Reasonably safe Crypto funds when traveling.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by flightlead404

BTC is both a value store and a vehicle to transact business. It may not necessarily be GOOD at either of those things, depending in your opinion.

That's fair. In relation to the thread-starter, it's still the case that BTC would be an inferior choice for her stated goals, compared to other options.

I'm not sure how that is any different than people who trade USD for EU back and forth, or any other currency, except that the supply of BTC is limited whereas governments can, and do, regularly make more of whatever currency.

In both [crypto and currency-trading] cases the value is based on the trust of its continued existence and the expectation that its managers (in the case of fiat) will make sensible decisions such that its ability to exchange it for things of actual intrinsic value will not decline more than an acceptable amount.

There is still more competition, backstops and accountability in the "conventional" channels than in the crypto world.

As a mortgage broker during that period I can tell you that most or all of those people were just greedy and stupid.

...just like the people now being enticed to jump into crypto. Exhibit 'D'.

Not counting the people who had the foresight/luck to get insane returns from being the first in, the people who are succeeding with crypto investing now, are those who usually do well with this sort of risky, volatile "investment" vehicle - the already well-off. They have much of their wealth in conventional assets and investments, so they can weather and game the big swings in crypto value. They could lose all their crypto and not be seriously wounded by it.

Crypto investing is totally a "greater fool" play. Kind of like a casino in that regard. The rich can spend a night there, win big, or lose it all, and it was just a night out. The gullible not-rich will go, bet foolishly, and end up seriously hurt.

Originally Posted by Star Fire

Bitcoin is not an investment. Bitcoin is freedom. Bitcoin is an idea that we don’t need governments to tell us what has value. It’s freedom to spend my money how and when ever I please. It’s freedom from a fiat debt slavery based economy.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear this. I have to feel sorry for the hobby libertarian/prepper who swallows this hook line and sinker, and gets skint.

If economies crash, governments fail, if the SHTF... crypto will fail fastest. Server farms and networks will go down. Crypto exchanges will scam holders and each other as people scramble to figure out what's real or not.

The former dockmate beating you with a pipe to get your can of beans and your H/H offshore jacket is not going to pause to examine the battered memory stick you're waving, that you claim is a crypto wallet.

Maybe a genuinely useful, stable, dependable stateless digital currency will eventually be created, that will be functionally equivalent to gold. But that whole "we don't need government" thing is just ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Shanachie

Hey Star Fire, don't you have opinions on anchors or lithium ion batteries like other CF members?

I see the bulk of your posts are dedicated to enticing CF members to buy Bitcoin. You don't seem content to wait and get rich off of your strategy. You're compelled to get other people to follow you.
...
So all over the Internet, in message boards such as CF and in social networks, Bitcoin owners spend a lot of time promoting Bitcoin as a great investment to pump up the value of their holdings.

That's the game, innit? Buy, pump, and dump. Repeat.

[Star Fire]

We will see, won’t we. Noting is certain. They said email will never replace snail mail. They sad text messages would never replace phone call. Thy said cars will never replace horses. They said novels and bicycles were dangerous to society. I don’t care when you buy it. But everyone will buy it, or work for it, at the price they deserve. I do have opinions on anchors and windlasses, but that’s not what this thread is about.

I think we all know how to properly set and anchor. Mots of those questions can be better answered by google and 20 minutes of your time, including the bitcoin question.

If you want real toxicity, Bitcoin twitter is where it’s found.

What really matters is, the gopher didn’t see his shadow today! Let’s go sailing!

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

So crypto is almost the least secure way you could possibly store money. It would take more space than we have here to explain in full, but TLDR those so called "stablecoins" are a house of cards backed mainly with Chinese real estate assets that have since lost much of their value but are carried on the stable coin assets books at purchase price. And your regular funds with Coinbase are not FDIC insured. They use some very deceptive wording to imply that, but if you parse it carefully you can see that they're not actually saying what you're hoping and they're leading you to believe they're saying.

