Topic: What is your net return in USD? - page 2. (Read 3823 times)

In a nutshell my point is that even though it's a zero sum game there are still more losers than winners due to lots of people losing money to a smaller number of bigger players who dominate the market, that it's not a level playing field for all participants and that hopefully this poll will underline the fact.

Also, a side point is that bitcoin is supposed to be an alternative to the current financial system, not the same thing again with the exact same problems caused by irrational speculation. Why do we have to recreate the same problems that are dooming the current financial system?

The only people who advocate speculation are those who are benefiting in fiat at the expense of naive investors and want to freely continue doing so. Biased opinions are null opinions in my view.

It's a zero-sum game, as we both agreed upon earlier.  I'm not sure what your point is...

Hooray! I lost my newbie status and can now post here. (LOL -- been lurking for a few weeks and didn't realize I hadn't logged in and fulfilled the 5-post requirement.)

So, I mined something like 100BTC that I sold off for around $1000 over the course of a couple months -- back when the bubble was big. When prices started dropping, I decided to hold my mined coins thinking they'd go back up. Ultimately, I ended up with 70 or so BTC valued at around $5 each. Then that bubble popped and we started going up and down and I decided to stop (or at least slow down) mining and see if I could gain BTC via speculation. Ha!

Initially, things went okay, but then I started getting a bit too aggressive and buying at the wrong times and selling at the wrong times. Plus, I did input a sell order in the buy slot at least twice (which resulted in me using all my money to buy BTC at a too-high price). Oops! The result is that I'm now down to around 36BTC at the current price, so I've "lost" about half my original starting investment. But, I did cash out plenty of BTC earlier and I'm at a net gain for the year of several hundred dollars.

I put my vote down for "-10 to -50%" but as you can read above, that's only partially correct. I'll check back in a month and see if my new trading plan is doing me any favors. Here's hoping....

But it's fun!

I do agree that the categorization could have been a little better, but the results are still interesting. More interesting than I first expected, because I think it will prove my point that day trading usd/bitcoin is a suckers game. I'd love to get quantitative rather than qualitative data on this somehow.

More losses than profit though it would seem. Since the vote is admittedly quite small so far, it is a bit early to draw any conclusions, but I think you are totally right - it's the EXACT same as any other day-trading market.

Also, I am one of the 50%+ voters, so it's a little skewed. I did not earn it by speculation and in reality my fiat profit is actually infinity% usd because luckily, I didn't invest a single penny buying bitcoin. The bitcoin I own were earned, not purchased.

So, I haven't read 90% of the posts, but can you please stop arguing about whatever you are arguing and go back to the topic?

Also,  11% is very different from 49%...

Lots of people have made a profit, lots of people have had a loss.  Same as in any market.

I'll leave others to make up their own minds.

Also, don't know if you have noticed the poll results coming in... hmmm  

If you say so...

Typical response from someone who believes they have won a debate.
I stopped out of boredom and frustration.
It is not worth my time trying to convince someone of their own delusions.

Lol, typical response from someone cornered in a debate with no real responses left.

GG.

yadda, yadda, yadda  *yawn*

I've heard all the delusions before.
Just keep telling yourself that you are smarter than the rest of them, and you'll be fine.

Shit! It's hard to squeeze in!

I'll just say this, I aim to pay my electricity bill each month from speculation profit. Above and beyond that (including mining proceeds), just goes to make more BTC.
In the end I will only have BitCoins, but until then, utility bills are still paid *only* in fiat, so I must make a little.

If anyone can make a profit in any market, then your argument that you can't make a profit trading currencies is null.

You can be plenty successful trading in bitcoins without fiat collapsing.  Plenty of people already have been, and are continuing to do so.  It's just completely naive to think you can't make a profit by day-trading BTC right now.  Yes, it is a zero-sum game, but does that matter if you're the one walking away with a profit?  Smart traders can ensure that that happens for themselves.

Regarding your "contradiction", Bitcoin can be VERY successful without having ANY effect on USD whatsoever.  If a single bitcoin was worth $1,000, then the total eventual supply of bitcoins would be worth $2.1B.  Guess what?  That's still less than 1% of the entire active USD money supply.  A drop in the bucket, in other words, that will have very little or no effect on fiat valuation.

So yes, you sure CAN bet that Bitcoin will succeed while still taking your profits in USD without a problem.  It's not a contradiction unless Bitcoin becomes an actual threat to fiat systems, and it has a LONG ways to go in value before that happens!  I wouldn't see Bitcoin play any role in devaluing fiat until it is worth at least $10,000/coin.  And there is plenty of profit to be made through trading, or even long-term investing, before that point even becomes a reality.

Ok, I'll admit the contradiction there. Let me rephrase.

SOME iditots can make profit in an asset bubble, OTHER idiots lose.
Some of the smarter idiots, who don't care about the others, will profit more.

If you are at all intelligent, you wouldn't be doing it in the first place, so logic would tell you that only idiots play this game. A spectrum of idiots ranging from complete morons to those who are quite good at concealing their lack of rational thought.

Also, we should stop calling it profit, and refer to it as what it actually is - gambling winnings.

You are making another contradiction. Anyone at all can make profits in a speculative bubble, but it's a zero sum game that involves others losing. So if anyone stupid can do it with no difficulties, what are the losers doing? They must be really really stupid if the stupid people are making money off of them.

I guess I will try again too.

ANYONE can make profit in ANY market in which there is a speculative bubble. It's not worth patting yourself on the back about. It's a zero sum game in which your winning involves others losing. You are not doing anything more clever than gambling on a poker game. No value is being created, nothing worth while is being done for the profit. You CANNOT make consistent profits trading currencies when a price range has been established however, when people are wary about creating further bubbles. If you try, you will surely lose, unless you are incredibly lucky or have excessive purchasing power that allows you to dominate the market.

Now how about you address my point? How do you reconcile the investment of fiat currency for fiat profit in a system, that if successful, will render your fiat profits worthless? This contradiction seems much more stark to me.

You still don't get it?  I'll try again...

So you say you can't trade currencies for other currencies to make a profit, but then you say you can make a profit by trading currencies for other currencies?

Thats exactly what I'm saying.

It will be quite a while before another asset bubble occurs I think.
The first was inevitable, but lets just see how easy it is for speculators to profit without the aid of naive investors.

Most people have realized what is going on, and will not be so eager to hand their money over to people in this subforum in the future.

I just don't even know what to say.  You're contradicting yourself left and right.

Here's what you said a couple of posts ago:   

So you say you can't trade currencies for other currencies without keeping the exact same purchasing power, but then say you can profit in a speculative asset bubble (in other words, profit by trading currencies for other currencies).