People Mortgaging Their Homes To Buy Bitcoin, Report Says

originally posted by: Vortiki

Its the same thing everyone said when it hit 6k. It was the same thong everyone said when it hit 10k. And people are continuing to speak against it, all the while it continues growing in value. Feel free to sit on the sidelines and yell "bubble" when you are missing out and have zero invested. Im sure when it starts cresting 20k there will be another wave of doom sayers.

You do realize this is the exact defense people use in a bubble that's on the verge of bursting, right?

Subprime auto market is out of control. Average car loan length right now is like 75 months or so! The value of the car is less than the outstanding loan.

I fear it could lead to a contagion in the housing market. People will make a car payment before they make their mortgage payment because you can repo a car pretty quickly. It is a huge pain for a bank to foreclose and people know it, so they are less likely to pay the mortgage if they have to choose.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Vortiki

Its the same thing everyone said when it hit 6k. It was the same thong everyone said when it hit 10k. And people are continuing to speak against it, all the while it continues growing in value. Feel free to sit on the sidelines and yell "bubble" when you are missing out and have zero invested. Im sure when it starts cresting 20k there will be another wave of doom sayers.

You do realize this is the exact defense people use in a bubble that's on the verge of bursting, right?

Remember during the housing bubble, people never though values could go down. It is different this time!

originally posted by: Edumakated
Subprime auto market is out of control. Average car loan length right now is like 75 months or so! The value of the car is less than the outstanding loan.

I fear it could lead to a contagion in the housing market. People will make a car payment before they make their mortgage payment because you can repo a car pretty quickly. It is a huge pain for a bank to foreclose and people know it, so they are less likely to pay the mortgage if they have to choose.

Interesting thought, I hadn't really considered how it could effect housing. I guess it's not just in paying rent/mortgages, but when people suddenly find themselves unable to get to work, spending is going to be impacted across the board. Housing, credit, shopping... everything.

I forget which one, but it wasn't bitcoin, it was another Cryptocurrency. He put in $75 and that initial investment is now worth over $800

originally posted by: amazing
I forget which one, but it wasn't bitcoin, it was another Cryptocurrency. He put in $75 and that initial investment is now worth over $800

I saw a story about some guy that bought several thousand bitcoins like 10 years ago or something when they were extremely cheap. Anyway, the value now is like $80 million or something. The story though is that he apparently lost the digital key because I guess he thought they were worthless a few years ago and threw out the hard drive where he stored the information. Now he is trying to see if he can dig up the garbage dump where he suspects the hard drive is now.

Doh!

a reply to: Edumakated

That's very common actually. A very large percentage of bitcoins have simply been lost due to misplaced wallets.

originally posted by: ttobban
a reply to: Bluntone22

People have to understand that there's a difference between a 'crash' and a 'bubble'. A couple decades back when the internet was booming, it went through a bubble. It didn't crash, or we wouldn't be using the webs so openly and freely now. All impulses regarding trading bubble out... it's inevitable.

When crypto bubbles, people will be seeing there entire savings be wiped away and sell their crypto accounts.. I will let it bubble, ride it out, and let it climb back stronger than it did just recently. Crypto will bubble, but it will not crash... crypto is here to stay.

The smart people will invest some money in bitcoin, wait for Bitcoin to increase so they make a profit, then sell off an amount equivalent to their original investment, then use the remaining money as toy money for Bitcoin speculation.

a reply to: stormcell

Yup, this is the way to do it.

Mortgage the house though? No, don't do that...

Also, to links to things like nicehash being hacked: Store your stuff securely! Exclamation point, exclamation point! Hardware wallets make it easy to have multiple currencies as well.

Its hard to say if its truly a bubble, IMO. It could be actual growth in the market that leads to stability. Its easy to try to draw correlations between this and things like the "housing bubble," and even dotcom. But, its novel enough that that simply may not apply.

