Skip to content
×
Pro Members Get
Full Access!
Get off the sidelines and take action in real estate investing with BiggerPockets Pro. Our comprehensive suite of tools and resources minimize mistakes, support informed decisions, and propel you to success.
Advanced networking features
Market and Deal Finder tools
Property analysis calculators
Landlord Command Center
ANNUAL Save 54%
$32.50 /mo
$390 billed annualy
MONTHLY
$69 /mo
billed monthly
7 day free trial. Cancel anytime
Pick markets, find deals, analyze and manage properties. Try BiggerPockets PRO.
x
All Forum Categories
All Forum Categories
Followed Discussions
Followed Categories
Followed People
Followed Locations
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies
Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal
Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback

All Forum Posts by: James Hamling

James Hamling has started 14 posts and replied 4095 times.

Post: Putting $1M into Crypto

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @Steve K.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:

@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever. 

It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever. 

I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too. 

I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid. 

When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks. 

The new shiny toy is ai. 

Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).

People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world. 

apologies niece not daughter in law....getting old.

In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32. 

BTC is the very definition of volatile. 

No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air. 

And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.

The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before. 

Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway. 

As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai. 

As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it. 

So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins. 

AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.

It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe. 

It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements. 

And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable. 

Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices? 

It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs. 

Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember. 

Words hype and hopes. 

I operate on facts, math and certainty. 


 That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.

BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.

BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now. 

BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous. 

.
Oops. 

"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65

North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."

I was waiting for this type of response.

Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.

Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced.  So again, it's user error and storage.

In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?

Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding. 

This is what is coined "SPIN". 

Look it's simple. 

For long crypto sold itself as SAFE, secure, even claiming for many years to be SAFER than current in use systems. 

Crypto even slogan'd on anonymity. 

If you have $ at a bank, and bank calls saying "sorry half your moneys gone, it was stolen" do you care HOW the thieves stole it? Does it matter HOW it was done? No, what matters is you thought it was safe, it was stolen, so now your sense of safety and security is GONE. 

How NOT safe is crypto? I can sum it up in 1 word: WILLOW.... 

Every masters degree/ Phd level data scientist and computer engineer I know has exited crypto since the confirmation with WILLOW. ALL OF THEM, 100%. 

For those who don't know or understand, WILLOW is the breakthrough in computing that is taking ai effectively from the era of the horse & buggy straight to nuclear propulsion. 

And that analogy is even far too weak a comparison. It's more like from caveman too spaceman. Yeah, it's THAT big a leap. 

So take an ai capable of running every cryptographic permutation in existence, in an hour. It can solve mathematical problems that would take conventional super computers billions upon billions of years, and do it in seconds. 

Effectively, there is no such thing as data security anymore. All codes, all that jazz, DONE. All it requires is one with hardware access and the desire to implement it for such. 

In other words, N.Korea, Iran, RU, etc etc etc..... 

You will see crypto heists parabolically increase THIS YEAR, head my words, this is inevitable. 

1) Bybit hack had nothing to do with QC. 100% to do with security. There's no spin here, if you're saying I am spinning it in a different like point #2 then sure but I never did that. Nor did I ever subscribe to it. 
2) Don't care what crypto "slogan'd" itself for. I just take it for what it is. Again, I don't parrot and form my own thesis. If someone thought they'd be anonymous, they needed to verify that then engage in illegal trades because someone told them it was anonymous. You'd trust your drug dealer to tell you how to operate? Give me a break.
3) Willow is google's QC chip. Go get long GOOGL or long quantum ETFs. It is not inversely related to BTC and Blockchain's health. FYI there's more of a threat to Willow than there is to Nvidia Blackwell on the horizon-- not advice just a note.

Willow is a weak, kind of amateur answer to why BTC will fail. As this has been a material sight on the horizon-- notice I said sight not obstacle--for some time as well as some other QCs. Willow is also nowhere near a threat to cryptography; Google will admit that.

