Author

Topic: Will China convert its USD holdings into Bitcoins? (Read 2401 times)

legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1002
+1 I dont have much anyway, so Im all in  Grin

Exactly... I own my house, and most of my food is grown by me or my parents-in-law, so this decision can't make me homeless or starving.  I make plenty of cash to pay the utilities.  When I need something and they don't take bitcoin it's easy enough to have money in the bank the next day.  I watch the markets carefully, and I got started right after bitcoin hit $1 for the first time, so I witnessed the giant bubble and the 6 months of pain.  We're much healthier now.

Did you sell some above 20?

Very small amounts.  I sold most below 4 Sad.  This time I'm hanging on tight.  I'm not worried because my GPU investment has already been paid off and everything from here on is profit.
hero member
Activity: 520
Merit: 500
+1 I dont have much anyway, so Im all in  Grin

Exactly... I own my house, and most of my food is grown by me or my parents-in-law, so this decision can't make me homeless or starving.  I make plenty of cash to pay the utilities.  When I need something and they don't take bitcoin it's easy enough to have money in the bank the next day.  I watch the markets carefully, and I got started right after bitcoin hit $1 for the first time, so I witnessed the giant bubble and the 6 months of pain.  We're much healthier now.

I own my own house too, and make enough to get by, but it's hard to justify invest rainy-day funds or substantial portions of retirement accounts in BTC or BTC investments. It's still in the realm of speculative investing, much like a penny stock. The long-term fundamentals are strong, but I can't risk too much on something that could drop 50% in value overnight due to one website getting hacked (like Mtgox) or the government passing a law against BTC exchanges. On the other hand, it's becoming more and more clear that storing wealth in USD or investing in the stock market are break-even at best, and constantly being undermined by the Fed and the New York banksters...
legendary
Activity: 1022
Merit: 1000
+1 I dont have much anyway, so Im all in  Grin

Exactly... I own my house, and most of my food is grown by me or my parents-in-law, so this decision can't make me homeless or starving.  I make plenty of cash to pay the utilities.  When I need something and they don't take bitcoin it's easy enough to have money in the bank the next day.  I watch the markets carefully, and I got started right after bitcoin hit $1 for the first time, so I witnessed the giant bubble and the 6 months of pain.  We're much healthier now.

Did you sell some above 20?
donator
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1014
Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.
Bitcoin is going to be worth a lot. That is a certainty. There will be bubbles, but only relative to s short time frame. It is just silly that everyone that has extra cash laying around is not buying or mining Bitcoin. Silly indeed.
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1002
+1 I dont have much anyway, so Im all in  Grin

Exactly... I own my house, and most of my food is grown by me or my parents-in-law, so this decision can't make me homeless or starving.  I make plenty of cash to pay the utilities.  When I need something and they don't take bitcoin it's easy enough to have money in the bank the next day.  I watch the markets carefully, and I got started right after bitcoin hit $1 for the first time, so I witnessed the giant bubble and the 6 months of pain.  We're much healthier now.
legendary
Activity: 1022
Merit: 1000
+1 I dont have much anyway, so Im all in  Grin
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1079
Not yet.

Translation: "I want to buy bitcoins at < $10 for the next year"

Not really.  Not counting my house, most of my net worth is in BTC already.
Sure, it would be nice, but we're not there yet.

More power to you! I'm hoping for the best also, but my crystal ball isn't clear enough to justify more than 5% networth in BTC at this time. Anything past that and I wouldn't be sleeping well at night.
A significant amount of my net worth is in BTC. I think this is healthy as long as I can liquidate it.
hero member
Activity: 520
Merit: 500
Not yet.

Translation: "I want to buy bitcoins at < $10 for the next year"

Not really.  Not counting my house, most of my net worth is in BTC already.
Sure, it would be nice, but we're not there yet.

More power to you! I'm hoping for the best also, but my crystal ball isn't clear enough to justify more than 5% networth in BTC at this time. Anything past that and I wouldn't be sleeping well at night.
sr. member
Activity: 388
Merit: 250
Not yet.

Translation: "I want to buy bitcoins at < $10 for the next year"

Not really.  Not counting my house, most of my net worth is in BTC already.

Sure, it would be nice, but we're not there yet.

Translation: "I'm thinking about selling my house and buying bitcoins and being homeless for the next year while i await becoming a billionaire"

 Cheesy

Sweet! I just got me a new retirement plan...
sr. member
Activity: 283
Merit: 250
The $50k and $850k figures are flawed, the value would rise as they bought in so it would be some kind of compound interest figure.

The 50k figure is not flawed as a lower bound, and in fact would never happen in real life. The $850k figure is also not flawed as a lower bound, but has my guesstimate about 1/15th of an economy as being the maximum risk that China would be willing to forego its dollars for. If we instead do a population based split, where China takes a 5th of the BTC because they are a 5th of the world population, then the lower bound would be closer to ~$300k per BTC.