I firmly believe we haven't seen what the cryptocurrency market, and blockchains, can really do, and I don't think we will until accessibility reigns supreme. Either through exposure over time or a super clever implementation.

originally posted by: Edumakated
Subprime auto market is out of control. Average car loan length right now is like 75 months or so! The value of the car is less than the outstanding loan.

Actually there are 96 MONTH TERMS with LTV's between 107-115%!!!

Not to mention the trillion dollar student loan fiasco, and the hardly EVER mentioned default swap derivatives amounting in the trillions, if not quadrillions still out there..

Most people are living in a fantasy and are willing to finance the futures of their very own children to maintain their self-delusions....smh..

Question: How do you price a market with $1 trillion+ a year in accommodation?? Of course that's not sustainable, but the general consensus is that it is until it isn't! What does that say about the average human being?

By that logic and example, when it goes boom...(AND IT WILL), most people will be roasting their neighbors over a spit when they're completely wiped out.

a reply to: stormcell

EXACTLY!!! Who cares if it bubbles out if it's only gains that's in there anyway. Between all the Altcoins and the cannabis market I got seeds all over the place that are free investments. If even one of them hits, it could be $100 turned into 100k or more... I could care less if 9 out of 10 plop out if a couple pan out for a jump.

I like IOTA the most right now... the fee-free transactions and microsoft's investment into it will cause a stir for any fee based crypto in 20 years time. I like Potcoin a lot too... for the simple reason full access cannabis states have difficulty using banks, and it actually fixes a currency flaw... it's around $0.30 now.

It's not even about the money. What if crypto ends up with a solid platform when the USD is reaching it's life expectancy... which is not in the most healthy state of affairs? It just seems a wiser move to get a small play in crypto on the off chance the dollar collapses.

I am a bit of an investor and I do enjoy watching markets and doing some day trading. But with any speculative investment the same rules apply: do not invest money in high risk investments that you can not afford to throw in a fireplace. The more you need it the lower the risk should be if you plan on investing in anything.

That being said, I bought bitcoin and litecoin in the middle of October. I have quintupled my money so far, until last night and today when both pulled back a bit. But that is expected as short term investors take their profits and cash out. And I still have more than four times what I started with in profits. I have my eye on a few more that are low right now but I am watching their market cap and volume before committing.

Investing is a great thing but, just like in the 1920's, people need to know what they can afford to invest and what they are getting in to or it could lead to disaster. And unlike regular stock trades or digital purchases, bitcoin transactions, even fraudulent ones, are not likely to be corrected. Once its gone - its gone.

my guess is that the millennials investing right now are going to cause a huge crash one morning when they wake up, see it going a little left on their investing app, then dump all their stock

and when it's going down fast that's when i'll start paying attention and preparing, because it will peak again higher even than it is right now with all this hype the further we get into the internet_future

i think it might peak at 19k this time around. i don't think people will trust it going past 20. but in the future it will be way higher than that

a reply to: 711117

I think the people in the high risk category are going to panic when they see higher than normal volatility. But they have to remember that this is not the NYSE. It is a volatile commodity that never stops trading. There are people out there thinking, "If I take out a second mortgage, buy bitcoin, and it doubles, I can pay off my house." In my case, had I invested enough, I could have paid off my house five times over. But I didn't invest that much because this meteoric rise in value, while incredibly exciting to watch and more so to be part of, is not normal. Not even for crypto currency.

Do not literally bet the farm on a speculative investment.

I think bc and lc will both withdraw a bit over the holidays then start a new run next year. Of course, that opinion could change in a heartbeat. But the plan for now is to watch the prices and ready a buy after sometime in January or February. But as I said, that could change soooo easily...

originally posted by: Irishhaf
Isnt such a rampant increasein value pretty much the definition of a bubble?

In this case, no. This is the definition of an Technology Adoption Curve.