You can get a Wise card for a couple bucks and store your USD there. That money does go into an FDiC insured U.S. bank. Alternately, you can set up a brokerage account in your country with someone like Interactive Brokers and use their multi-currency feature to convert your currency to USD and hold it that way. It also ends up in an FDIC insured bank. Both far safer and just as easy as the crypto route.

+1000

[barcoMeCasa]

some really stupid people out there using stablecoins.
Like Visa..
https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/news...ypto%2C%20Visa.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/vis...llars-c6c54135

"Stablecoins settled more than $11 trillion on the blockchain in 2022, dwarfing volumes processed by PayPal (ticker: PYPL) and nearing Visa’s (V) volume of $11.6 trillion, a team at macro hedge fund Brevan Howard wrote in a recent report."
That said I'd be wary of using it as storage for large amounts. Long term bitcoin is the place for that, it only ever goes up. Worst thing to use would be dollars. Only ever goes down.

[Star Fire]

This is a good explaination why I choose not to store MY wealth in fiat currencies.

Star Fire, out.

https://youtu.be/vKkmidJ_dZc?si=Q_FKNhqa3iCwe4k7

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by barcoMeCasa

some really stupid people out there using stablecoins.
Like Visa..
https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/news...ypto%2C%20Visa.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/vis...llars-c6c54135

"Stablecoins settled more than $11 trillion on the blockchain in 2022, dwarfing volumes processed by PayPal (ticker: PYPL) and nearing Visa’s (V) volume of $11.6 trillion, a team at macro hedge fund Brevan Howard wrote in a recent report."
That said I'd be wary of using it as storage for large amounts. Long term bitcoin is the place for that, it only ever goes up. Worst thing to use would be dollars. Only ever goes down.

BTC "only ever goes up"? Look at a chart, man.

Crypto is good for gambling. It's basically like going to a casino. I've played with BTC, and I've made some money, but NEVER more than I could afford to lose and say to myself that I had fun losing it.

Almost the entire world has gone to cashless payments. I've just been on a trip through three continents and five countries, none of them in the first world, and I never touched a piece of cash in any currency. I used mostly my Wise debit card, which converts any local currency at the mid-market rate (this is peer to peer fintech).

The best way to store money is to diversify across several currencies (according to how you expect to spend it) and spread it across different bank accounts in different countries. Set up strong two factor authorization and use virtual card numbers. Keep a decent diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds with a good manager with a highly secure platform, better two or three managers (like I do).

Wise or Revolut for converting between currencies.

Spend money using your cards, and in a really weird case, almost unknown these days, you can always hit a local ATM.

Keep a couple of cards in a safe deposit box or well hidden somewhere, for a rainy day.

Job done.

If the SHTF, crypto will be the first thing to lose value. Notice how BTC tanks every time there is FUD in the market? Or the stock markets go down? In that case, the best store of value will be a bunker full of spam, canned goods, water, and guns. Everyone will have his own view of the likelihood of such an event. I'm not a prepper, but if someone really fears such an event, then go full prepper. Crypto is the worst possible thing to have in such an event.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

BTC "only ever goes up"? Look at a chart, man.

Crypto is good for gambling. It's basically like going to a casino. I've played with BTC, and I've made some money, but NEVER more than I could afford to lose and say to myself that I had fun losing it...

Indeed - to all of it.

In Vegas, at least, you know the odds, against your winning [“House Edge”].*
Always check an individual casino’s odds, and payout tables, before playing. Go For Entertainment, Not To Make Money.
In blackjack, for instance, you’ll need to understand the rules, and a basic strategy, but whether you win or not relies on the luck of the cards drawn, and the ‘house edge’.
In Nevada, the “house edge” [odds against you] are 0.5%–2%, for Blackjack.
In Roulette, the House Edge is 5.26%.
In Keno, the House Edge is 20–40%. This is usually the worst game to play, at the casino, in terms of your odds of winning, so if you do play, know that you’re unlikely to win. Ever.