 Anyone at the institutional level has underwrote this risk and has not found it tangible. Anyone at the institutional level that's against BTC has bet on this and realized it's a quite a way from any recognition or realization. I don't know one that hasn't that we've conversed with, along with other Chinese chips like Zucho or distantly down Majorana among others. 

For the people that actually are in the know with institutions that are heavily against BTC and heavily PRO the easiest way for me to summarize the threat of quantum computing is that it's way easier to develop resistant forks on the blockchain than to get QC scalable. 

That's the general consensus among some of the real smart money pro & anti BTC. There's one reputationally aggressive fund, if not the most aggressive, that's tried to up the ante in QC to create this as they believe it's a threat to USD-- I know you don't-- that even admits it's a far larger reach than the solution for the blockchain fixing itself via latency, soft forks, etc.

You do realize if QC becomes scalable and defeats any fork attempt or latency attempt to a blockchain, then all digital security is at risk. A lazy answer for sure, but definitely a point to note. It means your communications, local bank, etc., all at risk. 

Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure. 

Another retribute against QC against blockchain is there's PQC(post quantum cryptography) & QSC(quantum-safe-cryptography) which is already advancing faster than QC and faster than your local massive banks at creating resistance to their own security. And what happens if more adoption appears at the BTC level? Then, you'll see increased efforts of penetrating it but also saving it. 

Again-- IF, THEN.


You're missing the forest for the trees. 

This is spinning out down a rabbit hole that all of about 7 people on BP will comprehend, lol. 

Short version is; the vast majority of people have no comprehension of nor do they want to fully know or comprehend all of the details. They want there money to be safe, simple and easy. 

They earn $___, it shows up in an account, they go buy ___, know the price, simple life. 

When they hear of this hack, that heist, this exploit etc. it scares them plain n simple. 

And crypto won't work if 90% of people fear the use of it. 

BTC value is set by usership. Less users = less market value. 

It's shine is already wearing off. Will diehards such as yourself keep in, sure, of course. But reality is at least 50% in BTC today are not the ilk of yourself. There novices at best, and most just blindly holding something because it's value held promise of making them $. Lot's of $. 

Burst that perception bubble, and watch those masses of novice exit. As they are literally today. I in one of my BTC chat's just read countless persons say "WTF is all this $ going from people selling????". 

Well, guess who IS green today? Remember what I wrote before? O, Realty Income Corp. They are UP today, as so much else is gushing red all over the market. F Ford was up now down 0.35% as COIN is down (OOF-DAH) 17%.......

I warned, I said you WILL see this happen and happen very soon. I didn't expect it the next day, lol, but I did call it. I even called where some of the $ would go, which is exactly what it's doing. 


Maybe you missed it, but I put it in bold again.

"Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure."


It will scare some folks, but it's not the end of the journey for BTC. Just like SBF/FTX scared tons of folks, it still came back. FWIW, I got into BTC as an allocation after Mt Gox. That did not scare me, it's actually where I started to educate myself.  And actually where some of the largest investors came in, too. Little history will show some of the largest institutional players(as individuals not on the behalf of institutions) jumped in also in mid 2014-early 2015. 

There's no missing the forest for the trees here-- we believe the same outcome for most assets(in the short term). We'll continue to disagree on the (long term) outcome of Bitcoin and that's fine.  We see it in a binary fold; you see the headwinds as the reason it goes to 0, I see the headwinds as opportunities to buy. Time will tell.

I also said I am not a diehard or maximalist, I just believe the mechanism has a lot of rumors and little facts circulating around it. Like anonymity, and other ********. 

But to go back to the how & why part-- it's leverage. It's not people selling BTC to buy Ford or O. 

The entire market has/had too much of expectations and engaged in too much leverage. @Chris Seveney and I have been saying this for along time and even joked about whose more cynical/pessimistic about it. In that other locked thread, @Henry Clark and I were saying there'll be a massive drawdown on equities.

They're not selling BTC to buy Ford, they're selling BTC because they are overleveraged & expectations are missing because everything is pricing for perfection. 