I think what you're forgetting as that, regardless of what price they buy in at, if the price doesn't rise to a sufficient level, they'll still have $ left over. I'm looking at a baseline, not a realistic estimate. My estimate would come in above all the numbers I've quoted, probably something like $1.25M per BTC.
legendary
Activity: 1022
Merit: 1000
Will China convert its USD holdings into Bitcoins?

I dont think China will, but maybe the North Koreans would (probably converting CNY to BTC instead of their KPW). Seriously, they are the kind of maniacs, that could pull such a stunt. And they dont have much to loose either, maybe give 'em a call?
Nonetheless I do think, that the market cap would have to rise higher then this (90 Million USD? Thats nothing even for NKoreans).
sr. member
Activity: 283
Merit: 250
I highly doubt it. A bureaucrat seldomly makes decisions, much less ones he could be held accountable for. Why would he decide this. Not even institutional investors invest in bitcoin, the market is still way too funny, worse than penny stock.

Governments are not so backwards as you might think. I'd imagine that currently most government holdings are not related to central banks but are more related to intelligence and law enforcement activities.

But the market is several huge steps away from being able to support true currency-level exchange.

What kind of steps are you talking about?

Steps where the market is sufficiently liquid to accept different levels of short-term capital. I like to look at the +- 2% spread as a good measure of how liquid a market is. By that measure, bitcoin has roughly $5k-200k of liquidity. I'd imagine that we'll see large spikes as specific liquidity barriers are broken, the next being at $500k. I don't think central banks will truly enter until there's at least 1 billion in liquidity at an even tighter spread than 2%.

donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
Just to be clear, I'm not saying this will never happen, I'm saying that its so far in the distant future as to be impossible to predict at the present time.

Oh yeah, that's probably true.

I wouldn't be surprised if even now some governments are purchasing small amounts of BTC.

I highly doubt it. A bureaucrat seldomly makes decisions, much less ones he could be held accountable for. Why would he decide this. Not even institutional investors invest in bitcoin, the market is still way too funny, worse than penny stock.

But the market is several huge steps away from being able to support true currency-level exchange.

What kind of steps are you talking about?
sr. member
Activity: 283
Merit: 250
Just to be clear, I'm not saying this will never happen, I'm saying that its so far in the distant future as to be impossible to predict at the present time. I wouldn't be surprised if even now some governments are purchasing small amounts of BTC. But the market is several huge steps away from being able to support true currency-level exchange.
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1002
Not yet.

Translation: "I want to buy bitcoins at < $10 for the next year"

Not really.  Not counting my house, most of my net worth is in BTC already.

Sure, it would be nice, but we're not there yet.

Translation: "I'm thinking about selling my house and buying bitcoins and being homeless for the next year while i await becoming a billionaire"

 Cheesy

Ummm... no.
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
Threads like this are so funny... BTC will need to be trading at > $50,000 BTCUSD before this is even viable.

Exactly, at that price we'll all be laughing our asses off.

Did you think it was possible bitcoin could go to $30 back when a Pizza was BTC 10,000 or did you say it was funny?
sr. member
Activity: 283
Merit: 250
Threads like this are so funny... BTC will need to be trading at > $50,000 BTCUSD before this is even viable.
Not really. It wouldn't happen in a single instant, and the price would rise according to demand until it was whatever it needed to be.

China USD holdings: ~1.2 Trillion
Total possible BTC: 21 million

If china wanted to own the entire BTC market all on its own and have no-one to sell to, BTCUSD would have to be $57000, the number I quoted is by far a lower bound. Realistically there would need to be comparable liquidity to the USD market to support owning a large amount of it, so their portion would need to be comparatively small, maybe 1/15th of total BTC. For that, BTCUSD would have to be $850,000.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1079
Not yet.

Translation: "I want to buy bitcoins at < $10 for the next year"

Not really.  Not counting my house, most of my net worth is in BTC already.

Sure, it would be nice, but we're not there yet.

Translation: "I'm thinking about selling my house and buying bitcoins and being homeless for the next year while i await becoming a billionaire"

 Cheesy
From homeless to billionaire: the magic of BTC!
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1491
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
Not yet.

Translation: "I want to buy bitcoins at < $10 for the next year"

Not really.  Not counting my house, most of my net worth is in BTC already.

Sure, it would be nice, but we're not there yet.

Translation: "I'm thinking about selling my house and buying bitcoins and being homeless for the next year while i await becoming a billionaire"

 Cheesy
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1002
Not yet.

Translation: "I want to buy bitcoins at < $10 for the next year"

Not really.  Not counting my house, most of my net worth is in BTC already.

Sure, it would be nice, but we're not there yet.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1002
Threads like this are so funny... BTC will need to be trading at > $50,000 BTCUSD before this is even viable.
Not really. It wouldn't happen in a single instant, and the price would rise according to demand until it was whatever it needed to be.
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1491
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
Not yet.

Translation: "I want to buy bitcoins at < $10 for the next year"
sr. member
Activity: 283
Merit: 250
Threads like this are so funny... BTC will need to be trading at > $50,000 BTCUSD before this is even viable.
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1002
Not yet.
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1491
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
Slow conversion...
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1002
Not yet.
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1491
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
That would be awesome!

 Cheesy
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