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Hey TL,
This is going to seem a bit disjointed and amalgamated, just possibly, so bear with me. It's definitely a less serious blog than the previous two, so no need to put your "the feels" hats on today haha. For now I need to cover three things that I definitely need some help with, two for advice/advising from you all if possible, and one just to give a shoutout.
The first part is Argentina. It's a beautiful country, and I'm going to be there for about a month this summer. I'm going there from the time my exams end, until around June 6th. I'll be spending around 4 weeks there on a college sponsored immersion trip. That means, in as chrystal clear terms as possible, no English speaking, ever. Not even once until I'm on my connecting flight home. All of that is fine and good except that Argentina scares me when it comes to language.
I speak rudimentary Spanish well enough to get around in almost any other country, but Argentina has a distinct Italian and German additions and accents. I've heard native Argentines speak. It made my head spin. It's not Castellano, that's for sure. I'm less scared than I am apprehensive, especially because I can't use my native language of English for any assistance.
I'm going to be in and around Buenos Aires for about a month at a Homestay. It would be really sick of some TL guys who are Argentines or know about Argentinian culture/how to not be a total foreigner would give me some advice on that. I'm going to have plenty to do, but recommendations would be great for food, activities, shopping, and local secrets if possible.
This is a bit of a weird question, but I thought TL would be a good place to ask it. Recently bitcoins have blown up. I've known about bitcoins for a while, I'm fairly young so all I understood was that it was an internet currency that was semi-useless around age 14, but I never thought about investing in them - much less mining them. Now they've hit it big and people who had invested in them are now much richer than they expected. The reason I'm bringing this up is I know there are a couple other internet currencies, like proxycoin (I think that's the name) and others; I'm wondering if this type of investing is a good idea. I've started learning about investing and how to make money from money, which is basically the secret to being rich, and I'm a total neophyte. I can't tell if this is a new, modern way of making serious bank, or if it's going to blow up in my face. As far as I can tell the more standard styles of investing are much safer, a lot more expensive - let's be honest here, I like the idea of this being under the radar and something the in-the-know only know about, but I'm not about to blow a lot of money that isn't even mine on it - and significantly more standard. What I'm wondering is if any TL people know about these up and coming currencies and if, as a sub-20-year-old, I should start making my first voyages into the financial world with these less than standard styles.
Final piece is about exams. It's exam time at my College  . I just wanted to give a big shoutout to everyone taking exams, about to take exams, or having finished their exams. Good luck to everyone. + Show Spoiler [oblig] +![[image loading]](http://uberfriendship.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/hunger-games-gang-sign.png) ]
 
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In your immersion program, are you with other English speaking students in a group, or are you living with a host or independently? I can't really see the "total immersion" being enforced much in a group of typical American college students unless you are all super serious about immersion.
I don't think those other coin systems really have much value. I'm sure most of them will continue to rise in the near future but most of those knock-offcoin currencies are probably not here to stay. They're only going up now because people like you regret not getting in the bitcoin bubble. I don't see them as any more than a gamble and if I were you I'd try to get out of them fast. It's probably wiser to spend your money on paying off any loans you may have (think of paying off loans as a guaranteed ROI of your interest rate) or just parking a bit in a highly liquid form so that you have enough money to do some travelling.
Look at it this way: bitcoins have value because of their scarcity and because people are willing to accept them as payment for things. Their value is determined off those two bases. Most other coins have few people willing to accept them in exchange for services, and while they have scarcity themselves (perhaps there will ever only be X nonamecoins) there can be an unlimited number of different types of coins (nonamecoins, shitcoins, worthlesscoins, etc.).
GL with exams.
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Hong Kong9157 Posts
Argentinian wine is very good.
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On December 04 2013 04:20 docvoc wrote:
This is a bit of a weird question, but I thought TL would be a good place to ask it. Recently bitcoins have blown up. I've known about bitcoins for a while, I'm fairly young so all I understood was that it was an internet currency that was semi-useless around age 14, but I never thought about investing in them - much less mining them. Now they've hit it big and people who had invested in them are now much richer than they expected. The reason I'm bringing this up is I know there are a couple other internet currencies, like proxycoin (I think that's the name) and others; I'm wondering if this type of investing is a good idea. I've started learning about investing and how to make money from money, which is basically the secret to being rich, and I'm a total neophyte. I can't tell if this is a new, modern way of making serious bank, or if it's going to blow up in my face. As far as I can tell the more standard styles of investing are much safer, a lot more expensive - let's be honest here, I like the idea of this being under the radar and something the in-the-know only know about, but I'm not about to blow a lot of money that isn't even mine on it - and significantly more standard. What I'm wondering is if any TL people know about these up and coming currencies and if, as a sub-20-year-old, I should start making my first voyages into the financial world with these less than standard styles.
Bitcoin blew up like it did because it was a unique, novel, and useful system that could easily significantly change how people handle something as fundamental as transferring things of value to someone else. A huge part of why it's successful is that people are using it-- it's got a significant network behind it chugging along and keeping it secure, and you're able to buy stuff with bitcoin more and more places every day (e.g. TL).
The alt-coins have similar technical specs-- with some slight differences or improvements, in some cases-- but the truth is, until one comes along that shakes things up like Bitcoin did there's really not much of a reason to believe people will start using them as anything other than some sort of get-rich-quick scheme. If you're regretting not getting involved with Bitcoin, there's nothing stopping you from doing your research, waiting until a time you think the price is lower than it should be, and buying some for yourself!
I'd stay away from putting anything other than trivial amounts of money into an alt-coin, though.