And I mean everything is pricing for perfection;
Houses are priced to date the rate, marry the house like some folks spew. That changed the valuation and folks are compromised with their monthly payment. Some are underwater with even higher rates when agents told them to wait till 2025. Good luck. There's little liquidity here so it's usually the last fall.

Equities were priced for perfect earnings, any beat but not significantly higher is a net negative.  We're seeing that reckoning begin now. 

Crypto stormed 40-80% higher post trump presidency based off the premise of a pro-crypto president with little tangible strategy on how and what it'll be to get there. They bought the talk, not the walk. Unfortunately, they bought a giant share of that gain with leverage.

They're not selling BTC to buy Ford or O. Such a ridiculous take, they are selling BTC cause they are overleveraged. Just like they're selling mega cap and tech. Too much expectations and too much leverage.

And like I said before, go identify where the leverage is. The most right now is BTC, it does not mean it's dead when it gets pounded. It just means it'll get pounded.

"Any leverage in any market is going to radically flip on it's head. Identify where that is, and you found the opportunity.

In America, it's almost every market. So all NAV in every field will take a circumstantial hit."

Burned by Crypto, Built by Real Estate: My Journey from Rock Bottom to 10+ Deals/Year

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/1234436-burne...

"Then the crypto crash hit, and we lost 90% of our funds."

You're just proving my point about buying what falls due to overlevegage. 

Late 2022, I bought more. They sold and realized a large loss. 

Identify the leverage, and buy the fall.  You're just exposing folks who are **** at understanding it and one's who've made a career in it.  

Go check where BTC traded late 2022 and it's current price. BTC, like other assets, need to be held for some term. Go check returns from late 2022 vs RE, not to say this will also be the trend but since you are asking for it. Take a look.

This is also my point James, yes folks like this guy panic sell and life is "ruined". You're not wrong about that, I just think the support bid & participants are not as weak as you suspect. 2022 was $12k expectations, $16k real, no institutions. Today I think it's high 30s with lots of institutions. No idea about nations.

Here's a trick question, Ken. Why did RE collapse in 08-09?

Is RE fraudulent or a scam?

VG Jason are you buying the dip today? TSLA also on sale, down 15%. Who wants to make a bet that Elon comes up with some new fake product to hype the stock price up again this week. I’ll bet extra that the new shiny object is AI-related. 

 Better not..... I've been shorting the hell outta em for last 2 weeks. just took profits and recycled into MORE shorts today. Tripled down baby! Down DOWN down! 

Post: Free Property Management in Minneapolis Minnesota

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @Robert Ellis:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Robert Ellis:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Robert Ellis:
Quote from @James Wise:

Thanks to our friends over at Rent To Retirement, this episode of The Investment Properties For Sale Show features a brand new home in the Minneapolis, Minnesota housing market. Located in the suburb of Minneapolis called Cambridge, Minnesota, investors are able to get a free year of property management and a 7% cash back seller concession if they invest in this brand new build to rent home.

Free Property Management in Minneapolis Minnesota | Investment Properties For Sale - 55008 Clover

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

___

Like what you see in the video from my buddies at Rent To Retirement? 

Want to buy this property? Have additional questions?

You can hit up @Zach Lemaster here on BP, text REI to 33777, or you can reach out to the rest of the Rent To Retirement team on their Website or Socials below.

RentToRetirement.com

BiggerPockets

YouTube

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter/X

TikTok


 not to diminish the deals rent to retirement is selling but I could build a duplex with a 1/1 at 400 square feet a unit in my market in Columbus Ohio stacked 2 tall on a small infill lot all in for 260k with my profit and sell it turn key and rent it for $2400 a month. at some point some of these deals need to be screened better. builder credits can be manipulated. that would be tax abated as well. I don't think selling turn key single family homes is what should be recommended to investors. 


So your telling us you got some magic wand where you get 200%+ market rents?    How?