Perhaps I'm old school, but isn't this like investing in "vaporware"? I mean, you can't lay your hands on it, and what would happen if, oh I don't know, say a global conflict started tomorrow and seriously fractured geopolitical lines that exist today? What would happen if the Internet...broke (I say that somewhat tongue and cheek, but it wouldn't have to physically break, it could easily morph (likely already has) into something far different from what it is today)?

As an extreme example, what would happen if there was a nuclear war tomorrow? Just can't wrap my head around this whole concept of crypto-currency.

If you really understand economics, you know a fiat currency is a pretty fragile thing, especially over time. Through the ages people have taken hard currency (gold, precious metals, etc.) and invested them in leveraged fiat currencies. Now, with crypto-currency, they're taking those leveraged fiat currencies and investing them in something even more intangible. If everything went "poof" tomorrow you don't even have a worthless piece of paper to point to for value...you just have "air".

And when you step back and look at those leveraged currencies, they are the same things which are the foundations for determining "value" in the cryptocurrency market. They have to be, because otherwise cryptocurrency can be worth everything and nothing at all in the same moment. When you look at the stability (or lack thereof) of the World currency markets, how can you make a case for investing in a "virtual" or pseudo-currency whose value is based on those same fluctuating markets? I just don't get it. Seems pretty insane to me. If those markets shift radically tomorrow due to some world event there will be no way to determine losses and gains, or even value, in these pseudo-currencies. Then what?

Oh, I know someone will be along to say how the whole crypto-currency thing is designed to establish value independent of hard currencies, but the reality is (at least for the foreseeable future) these same crypto-currencies still have to be converted into and out of hard currencies to be used in any meaningful way.

And just as kind of a crude and blunt acid test, imagine the following sales pitch just 18-19 years ago...I've got a fantastic investment opportunity for you...you can reach out and touch it too, it's a hard asset which consistently generates billions in direct and indirect profits...it's called the World Trade Center complex.
(mic drop)

a reply to: Vroomfondel

Once its gone - its gone.

Once what is gone???

It never was to begin with. So, how can it be gone?

Anybody who would mortgage their house to invest in any market with this kind of volatility, is crazy.
Yes, you could make a lot of money, but you could also lose it too...

I think we are in the 'Mania' stage... watch out for DOW 26,000 by the State of the Union address..

metals are starting to cook.... the dollar is dropping below 90 real soon....

there is a panic building to find something that might stay a store of wealth for more than the generation of fruit fly....

commodities/art/futures/classic cars/cryptos/ farms/real assets.... they are all in-the-maelstrom

i'm collecting LP fuel tanks/ camping stoves/ cast iron stoves, supplies to make bio-diesel including certificate....

just throwing a few items out there

Here's the deal...

Bitcoin's blockchain, right now is a bloated mess, it used to take under 4 hours to send transactions, now with all the hype, it's taking DAYS! to send, and about 3 hours for even ONE confirmation, when you need 2 for most exchanges to considered it valid, enough to say you made the transaction.

Bitcoin mining is now basically in the hands on the rich or those able to mortgage their house to buy a few worthwhile rigs, but then, even that hefty lil piece of hardware will mine less and less as the difficulty rises.

Then there is the energy consumption, you are going to be lucky to break even, after a month of running a miner on your grid, and with the difficulty rising to make a return on investment...

Then, there is the aspect that, bitcoin, is JUST A TOKEN, no DNS, no features that are useful, it's not passing game data, folding proteins, or really anything, but being hyped to hell and back so that ill-informed people can be scammed.

The blockchain is for decentralization, you don't need or want EVERYTHING on the blockchain, HOWEVER, how it can be used with other mediums, and even mimic'd is the overall game changing concept.

Just be smart everyone, understand you are more likely to make better returns off a legit and USEFUL altcoin, than to follow the bitcoin hype.

The current hype right now, is the profit margin for the bag holders ( HODL ) of 3 - 4 years ago, afterwards, bTC will be a collectors item, replaced by the next hyped but increasingly feature-full altcoin...