You might like to invest in the bankroll of dice sites. But, the reason for not investing in cloud mining also exists there
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Yah, I was trying to "invest" through much of 2013, ... 2014 was all about sweeping up the ashes... and I didn't get into any of the scams from the outset scams. Apart from certain short periods in the life of other investments, like AsicMiner shares going from ~ 0.5 BTC to 4.x BTC over about 3 months, there wasn't any "growth". As far as I can see, banking the house on reputable (non-ponzi, scam or hyip) gambling sites was the one sure earner. I believe Prime Dice was one of the better ones.
Some people have had luck with BTC loans, during the last year, but considering the BTC price has been on the slide, it's been freaking easy to borrow BTC at $550 and pay back 120% at $350... borrowers are probably laughing. Even a modest uptrend will probably see a whole lot more defaults. Plus you have like a triple counterparty risk, 1st the loan broking site, 2nd the actual borrowers, and 3rd which way traders are gonna push the price..
Anyway, gambling is about the only "pure" BTC business, that actually has a good model which ever way the price is going. Other ventures, like mining, if you're in one when the price has a sudden spike then you might seem to get a brief good ride, but in general the value of their equipment is halving every 6 months or less, and so does your shares, if the BTC price goes high, then tonnes more miners come online diluting your share, so you don't win then. Other options are basically fiat businesses denominated in BTC, sure the way they do the books you might get a fiat profit, but if BTC is rising, looks like you're losing it.