Or are you just making shameless self-promotions again begging for clueless lemmings to come running?

 what are you talking about? I'm saying we can create a floorplan that rents for $1200 a month downtown. those are 400-500 square foot units and construction with land is low. meets 1% rule on the basis. I have no idea who you are mr. hamling but I'm sorry I called this a bad investment but it is. it's not even 1% rule do you disagree? 


That's NOT what you said. 

You said you can rent a 1/1 at 400 square feet a unit in Columbus Ohio for $2400 a month.

It's right here for posterity. Anyone/Everyone can click the pretty little drop down arrows and read your post making such insane BS claims. 

Which now you just halved. Did rents drop 50% since you posted that? 

My issue is with your wildly false/BS claim which was clearly written as click-bait to self-promote, not to further the discussion in/of this post. 

Do I think this Cambridge investment offering is "great"? No, but as a "on a silver platter" turn-key offering it IS fair. 

And this Cambridge turn-key investment offering is REAL. It's not some fantasy half-cooked click-bait BS of "1/1 400sqft renting for 1 gagiliion dollars!" manure. 

I have exactly 0-beef with James Wise or Zack Lemaster. These 2 are on my top-5 list of people in this industry I MOST respect. Because they are HONEST in what they do; they say what they mean and mean what they say.  ie INTEGRITY.

What you did Rob is what I see as void of any integrity. Ain't nobody got time for that!  

I said we could build and design a stacked 2 family each unit is 400 square feet and rent it for $1200. Section 8 vouchers pay almost $1100 in our market and you posted some screenshot from who knows where that justifies what I'm saying. Very easy in our market and probably in this market too. I didn't say one I said 2 units. And the economics would be in their favor instead of investing in a low ROI single family home with a garage. Most apartments don't have garages.

I'm saying that the layout and price don't make this deal any good at all. I agree with both the guys you mention they are both very experienced but Zach runs a sales team and James runs hist turnkey stuff and a podcast. Neither of them creates supply of new construction and I can say the same of you. We will build and deliver probably a net 25 housing units this year and entitle a few hundred more in the cities I work in. 

I engineer houses and have designed 5 Floorplans already in a midwest market that would be considered in the same peer group as Minneapolis and I have freedom of speech to say I think it's a bad deal. I know the cost of construction and new build numbers in our market. I'm a licensed general contractor. We put 200 videos out a month on new construction in Columbus and deal walkthroughs. I'm not sure where you got I'm dishonest or no integrity or shameless plugging myself. But I talk to guys who buy garbage deals from these organizations on a daily basis and this isn't a good deal. I'd love to see how It can be defended but it's just not a good one. I don't have beef with either of these guys. Zack we push new builds through but we don't do single family anymore because the returns are really bad and I can't put an investor into a single family home. I have to believe in the economics of the properties I'm selling. This doesn't have an exit path, it doesn't meet minimum return requirements, and it has builder concessions that help lower operating expenses that will increase after year 1. it's in a way deceiving to get the deal to "pencil". I see people manipulate financial statements on a daily basis and lower operating expenses like this to get the deal to work. 

James lumping me in with real estate agents is fine he can say whatever he wants but we are build to rent developer and of course it's my job to challenge some of the garbage that is being sold on the market. I'll ask again, can you legitimately defend the deal on a standalone basis and explain how someone without counting on appreciation can make this deal work? What happens in month 13 when the property management fee goes up to a real rate of 8-10% and their operating expenses go up? They probably already weren't making money now they are losing money.  


Rob, save yourself some breath and just google me. 

If we want to measure eggplants on who contributed to most net unit additions.... Ok, I designed a Townhome compilation last year that just went into production on 3 sites consisting of 748 total units. 

Yeah, I'm the guy a developer/builder of that scale calls on to given them analysis and advice on things. It was a bit out of the box to let me jump into the drafting and design again but as that words says "again". 

I am very well versed and experienced in development. I get what your doing. Your a spec builder in buid-4-rent. 

Do you really want to poke me to get my HONEST opinion on what your slinging? I assure, you won't like it. A pound of sugar won't help that medicine go down. 

