I see bitcoin continuing to surge in value, well over $10,000. People that put money into this will be happy but I always get a sense its value is destined to fall eventually, perhaps crash under $1,000.
Any thoughts on this cryptocurrency?
A series of mistakes: I bought $1k worth of bitcoins in August of 2010, not really understanding how they worked. At the time, a bitcoin sold for 7¢ each. I had read kids were using them to pay for online gaming time, I bought them for my grandkids to use when they were staying here overnight or for a weekend. They weren't interested. They had their gaming consoles, and didn't spend all that much time with those either. They are more into physical sports, studying for school, doing chores, and learning how to make music, paint, sculpt, whatever. At the time I had 12 grandkids, now 16. My wife fell ill, and I basically forgot I had bought the bitcoins. My wife and my business received all my attention. Work was an escape from my wife's illness, and she encouraged me to tend to business and the family. She passed. I was extremely depressed and started setting a path for retirement, passing on most of my business interests and bitcoins, their growth and volatility were not on my radar. When I bought the bitcoins I registered them with an exchange that today is one of the leading American bitcoin exchanges, just in case I lost them in a computer crash. I retired about two years ago, remarried about a year ago, to my son's mother in law, who had lost her husband 8 years earlier, and we had been living together for about a year, dating before that for about 18 months. Bitcoins, the increases in value, the volatility of the marketplace, the scams, the successes, were the last thing on my mind.
This past January, I received an e-mail from a fellow who told me he was a bitcoin miner from China. I had no idea what a bitcoin miner was. He offered me $2,200 per coin. I was shocked by this offer out of the blue, and I thought it had to be some kind of scam, waited for the foot to drop. He claimed he had traced me down through the registry at the exchange where I had registered the purchase. I waited another day for the Nigerian shuffle, "if you send us $20k in good faith...." Never happened. I called my CPA for an opinion. He also knew nothing of bitcoins, having heard of them and not much more. He advised me to take the offer, pay the gains tax and take the balance and run. Instead, I did some research, learned the current going price was about $2,500 per coin, and the best way to sell in volume was by auction. Over the next month or so, I sold them at three auctions sites, averaging a return of $2,800 to $3,000 per coin. This was another mistake, not that I'm complaining, but I should have waited for the coming explosion in prices. Who knew? Bit coins almost doubled in prices within the next 4-5 months.
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