* How much you should expect to pay [lose], for your pleasure.

[GordMay]

Fake' Bitcoin founder 'used ChatGPT' to 'tell a brazen lie'
An Australian computer scientist's claim to be the inventor of bitcoin is "a brazen lie", lawyers representing a Jack Dorsey-backed group told a London court on Monday as a legal battle over ownership of the cryptocurrency began.
Craig Wright says he is the author of a 2008 white paper, the foundational text of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, published in the name "Satoshi Nakamoto".
More ➥ https://www.reuters.com/world/self-p...ld-2024-02-05/

[HeinSdL]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Fake' Bitcoin founder 'used ChatGPT' to 'tell a brazen lie'
An Australian computer scientist's claim to be the inventor of bitcoin is "a brazen lie", lawyers representing a Jack Dorsey-backed group told a London court on Monday as a legal battle over ownership of the cryptocurrency began.
Craig Wright says he is the author of a 2008 white paper, the foundational text of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, published in the name "Satoshi Nakamoto".
More ➥ https://www.reuters.com/world/self-p...ld-2024-02-05/

AFAIK wallets believed to belong to the founder contain about 1m bitcoin and these are not getting spent. So if Wright were to transact a satoshi or two out of one of these wallets then that would reinforce his case tremendously. So far these bitcoin have not been spent suggesting the founder(s) has (have) died or decided to completely get out, leaving $40b unreachable for ever?

[Star Fire]

Craig Wright is a fraud! He gave COPA all the evidence they need to prove he’s a master document forger, today on the stand. All he needs to do is sign a message from one of the wallets know to be Satoahi’s. But he can’t because he’s a fraud!

Even if he wins the case (which a a very long shot) it won’t change anything. Well, we might have to listen to those BSV idiots gloat for a while longer. But it won’t change the code. Code is law. Craig is fraud! It’s all a farce.

[jmschmidt]

I had a friend who said he made $165,000 on Bitcoin. He told me that he used about $100,000 in Bitcoin to pay a contractor to renovate his home. I told him that his Bitcoin "profit" is fully taxable, either at long-term or short-term capital gain rates. He didn't believe me. Look it up. Crypto transactions are considered barter exchanges by the IRS code.

Example: Let's say in the beginning you bought one Bitcoin for one US dollar, and a year or two later you traded it for a Tesla at it high point (about $69,000 per coin). You have a $59,999 long-term capital gain tax to pay.

Every CPA firm that does tax returns (federal or state) now requires their customers to list all their crypto transactions, if any, before they commence work on your tax return.

As for hiding money or income from the government or the IRS, forget it, these guys aren't stupid.

As for my friend, he unfortunately died of cancer not long after his home renovation was complete.

Read the book "Die Broke." On the last page the author says the last check you write should be to the IRS and it should bounce.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by jmschmidt

... Read the book "Die Broke." On the last page the author says the last check you write should be to the IRS and it should bounce.

:
Someone once told me: “GO FOR BROKE!”
I’m unhappy to report, that I succeeded.

[GordMay]

Human trafficking victim says he was forced to target Canadians in crypto investment scam

”... The scams ‘John’ was involved in are often referred to as the "pig-butchering scams," where a scammer lures a victim into an online relationship or friendship to gain their trust and then convinces them to invest in cryptocurrency.

The pig is "fattened" as the victim pours more money into crypto and watches it grow on a fake investment platform. The pig is "slaughtered" when the scammer disappears with the money...”

More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cry...king-1.7105454

“How to spot a crypto scam” ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2307660355858

[Star Fire]

If you’ve been in Bitcoin for more than 1 minute, scams are so easy to spot. Use first principals. Do your own research.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Star Fire

If you’ve been in Bitcoin for more than 1 minute, scams are so easy to spot.

Or you can invest conventionally, and quite possibly go your whole life without encountering ANY scams. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