Zach HAS done new builds for years. Or should I say JV's and work with new builds. Zach does a lot more than just "runs a sales team". It's like your saying Andy Reid "just calls out plays" lol.

If your thinking Columbus Sec8 Landlording is such a great simple e-z pee-zee path to $, I suggest you check this great REAL WORLD resource out there called Holton Wise TV. It's awesome, they pull back the curtain and show the REAL-DEAL stuff of it all. Check em out. https://www.youtube.com/@holtonwisetv/featured

Post: Putting $1M into Crypto

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:

@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever. 

It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever. 

I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too. 

I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid. 

When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks. 

The new shiny toy is ai. 

Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).

People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world. 

apologies niece not daughter in law....getting old.

In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32. 

BTC is the very definition of volatile. 

No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air. 

And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.

The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before. 

Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway. 

As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai. 

As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it. 

So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins. 

AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.

It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe. 

It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements. 

And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable. 

Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices? 

It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs. 

Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember. 

Words hype and hopes. 

I operate on facts, math and certainty. 


 That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.

BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.

BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now. 

BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous. 

.
Oops. 

"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65

North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."

I was waiting for this type of response.

Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.

Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced.  So again, it's user error and storage.

In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?

Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding. 

This is what is coined "SPIN". 

Look it's simple. 

For long crypto sold itself as SAFE, secure, even claiming for many years to be SAFER than current in use systems. 

Crypto even slogan'd on anonymity. 

If you have $ at a bank, and bank calls saying "sorry half your moneys gone, it was stolen" do you care HOW the thieves stole it? Does it matter HOW it was done? No, what matters is you thought it was safe, it was stolen, so now your sense of safety and security is GONE. 

How NOT safe is crypto? I can sum it up in 1 word: WILLOW.... 

Every masters degree/ Phd level data scientist and computer engineer I know has exited crypto since the confirmation with WILLOW. ALL OF THEM, 100%. 

For those who don't know or understand, WILLOW is the breakthrough in computing that is taking ai effectively from the era of the horse & buggy straight to nuclear propulsion. 

And that analogy is even far too weak a comparison. It's more like from caveman too spaceman. Yeah, it's THAT big a leap. 

So take an ai capable of running every cryptographic permutation in existence, in an hour. It can solve mathematical problems that would take conventional super computers billions upon billions of years, and do it in seconds. 

Effectively, there is no such thing as data security anymore. All codes, all that jazz, DONE. All it requires is one with hardware access and the desire to implement it for such. 

In other words, N.Korea, Iran, RU, etc etc etc..... 

You will see crypto heists parabolically increase THIS YEAR, head my words, this is inevitable. 

1) Bybit hack had nothing to do with QC. 100% to do with security. There's no spin here, if you're saying I am spinning it in a different like point #2 then sure but I never did that. Nor did I ever subscribe to it. 
2) Don't care what crypto "slogan'd" itself for. I just take it for what it is. Again, I don't parrot and form my own thesis. If someone thought they'd be anonymous, they needed to verify that then engage in illegal trades because someone told them it was anonymous. You'd trust your drug dealer to tell you how to operate? Give me a break.
3) Willow is google's QC chip. Go get long GOOGL or long quantum ETFs. It is not inversely related to BTC and Blockchain's health. FYI there's more of a threat to Willow than there is to Nvidia Blackwell on the horizon-- not advice just a note.

Willow is a weak, kind of amateur answer to why BTC will fail. As this has been a material sight on the horizon-- notice I said sight not obstacle--for some time as well as some other QCs. Willow is also nowhere near a threat to cryptography; Google will admit that.

 Anyone at the institutional level has underwrote this risk and has not found it tangible. Anyone at the institutional level that's against BTC has bet on this and realized it's a quite a way from any recognition or realization. I don't know one that hasn't that we've conversed with, along with other Chinese chips like Zucho or distantly down Majorana among others. 

