DH has spent our Xmas money on BitCoin

[crisscrosscranky]

🤦🏻‍♀️ we often get cards addressed to "Criss and Mr Criss" at Christmas from grandparents/aunts etc. The past couple of years we've used it for a weekend away around Easter time and I book it before the new year so I can send thank you cards and let the gifters know where we're off too they're mostly old folk; they like a proper thank you!

This year we got £155 in total. Just suggested to DH that Bath might be nice and that I'd to the bank tomorrow to pay the cheques in. He's then told me cool as a cucumber that he's invested it in BitCoin so if we wait a few months we might be able to afford a weekend in Europe rather than the UK

I love this man to bits but he's just thrown our Xmas money away hasn't he!? I can't tell Aunt Doris and Uncle Quentin that he's gambling in digital currency so looks like we'll be paying for a weekend away on top of his new career as a broker he's actually a lorry driver

He thinks I'm massively unreasonable to be a bit cross because he seems to think next year we'll be millionaires if you didn't read that in Del Boy's accent you haven't watched enough Xmas telly

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I know nothing about IT And yet so happy to talk shit about it.

But I know a con when I see one. And I think Bitcoin is a con. It's unregulated and all on line. Ideal for hackers and other crooks.

A con needs to have someone running the con. Who is running the con? I developers working hard to resolve scaling issues as adoption has increased far beyond what could have been predicted by this date and they are struggling to keep up with it. I would welcome a long term slump in the price to keep the get rich quick speculators out and give the developers the much needed time to catch up.

Bitcoin itself can’t be hacked and anyone who holds their coins on an exchange (other than for trading purposes) where they could be hacked is a fool.

And websites are often hacked around NY's eve. And then that strange virus one year. DH would like links. He could be wrong but he is unaware of unusual levels of hacking and viruses around NYE vs other times of the year.

I’d also like a link to the possibility of the 21 million coin limit being lifted because I haven’t seen any indication of that within the actual bitcoin community. It would be incredibly difficult to lift the limit and would likely lead to a hard fork which then poses the question of which is the “real” Bitcoin going forward. I can’t see it happening without a fork.

I think it’s likely that Bitcoin will be surpassed in the not so distant future and in the same way that I wouldn’t ever own just one stock, I wouldn’t own just one type of crypto currency these days either.

But they're not actual coins, right? You can't lose them down the back of the sofa

The coins are data on hard-drives, which can end up in landfill when computers are thrown away without remembering to transfer data.

Here's one person who lost $75 million worth, at their value when the article was written.

www.wired.co.uk/article/bitcoin-lost-newport-landfill

Well we'll see won't we. I stand by my opinion that it's a con. And some top economic experts agree with me. Though I'm not one.

A con needs to have someone running the con. Who is running the con?

I don't think there is any criminal intent behind bitcoin, but it is working exactly like a Ponzi scheme. I think the person who started bitcoin has 1 million coins, which he has never sold? Back in October these were worth $7 billion.

I doubt he'd be in any trouble even if he sold them, until then he hasn't made any profits, criminal or not.

For all practical financial purposes, a speculative bubble is like a pyramid scheme, even if it isn't one legally. So "con" may not be strictly the right word, but loosely speaking, it's not unreasonable.

Though I do now wonder if legal considerations are why he's remained so elusive.

I thought Bitcoins were going down in value.

Like everything once everyone is talking about it the time to buy has gone

Vivian you can pay for anything which doesn't have to be paid for in cash or by credit card upfront, using bitcoin. If it can be paid for by bank transfer it can be paid for by bitcoin. We had $300 worth of bitcoin ages ago; since then we've paid for two holidays and a few other things and still have about $8,000 worth of bitcoin because the value's gone up - we've never bought any more bitcoin.

Buying it now is different because the value may well have peaked, and it's so volotile. Just recently it was up to $16,000 briefly then halved in value in a matter of hours. When we got ours most people hadn't heard of bitcoin and we didn't even think it would increase much in value.

It would be much better if the value stabilized to the extent most valid currencies are fairly stable, and it was just used as online currency.

Safariboot ist right though - criss has a DH problem, not a bitcoin problem. He should not have used their joint money without her knowing and agreeing in advance any more than she would have booked a weekend away without checking he wanted that too.

Didn't some big financial big wig describe it as a ponzi scheme the other day? I also wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Ex invested his bonus in it. He's useless with money and I think he would have been better off paying off his debts instead.

I know some very savvy people who are investing in it now, which makes me think maybe it has more to it than your average bubble. But I won't be following suit - I know my limits!

See, I think the savvy people invested in it way back. It's the less savvy people who are buying in now.

Firesuit Either you don’t understand Ponzi schemes or you don’t understand Bitcoin. Ponzi schemes promise high rates of return over a short period of time for low risk. “Investors” are paid from the new flows of money coming in until there is no new money.

