big one, Retail. Retail is predicted to be the cause of the next recession when all their loans start coming due in 2018. Read this article from Bloomberg "America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning"

      https://www.bloomberg.com/grap... [bloomberg.com]

    • At least in the case of AI, I think you're confusing overhype for a bubble. Yes, AI is being overhyped, and sure, everyone is trying to slap "AI" and "machine learning" on their products, but there's nothing I've seen to suggest it's being overvalued. I'm not really seeing the sort of run-up that you'd expect in a bubble, and the places I'm seeing ML being applied are providing real value (e.g. better artificial voices, better image recognition, better speech recognit....okay, scratch that last one), as opp

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:15PM (#55725603)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re:Bitcoin Bailout (Score:5, Insightful)

      by slew ( 2918 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:16PM (#55726207)

      Though I am not on the cryptocurrency bandwagon, I am glad that it is a currency that no government would be willing to bail out in the invent it crashes. So that's good news for those taxpayers that constantly bailout companies' and governments' bad decisions. So please, by all means, underwrite your mortgage for Bitcoin, I need to buy the cheap real estate on fire sales. BTW, I won't be accepting Bitcoin as rent.

      Although nobody is gonna be bailing out BitCoin, you don't seem to understand how the mortgage bailout happened.

      The 2008 failure came from unsupported counter-party risk (incl obscure things like credit default swaps). That caused liquidity issues with Lehman brothers and AIG and other insurance companies. The problem wasn't with the mortgages, per-se, but with people betting on the mortgages (e.g., the people offering to insure them based on complicated financial arrangements that proved unsound). If people are taking out mortgages to buy bitcoin, they are taking on the risk, but if corporations do this, they generally hedge with insurance contracts and re-insurance (how else would you justify complicated financial arrangements).

      The problem is that if enough cards fall down, the corporations need the payouts from the insurance contracts. If all hell breaks loose, the companies that underwrote the insurance contracts are not going to be liquid enough to pay those out. Also, even those that thought they have bought insurance for other things (e.g., not bitcoin, not sub-prime mortgages) realize that the insurance company they paid premiums to all those years will evaporate and not make good on their payouts in other areas. This is when the bail out pressure mounts. You don't bail out the mortgages, you bail out the companies that underwrote the insurance contracts (like the US bailed out AIG for $85B and loaned JP Morgan Chase $29B to buy out the insolvent Bear Stearns) and the companies that wrote the mortgages ($200B for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae). In comparison, only a measly $24B went for direct mortgage relief...

      Fortunately, BTC is probably too small to matter today. BTC market is only $276B total vs $10T for mortgage debt (~$5T pre-Year2000). Unfortunately, the Chicago Board has opened up BitCoin Futures to ratchet things up a level. With an established futures market, it will be possible to play BTC swings w/o being limited by actual BTC holdings. BTC holding insurance contracts can be written backed by BTC futures contracts and people can speculate on those as well. We'll see how big that futures and derivatives market gets relative to the underlying BTC (in some areas, you can see 10x the market in futures/derivatives over the underlying asset).

      Things are a bunch more intertwined than anyone might imagine. Get your popcorn ready, the show is about to start....

      • Re:Bitcoin Bailout (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ahodgson ( 74077 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:46PM (#55726501)

        You missed the part where the corporations knew there was no chance the insurance could pay out, but only bought it so that they could legally not have to count the debt against their balance sheet. And the part where none of those criminals went to jail.

  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:17PM (#55725639) Journal

    Personally, I believe it's catastrophically stupid to take a mortgage to buy bitcoin.

    I rather suspect most of the people doing that couldn't even tell you, substantially, what bitcoin is.

    It's a free society, they can do it if they want. What I really am not looking forward to is the inevitable crash/fraud/whatever, after which there will be a great hue and cry for government (ie with taxpayer money) remediation because these people were too stupid to understand the risks.

    These people were the same ones flipping houses in 2007 because of the great income potential. And now we taxpayers have spent 10 years funding saving their stupid asses.

    • These people were the same ones flipping houses in 2007 because of the great income potential. And now we taxpayers have spent 10 years funding saving their stupid asses.

      Are you sure about that? Can you point to all these people who got their negative equity cancelled?

      • by sheph ( 955019 )
        I know a few who lost their place to live, but very few who actually got bailed out. The banks got bailed out but the individuals did not.
  • I was worried I'd have to go a whole day without seeing another fucking Bitcoin story...

  • People taking out second mortgages to buy Bitcoin when it has peaked and a bubble is imminent? The time to buy was months ago if you had the money. Is this going to result in the next foreclosure crisis? That would be ironic. The root cause would be risky investments but of a different sort.
  • First rule of responsible gambling: Don't gamble with more money than you can afford to lose. I guess nobody taught them that?

    And make no mistake, it most certainly IS gambling at this point.
  • by jon3k ( 691256 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:38PM (#55726421)

    SEC Warns 'Extreme Caution' Over Cryptocurrency Investments As Many People Take Out Mortgages To Buy Bitcoin

    The original source says "people" not "many people". That's also a quote without any proof.

  • by evolutionary ( 933064 ) on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:46PM (#55726495)
    People buy early and low, speculation drives demand high with no real assets backing up the worth save pure speculation. people early sell to people buying later. More people later than earlier. People at the upper end of the pyramid make crazy profits, people who buy are left holding the bag (the larger number of masses at the base supporting the profits of the top) when this balloon pops. once upon a time we had the gold standard.

    When we didn't have enough gold to back it up, so...we abandoned it for speculative currency. The one definite thing about technology, is enables us to accelerate what we normally do, making the flaws in our systems more visible. Samuel Clemens write about the stock market in Huckleberry Finn, and Sir Conan Doyle mentioned it in his writings of Sherlock Holmes as well. neither gave a pretty picture. If they could only see this...
  • As soon as trading in Bitcoin futures was announced, it legitimized in the eyes of speculators the whole idea of cryptocurrencies as an investment. This has taken place long before this whole class of commodity is even viable as a currency. Let the mining algorithms and forks proliferate for a few years until someone comes up with a version of the blockchain that supports a realistic number of transactions per second when used as money, and a money supply that can grow at a rate that makes it usable as mone

  • Same shit. Different unregulated speculation object.

    In case you're wondering: NOW is the time to get out.

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