For the people that actually are in the know with institutions that are heavily against BTC and heavily PRO the easiest way for me to summarize the threat of quantum computing is that it's way easier to develop resistant forks on the blockchain than to get QC scalable. 

That's the general consensus among some of the real smart money pro & anti BTC. There's one reputationally aggressive fund, if not the most aggressive, that's tried to up the ante in QC to create this as they believe it's a threat to USD-- I know you don't-- that even admits it's a far larger reach than the solution for the blockchain fixing itself via latency, soft forks, etc.

You do realize if QC becomes scalable and defeats any fork attempt or latency attempt to a blockchain, then all digital security is at risk. A lazy answer for sure, but definitely a point to note. It means your communications, local bank, etc., all at risk. 

Another thing is QC will penetrate re-used addresses-- meaning if you're doing isolated withdrawals or single address one's--way less at risk. But adoption/belief will mitigated if you see other compromises, for sure. 

Another retribute against QC against blockchain is there's PQC(post quantum cryptography) & QSC(quantum-safe-cryptography) which is already advancing faster than QC and faster than your local massive banks at creating resistance to their own security. And what happens if more adoption appears at the BTC level? Then, you'll see increased efforts of penetrating it but also saving it. 

Again-- IF, THEN.


You're missing the forest for the trees. 

This is spinning out down a rabbit hole that all of about 7 people on BP will comprehend, lol. 

Short version is; the vast majority of people have no comprehension of nor do they want to fully know or comprehend all of the details. They want there money to be safe, simple and easy. 

They earn $___, it shows up in an account, they go buy ___, know the price, simple life. 

When they hear of this hack, that heist, this exploit etc. it scares them plain n simple. 

And crypto won't work if 90% of people fear the use of it. 

BTC value is set by usership. Less users = less market value. 

It's shine is already wearing off. Will diehards such as yourself keep in, sure, of course. But reality is at least 50% in BTC today are not the ilk of yourself. There novices at best, and most just blindly holding something because it's value held promise of making them $. Lot's of $. 

Burst that perception bubble, and watch those masses of novice exit. As they are literally today. I in one of my BTC chat's just read countless persons say "WTF is all this $ going from people selling????". 

Well, guess who IS green today? Remember what I wrote before? O, Realty Income Corp. They are UP today, as so much else is gushing red all over the market. F Ford was up now down 0.35% as COIN is down (OOF-DAH) 17%.......

I warned, I said you WILL see this happen and happen very soon. I didn't expect it the next day, lol, but I did call it. I even called where some of the $ would go, which is exactly what it's doing. 

Post: Free Property Management in Minneapolis Minnesota

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @Robert Ellis:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Robert Ellis:
Quote from @James Wise:

Thanks to our friends over at Rent To Retirement, this episode of The Investment Properties For Sale Show features a brand new home in the Minneapolis, Minnesota housing market. Located in the suburb of Minneapolis called Cambridge, Minnesota, investors are able to get a free year of property management and a 7% cash back seller concession if they invest in this brand new build to rent home.

Free Property Management in Minneapolis Minnesota | Investment Properties For Sale - 55008 Clover

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

___

Like what you see in the video from my buddies at Rent To Retirement? 

Want to buy this property? Have additional questions?

You can hit up @Zach Lemaster here on BP, text REI to 33777, or you can reach out to the rest of the Rent To Retirement team on their Website or Socials below.

RentToRetirement.com

BiggerPockets

YouTube

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter/X

TikTok


 not to diminish the deals rent to retirement is selling but I could build a duplex with a 1/1 at 400 square feet a unit in my market in Columbus Ohio stacked 2 tall on a small infill lot all in for 260k with my profit and sell it turn key and rent it for $2400 a month. at some point some of these deals need to be screened better. builder credits can be manipulated. that would be tax abated as well. I don't think selling turn key single family homes is what should be recommended to investors. 


So your telling us you got some magic wand where you get 200%+ market rents?    How?

