All Forum Posts by: Alvin Sylvain

I have seen those also. I'd be curious to know if anybody has ever actually tried using one.

Jeff, you post an interesting article about buying beer with Bitcoin. "15 Places where you can buy a beer with Bitcoins"

I must point out that the source is an obvious pro-bitcoin advocacy website. I wouldn't trust their opinion on the time of day, never mind the volume or legitimacy of retail establishments that accept bitcoin. Further, their English is misleading: "Bitcoins" implies more than one. With today's price is approaching $20,000 USD, I shudder to think about a beer costing two Bitcoins!

What establishment is seriously going to accept $10 for a beer today that might be worth $5 by the time they need the money to buy something else? Sure, maybe it'll be $15 next week, but we need to buy supplies now. People open a retail establishment to earn a consistent stream of income. If they wanted to speculate on widely fluctuating prices, they'd have gone into Forex.

I'm sure a closer inspection of those "15 Places" we'd find many are either no longer accepting BTC today, or they only did it as a marketing gimmick in the first place.

You might be interested in an article from a more neutral authority:
https://www.cato.org/blog/bitc...

Some interesting quotes:

--beginquote (italics mine)

It is of course true that the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of trust in purchasing-power stability. ... 
However, Bitcoin’s fixed quantity path creates a different problem that inhibits its widespread use as currency. With the number of Bitcoins unresponsive to demand shifts, all the burden of adjustment falls on the price (purchasing power). As a result the market price of Bitcoin is enormously volatile week-to-week and even day-to-day. This makes it very risky to hold or accept BTC as a payment medium for monthly bills that are denominated in anything other than BTC (e.g. in US dollars, other fiat currencies, or commodity index baskets).

Satoshi wanted to create a payment system with greater privacy.... the way Bitcoin’s distributed ledger system shares addresses and size information about every transaction provides less privacy than would a design sharing less information. Bitcoin is not anonymous, only pseudonymous, and the pseudonyms can be pierced.

As far as making micropayments at negligible cost, the Bitcoin blockchain has turned out to be infeasible for doing so. It becomes quickly congested as it approaches the modest volume of 7 transactions per second.

--endquote

The 7 transactions per second (TPS) is interesting -- Mastercard can handle several thousands of TPS.

It also should be noted that newer cryptocurrencies can handle significantly more TPS than Bitcoin, more even than Mastercard and Visa, but we never hear much about any of those in the press. Only Bitcoin gets the public eye. Bitcoin is the poster-boy for cryptocurrencies, displaying both the good and the bad.

Now, there are of course other quotes in that article, which I'll leave for the reader to explore if so desired. And the Cato Institute is by no means against Bitcoin. They just point out a few flaws the advocates want to gloss over or ignore.

So, bottom line: speculative investment? Sure.
Buy low, sell high? Of course.
Use it instead of cash to buy groceries? Not in this lifetime!

 Right. Let me know when you can use Bitcoin at the local Pub to buy a beer.

So long as people want to buy things without other people learning about it -- guns, drugs, prostitutes, trips to a pub that were supposed to be to the office -- there is going to be a market for some sort of untraceable medium of exchange.

So long as all digital finance leaves a computer trail that can be easily followed by law enforcement and divorce attorneys, people are going to have a use for cash.

People may want to soak silver coins in Clorox or just take their chances, but trust me, there will always be some kind of cash.

What I find peculiar about the phenomenon of increased foreclosures is the fact that it is happening at the same time as a hugely tight housing market where buyers are actually getting into bidding wars for what few properties are up for sale.

I've always thought that foreclosures happened because both a person stopped paying on their mortgage, and simultaneously were unable to get cash out from selling the property. I understand the first half thanks to huge unemployment and so many companies going belly-up, but how is the second half even possible?

Maybe this is strictly a West Coast thing, where the market has so long been artificially crimped by reams of local regulations and incompetent politicians?

"Am I going to get screwed on taxes because I don't have anything to write off (loan interest)?"

My Dad, may he rest in peace, used to keep a substantial sum of money in his checking account.

I said, "Dad, why don't you put some of that into a savings account and get interest payments?" Recognize now, this was back in the day when banks actually paid a decent interest, not that paltry nothing they pretend to pay these days.

My Dad, bless his heart, said, "No, then I'd have to pay taxes to the IRS."

What I could never get him to understand was, yes, some of that income goes into taxes, but you do get to keep some of it! The way he was doing it, he got to keep nothing.

The Moral of the Story is: be happy sharing income with Uncle Sam! I truly doubt you'd be happier with nothing.

As to what California will tax you on, you must get advice from a California Tax Expert. This is no time for penny pinching, without expert tax guidance, you can get screwed.

You folks know this topic is 14 years old, right?

Some of the original posters may not even live in California anymore.

Having family in a market is not reason enough to invest there. It can be helpful, but only if family is on board with the whole real estate investment thing.

Speaking of which, the more important question is, do you know if your fiancé is on board with Real Estate Investing? Few things can drag down an investment strategy like a Significant Other either being ambivalent, against it entirely, or has completely different strategies in mind. I assume you two plan on spending a long time with each other, and it won't do either of you any good if your goals don't sync up at least a little bit.

And don't even get me started on differing strategies on raising kids! Or what to spend money on! Money habits is a BIG killer in relationships, worse even than infidelity.

To the original point about where besides Orange County to invest: OK, this will sound crazy, but, almost anywhere else.

First thing to do is search the BP forums. There is plenty of free information available, I think maybe even a forum dedicated to the topic, or you can purchase David Greene's book, "Long-Distance Real Estate Investing". Keep a look-out for the BP webinars, he gave one on that very topic a month or so back. And as they tend to eventually repeat, he's bound to give another one again.

Bottom line, keep looking, keep educating yourself, and good luck! Kiss that fiancé once or twice for me.

If you're going to go through all the necessary hassle for Out of State Investing, why on earth would you choose Orange Country of all places? That's got to be one of the worst areas for a beginning investor in the entire nation, right up there with San Francisco and New York City.
You can get a 8 unit apartment building in some areas for the price a 2 bedroom dump in Orange County.

I don't mind if you have a full sleeve tattoo, so long as you wear full sleeves so I can't see it.

Not hatin' on tatts, it's just I think the craze has gone on for far too long, and it's past time for folks to get back to the natural beauty of bare skin.

I know a lot of people have said it wouldn't bother them, and in the long run, it probably wouldn't bother me either. I've never done it myself, but I have known a lot of wonderful people with wonderful tatts. There's probably more people I know that I don't know have tatts, as they wisely (in my opinion) hide them under clothing.

Don't forget, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.