Totally unrelated to comics (at the moment…) but since the crypto market is dipping a bit today — what are you buying/hodling and why? I think this community is full of great perspectives so thought I’d see what speculative investments you’re making in the crypto space.
If this is too off topic please feel free to remove - no hard feelings!
I haven’t dabbled into crypto yet. Have thought about it though
Just another fiat monetary system not yet recognized as legal tender in most if not all countries as of yet… It’s too volatile for me and with no official backing governance overseeing it, I’m not touching them myself. One day you could be a millionaire holding onto a pile of crypto currency and the next day have absolutely nothing (worthless or someone stole it all out of a online coinbank)… nope, nope, nope… For those that can make money off it, good for you but I’m not touching it myself.
I made one crypto purchase the week ETFs started trading in it on traditional markets (NASDAQ, DOW, etc.). I bought in on an ETF after liquidating my entire holdings in my 401k. I purchased thousands in that particular ETF and a week later sold when bitcoin peaked during 2018 (probably another peak since, but haven’t paid attention). I re-allocated all of that in the previous positions I liquidated, told my wife about it during tax season that year, she glared at me, and I promised not to do it again. Made a couple thousand bucks.
That was a one off trade and it worked out, but I wouldn’t do it again based on risk. However, i think there’s ample support now to allocate a certain amount of regular retirement investments in crypto just like any other allocation of currency market funds. 10%? 20%?
Going all in in crypto might net you a lot when it peaks again, but there’s significant risk. I’d diversify and offset that risk with index funds. Anyhoo… comics amirite!?
It’s not only volatile, but is hard to assign intrinsic value to. Traditional currencies have a history of having objective measures for their intrinsic value. Originally the gold standard and now a certain measure of a country’s credit-worthiness, economic production, and a collective confidence in the ability of the government to back up that currency.
I read an analysis about what possible intrinsic value could be assigned to crypto currency and the best measure that could be found was the amount of time and computing power necessary to mine a coin or other unit of crypto measurement. i.e. If a crypto mining operation has a room full of processors set up to process transactions (“mine”) and get rewarded for that with a (“coin”) the amount of time and the cost of the overhead (processors, space rent/mortgage, electricity, etc.) would be the measure of that coin’s worth. As the system continues, the value increases as a steady rate because the whole system becomes steadily more difficult to compute, requiring more processing power. So, steady increases in value should be expected, but sharp spikes should be looked at as suspect and produced by market speculation and not intrinsic rises in value. That is, unless we have a massive power outage or shortage of resources necessary to process transactions.
Anyway…comics amirite?!
Sadly even they’re just based on demand, backed by nothing. No current world currency is backed by any intrinsic value. All current monetary systems are fiat.
But another reason I’m not doing crypto… if I have 100k sitting at my local bank and it gets robbed, I still have my 100k. If I have 100k of crypto on some unknown coinvault server somewhere in the world and it gets stolen… it’s likely gone forever.
So the reason intrinsic value is so hard to assign is because there is none. ETH 2.0 moving from proof of work to proof of stake renders that computation meaningless.
The value is the emergent trust created by the network effect coming from the decentralized participation.
Money printer go brrrrrrr
Yeah. While studying money systems during Commercial Law in law school, we looked into crypto security measures. The very thing that make them secure is what make them so difficult to recover if lost. Also, functionally impossible to hold in an escrow with a third party without actually giving both possession control to that third party.
I’ll answer my own question: BTC, ETH and ENJ
BTC because first mover and largest network effect
ETH because world computer
ENJ because first mover in non fungible token space (which I predict will intersect with comics in the future)
Smart contracts solve the escrow problem. decentralized finance protocols already have 20B locked up
Right. I mean, the whole thing can be simplified down to recognized value. If you want to trade me a goat for one of my cows, that probably has a certain recognized amount of value. If it’s a milk-producing goat, maybe 3 goats to one milk-producing cow? I don’t know.
But if I don’t have any need or desire for a goat or goat’s milk, obviously it has no value to me. So, crypto value also fluctuates with who the recipient is, I’d say. If i were accepting crypto payment for comics, I’d mark them up 10-20% for risk.
Janet Yellen (new Treasury Secretary) thinks it’s for mostly illegal activity. I’m not touching it.
No contract is iron clad. In a contract between two parties, I can tell you the one thing a third party escrow hold absolutely does not want to deal with is a law suit. They’ll deposit that currency into a court and let the two parties figure it out amongst themselves in a heartbeat. Maybe you haven’t lost your currency, but you just bought yourself a whole heap of legal fees.
Smart contracts are computer programs that run on the ETH world computer. Not legal documents
Ah. See, you’re way ahead of me. It’s been probably two years since I looked into crypto.
Good point but the new head of SEC balances that out. He’s pro crypto
The decentralized tech world has accelerated exponentially since then. Lookup DeFi. Mind blowing
My work and risk sensibilities make me VERY old school. As in, land holdings old school.
I am an attorney with a single land-owning client who pays bonuses in equity interests in real estate projects. So, in a sense, my investments are baked into my work and I have a hand in their success. So, saying nothing to the legitimacy or advisability of crypto, I just haven’t had any motivation or need to look elsewhere for a few years. It will likely work out for many and burn many others. I have a feeling it’s here to stay, though. Whether you see it as a good or currency, it’s exchangeable given the proper parties are involved and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day. After all, real estate is not a liquid asset readily exchangeable among a wide array of buyers. So, every investment has a limited resale market.
I feel like the CHU Crypto Ambassador now. I honestly had no idea everyone wasn’t HODLing, especially among serious speculators and collectors!