Or are you just making shameless self-promotions again begging for clueless lemmings to come running?

 what are you talking about? I'm saying we can create a floorplan that rents for $1200 a month downtown. those are 400-500 square foot units and construction with land is low. meets 1% rule on the basis. I have no idea who you are mr. hamling but I'm sorry I called this a bad investment but it is. it's not even 1% rule do you disagree? 


That's NOT what you said. 

You said you can rent a 1/1 at 400 square feet a unit in Columbus Ohio for $2400 a month.

It's right here for posterity. Anyone/Everyone can click the pretty little drop down arrows and read your post making such insane BS claims. 

Which now you just halved. Did rents drop 50% since you posted that? 

My issue is with your wildly false/BS claim which was clearly written as click-bait to self-promote, not to further the discussion in/of this post. 

Do I think this Cambridge investment offering is "great"? No, but as a "on a silver platter" turn-key offering it IS fair. 

And this Cambridge turn-key investment offering is REAL. It's not some fantasy half-cooked click-bait BS of "1/1 400sqft renting for 1 gagiliion dollars!" manure. 

I have exactly 0-beef with James Wise or Zack Lemaster. These 2 are on my top-5 list of people in this industry I MOST respect. Because they are HONEST in what they do; they say what they mean and mean what they say.  ie INTEGRITY.

What you did Rob is what I see as void of any integrity. Ain't nobody got time for that!  

Post: Putting $1M into Crypto

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:

@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever. 

It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever. 

I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too. 

I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid. 

When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks. 

The new shiny toy is ai. 

Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).

People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world. 

apologies niece not daughter in law....getting old.

In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32. 

BTC is the very definition of volatile. 

No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air. 

And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.

The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before. 

Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway. 

As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai. 

As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it. 

So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins. 

AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.

It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe. 

It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements. 

And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable. 

Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices? 

It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs. 

Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember. 

Words hype and hopes. 

I operate on facts, math and certainty. 


 That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.

BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.

BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now. 

BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous. 

.
Oops. 

"Recent and significant crypto hacks include the Bybit exchange hack on February 21, 2025, where nearly $1.5 billion worth of ether (ETH) was stolen, and a North Korean hack in March 2025 that stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, making it the largest crypto hack on record according to the FBI.65

North Korean hackers have been increasingly active in the crypto space, stealing approximately $660.5 million across 20 incidents in 2023 and $1.34 billion across 47 incidents in 2024, marking a 102.88% rise in value stolen."

I was waiting for this type of response.

Show me you don't understand anything at all any more clear, Ken.

Bybit didn't hack "Ethereum". They hacked SAFE Wallet. Bybit was too cheap to purchase extra security (measures)--left UI systems as is & not enhanced.  So again, it's user error and storage.

In laymen terms, this is like a scammer sending you a text to log in to confirm your AMEX details. You do, and they get access to steal funds. No other security measures. Did your USD get hacked? Or did AMEX get hacked? And are you the vulnerability or is USD?

Unfortunately, retorts like yours show that compete lack of knowledge & understanding. 

This is what is coined "SPIN". 

Look it's simple. 

For long crypto sold itself as SAFE, secure, even claiming for many years to be SAFER than current in use systems. 

Crypto even slogan'd on anonymity. 

If you have $ at a bank, and bank calls saying "sorry half your moneys gone, it was stolen" do you care HOW the thieves stole it? Does it matter HOW it was done? No, what matters is you thought it was safe, it was stolen, so now your sense of safety and security is GONE. 

How NOT safe is crypto? I can sum it up in 1 word: WILLOW.... 

Every masters degree/ Phd level data scientist and computer engineer I know has exited crypto since the confirmation with WILLOW. ALL OF THEM, 100%. 

For those who don't know or understand, WILLOW is the breakthrough in computing that is taking ai effectively from the era of the horse & buggy straight to nuclear propulsion. 

And that analogy is even far too weak a comparison. It's more like from caveman too spaceman. Yeah, it's THAT big a leap. 

