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Comment by m777z | Hacker News Reader

With this much uncertainty, paying ~$2000 for 1 bitcoin seems insane to me. But that's why I don't invest in cryptocurrencies; too much volatility for my taste.

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You can't invest in a Cryptocurrency. It's called gambling.

edit: autocorrect.

Do you want to know the secret to making a small fortune in cryptocurrencies? Start with a large one.

Wait, you missed the part where I have to buy your ebook.

What's the difference?

The difference is that when I buy a stock, they have a balance sheet, usually physical and/or digital assets like buildings, datacenters, warehouses, trucks, intellectual property, software programs, patents. They usually also have people, and some type of plan to leverage everything so that the sum is greater then the parts. That's an investment, when you pay them to leverage their assets and people.

Even in a situation like yahoo, because there are real assets, even though they didn't leverage on the dream, the were still parted and sold for scrap because there was real value behind the stock. That won't happen with BTC.

So buying gold is gambling because gold doesn't have a balance sheet? The distinction seems naive, if not disingenuous.

Gold is a commodity of a specific know content, it doesn't need a balance sheet. The only thing left is to set the price, which you can speculate on. But is does have physical value at some price floor and you're just speculating on the demand. Basically the same for any commodity, oil, wheat, orange juice.

Just like the the USD is not a commodity, neither is BTC, so that's a bit disingenuous to compare it to gold, or a publicly traded and regulated stock. It's not even close.

All investments are speculative in nature. Some are just riskier than others.

You could always pay $2 for 0.001 bitcoin. ;)

Paper trading futures I saw how volatility was the moneymaker coffee futures were as jittery as I am after drinking it.

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