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Do not invest in cryptocurrencies (ie, Bitcoin). They may be useful, eventually, and they are kinda useful now, but as an investment the observed volatility and extreme risk doesn't seem worth it. Mining bitcoin as a hobby wasn't bad a few years ago, but these days pretty much requires a specialized set up (because of how the algorithm functions).
To summarize risks:
1 - It is not in any way, shape, or form protected by any kind of regulatory framework. If you buy bitcoin, and it disappears, you have nothing. You could report it as a theft, maybe, but good luck with any kind of police action.
2 - It's worth what people are willing to pay or exchange for it. All of the exchanges operating are individual entities, and can lock up or disappear if you are using them. You can keep bitcoin in a private wallet, but it's mostly not going to do anything there for you. (Although you can apparently buy stuff from TL with them now.) Even then, every transaction will require a computer and internet access - that's just the way the system works.
3 - The algorithm and everything related to the bitcoin protocol comes from unknown individuals. There's nothing malicious yet, but no one knows who the actual creator is.
4 - Governments don't know what to do with them... yet. But I assure you, the IRS does know about them, and at some point other government agencies and governments will probably get involved with either legitimizing or outlawing or whatever.
5 - Extreme volatility. By extreme, I mean a bitcoin was worth less than $1 not long ago, and now it's over $700 (last I knew). Tomorrow it could be worth $3.50. There's a theoretical maximum available bitcoin, but that doesn't take into account people who have (and I saw this on Ars last week) accidentally thrown away hard drives containing over $7.5 million (at that day's price) of bitcoin. Of course, that's assuming he could find an exchange or exchanges that had the money available for conversion to USD or other non-crypto currency. Now imagine what happens if your private wallet on your hard drive with the keys to your bitcoin suddenly dies because of a virus or drive failure.
Edited to add - 6 - I forgot this, but it's environmentally based complaint so ymmv. Bitcoin mining uses a lot of electrical power (especially now, even with dedicated ASIC boxes) to perform essentially meaningless computations for digital bits - mining for them is, at this time, not even break even in cost for electrical output using any non-specialized computer. And it's only going to get harder over time. I don't like the implications the currency's creation has in that kind of an environmental context. (Although, it being winter, having one of those ASICs chugging away in my bedroom might be nice - I could avoid using a space heater.)
Bitcoin strikes me as similar to precious metal investing - without any of the security of actually having, y'know, something tangible on hand. It has it's uses, and it's pros, but as anything with the word "investment" attached to it - hell no. Any other cryptocurrency lacking any of the slim credibility that Bitcoin has built? FUCK NO.
I know nothing of Argentina, except that Anthony Bourdain enjoyed his filming there and the meat is supposed to be great.
Good luck with your immersion!
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bitcoin blew up because china's baidu accepted it as a medium of exchange. also during FOMC meeting bernanke brought it up that it could possibly be an alternative form of currency, thereby "legitimizing it"
the chances of that happening to another type of cryptocurrency is pretty low. but if you feel daring why not 
PS: i think you shouldnt invest if you cannot explain to people what on earth is it. i for one dont as i dont know jack shit about the deep interweb world
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We have a thread on Bitcoins that people are discussing the pro's and cons of in the general section. Another place I suggest doing some research is R/bitcoin and r/bitcoinmarkets
There are hundreds of articles written by reputable authorities on finance being posted daily. I have spent the past 2 weeks reading articles both in favor of and against bitcoins both as an investment and as a currency,
My personal opinion: Risk and Reward. Risk and Reward tend to have a direct correlation. Bigger Risks yield bigger rewards or they yeild disasters. The potential reward was worth the risk. But i am also at this time only investing amounts that will not devastate my life if i lose everything ive put in.
Remember you can buy all the way down to 10$ worth of bitcoin on most exchanges. However you will need to provide information and link a bank account. Which you might not like (i was comfortable with it, as the invonvenience of being tested and requiring paperwork makes me feel safer while doing business with them). A popular site for US citizens with a checking account is Coinbase.com. Just my $.02
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Asado is a must if you go to Argentina:
+ Show Spoiler +
This is the Mate (very hot, be careful if you want to try it), if you want to socialize with locals it's a great opening door:
+ Show Spoiler +
If you fancy some caliente dancing, tango!
+ Show Spoiler +
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On December 04 2013 04:35 Chocolate wrote:
In your immersion program, are you with other English speaking students in a group, or are you living with a host or independently? I can't really see the "total immersion" being enforced much in a group of typical American college students unless you are all super serious about immersion.
With regards to this, I'll be with a host family and commuting to school in Buenos Aires daily, at which point it is totally up to me to make friends and meet up with people and make it there intact. I'm not living on a campus with all my American friends, I won't necessarily even see them much for an entire month.
With regards to the bitcoins, thanks for the advice guys. I'm mostly curious because just a month ago those things weren't worth nearly as much as they are today, and tomorrow they could be worth very little.
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Bitcoins. I'm regretting not buying in at $125 now of course, but at the time it was a high mark, the average being $40-60, so I wasn't watching it very closely.
Now that it has exploded, I'm considering putting a bit of money in if it goes down a few hundred dollars. I still haven't decided which hundred-mark I would invest at, (say $300 or $600) but considering how quickly it rose, I expect a sharp fall very soon, back towards the $200 range, at which it should steadily rise.
Of course this is all speculation. But the legitimacy of the currency is growing every day. The more people there are who believe that others will accept it as valid payment, the more stable it will be. Until that day comes, I expect it to follow a normal growth pattern (which is why I suspect it will drop back around $125 in the near future). At the time it drops back to between $100-$200 it could be a worthwhile investment.
Don't buy now. It's at its high water mark, and you never want to buy there unless you're a heavy speculator or gambler.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://blogdochurrasco.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/cimg3149.jpg)
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