Bitcoin doesn’t promise high rates of return and hopefully the extreme high risk nature of it is clear to anyone even vaguely aware of it. If I sell my Bitcoin, I could just as easily sell it to someone who has held it for longer than I have as to someone brand new to it (and that would make them a very long hodler indeed). I’d argue that we need a slowdown of brand new people buying just now, which is rather the opposite of what a Ponzi supporter would say. If you follow the actual Bitcoin community, not the media hype around Bitcoin, it’s about developing the system, not getting “new recruits”.

It won’t necessarily collapse. It could end up evening out at some point and trade at stable levels (God knows it did that for long enough) - could be £100/£1000/£10000 whatever and if that point is lower than the peak, then yes, some people will lose out, but that doesn’t make it a Ponzi.

My XH used to do this quite often - with money my parents had given us as a gift. It doesn't matter what he spent it on (although I equate bitcoin with magic beans frankly) it's the fact that he did it without consulting you.
It's this kind of thing that is one of the many reason's my ex is now an ex(he was a gambler and always had dreams of the riches he would win - these riches ended up being £30K worth of secret debt)

I'm not saying LTB - but I would make it pretty clear to him that financial decisions have to be joint and he has overstepped the mark. I wish I'd been more proactive when it first became apparent my X was financially selfish and thought he knew best.

Are you sure that he 'only' invested £155? It seems like a strange amount.

Have you seen the details of the trade?

Well that's what I thought shadow - but they are investment bankers, accountants and lawyers, some of whom have large share portfolios, which is why I was so surprised to see one after another of them saying they were buying in or increasing the amount they own over the last couple of weeks!!
I feel far too uncertain about it to risk getting one of them to talk me through it; I'll stick with what I know - but I guess I'll kick myself for turning down the offers to help if they are right!

It's not a ponzi (or pyramid) scheme in the sense that it was set up to be a scam. However it will likely fail in the same way - a lack of fresh blood to buy Bitcoin at ever higher prices. Spectacular rises in recent weeks has drawn in the uniformed public, however once these have been exhausted then there is no one left to continue buying and increasing the price, and it plummets. In a ponzi scheme a similar thing happens, as there is no one new to sign up to the scheme, and most investors lose everything, as the only way you get paid is through new investors, and there isn't anyone left to be signed up.

There's no problem investing in high risk things as long as it's only a small percentage of your overall portfolio. Spending a significant amount of money on Bitcoin when it's massively overpriced is crazy.

Starfro But that assumes there will be a “lack of fresh blood” and assumes that Bitcoin is only surviving on the back of the recent media hysteria and buying from the uninformed public. Either:

A) It becomes more mainstream and starts to get institutional money which makes it even more mainstream and eventually the price settles down and it’s used as a store of value or currency (less likely, IMO), but it gets actively used in some form or another,

Or

B) The uninformed public pulls out, leaving the people who kept Bitcoin going for ohhhh, 8 years, and it carries on at a lower, but perfectly acceptable price for the old timers.

This of course only looks at it in terms of it not being a Ponzi scheme and ignores the real threats and risks to Bitcoin (other alt coins which convert even the most dedicated etc)

Having said that, I know there are people who believe the stock market is a Ponzi or pyramid scheme and if you believe that, then yes, I understand why you would consider Bitcoin to be one as well.

There could be a fresh round of "new blood", but just from my own observations of friends/family/colleagues then those that were ever likely to invest are already in (and there are a lot more people involved than I realised), and they are all people who are not seasoned investors (Bitcoin is their only self-managed investment). I don't think many would be willing to put even more money in at $20k+, but this is what it requires to go higher. The headlines and the big rises has triggered greed and suckered them in.

By fail I don't expect a drop to zero, but maybe being worth 5-10 times less than the peak where the majority of the public bought. If this happens then people will lose an awful lot of money. It may go mainstream in the long term, but that doesn't mean that it is a good investment at the current price.

It's not a ponzi scheme, and neither is the stock market. There are some similarities though, in that both require "passing the buck".

It's FOMO. (As was mentioned upthread.)

Well, at least we agree it isn’t a Ponzi scheme. Firesuit said it was “working exactly like a Ponzi” which it really isn’t. I once woke up one morning while on holiday in NYC to one of my AIM stocks having collapsed by 85% (I don’t use stop losses). It dropped below that, but that’s where I managed to get out. ‘‘Twas a shame that, but I didn’t try to claim it was a Ponzi scheme!

The problem with bitcoin is that it's shit at being a cryptocurrency. Hence to the extent that there is a market for cryptocurrencies (drugs, guns, child abuse, terrorism, tax evasion, etc.), bitcoin should be usurped by a better one.

It isn't great that he invested shares money without asking but I torn see what you problem is apart from that.

Say an alert to tell you when the price you want is reached then sell them and go off to Europe. It might not get there and there is a small (and it is only small) chance you will lose it all.

He did the right think buying in the current dip. Just make sure that in the future you expect to be asked about joint money.

What was the outcome of this OP? Has he made the return or lost the ££?

I wondered about this thread when I heard the news today that Bitcoin had gone down again.

Hope he hodled!