So take an ai capable of running every cryptographic permutation in existence, in an hour. It can solve mathematical problems that would take conventional super computers billions upon billions of years, and do it in seconds. 

Effectively, there is no such thing as data security anymore. All codes, all that jazz, DONE. All it requires is one with hardware access and the desire to implement it for such. 

In other words, N.Korea, Iran, RU, etc etc etc..... 

You will see crypto heists parabolically increase THIS YEAR, head my words, this is inevitable. 

Post: Can a “Subject to” Transaction be done SAFELY?

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @Peter Walther:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Peter Walther:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Peter Walther:
Quote from @Don Konipol:
Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:
Quote from @James Wise:
Quote from @Don Konipol:

I've read all the posts providing posters personal opinions based on their experience, knowledge, biases, and specializations within the real estate field.  

The many NEGATIVE opinions, while not changing my mind that sub to CAN be done safely, have opened my eyes to the very real risks involved and the difficulty of structuring the transaction so as to protect all parties; I was also surprised to learn of how many investors have observed unsatisfactory outcomes with these type deals.

So, based on all your feedback, I have come to the following conclusions

1. While subject to. transactions can be done safely, it is most difficult to accomplish in residential transactions where the seller is a homeowner and not an investor. 

2. Full disclosure of the negative consequences (retention of liability without ownership of the asset securing that liability, limitation on credit capacity, etc.) must be provided the seller IN WRITING.

3. ALL parties should be represented by an attorney experienced in real estate

4. Buyers with limited knowledge, experience and capital should not engage in this type transaction

5. A subject to transaction involving commercial property and two professional real estate investors is an appropriate venue for a sub to transaction

6. the buyer should be fully prepared to refinance or payoff the existing loan if it is called due, and should have the capacity to do so.

7. the legal structure and documentation should be prepared by an attorney experienced in subject to transactions.

8. Avoid anybody who was a Pace Morby student


Sub2 is for criminals and con artists. Anyone who comes on these threads and talks about doing Sub2 deals is garbage.


Jim Luv you Bro but your over the top on this one.. 
yeah, I often disagree with Mr Wise, but I LOVE the fact that he unequivocally states his opinion. Even when he implies that I’m “garbage”.  This is the second time I’ve been called garbage in the last 6 months.  The first was by Joe Biden. LOL 

Was it really necessary to inject politics into the conversation, after all, I didn't mention the sociopathic narcissist currently occupying the white house or the chaos he's creating or his running buddy who thinks I'm a parasite.

" ....after all, I didn't mention the sociopathic narcissist currently occupying the white house or the chaos he's creating or his running buddy who thinks I'm a parasite."

Bidens back at the White House ?!!

I wouldn't get all up in arms, I am sure he's just having an "old-timers" episode again one of the wranglers will get him a 10yr old to sniff to coax him out soon enough. 


While Biden certainly wasn't up the task of being President, he didn't have over 100 mental health professionals opine that he is mentally ill.  Nor did he have many of his handpicked advisors such as Rex Tillerson call him "a fuc*ing moron", yet many seemingly intelligent individuals insist that Donald Trump is the greatest businessman who ever walked the face of the earth.  Forgive me if I seem confused.


Is it possible that your confusion may have a source influence from an over-consumption of headlines, and an under-consumption of self search in facts and due diligence? 

I suspect the factual answers, as most things, are found somewhere in the middle.... 


I believe that if you review some of my previous posts, on any topic, my opinion is always based on facts and are not superficial.  My post that started this tangent was that over 100 metal health professionals have opined that Donald Trump is mentally ill, I have yet to read anything that refutes that fact.  I also wrote that Rex Tillerson said Trump is a fuc*ing moron, which is also a fact.  The fact is Donald Trump was insolvent and was saved from bankruptcy, unlike his companies, by his creditors who decided he was worth more to them financially alive then dead.  Then came along Mark Burnett who created this persona of a successful businessman from whole cloth, and the gullible public bought it, probably as a result of what's known in behavioral economics as availability bias.  The fact is he was never that smart, financially or otherwise and his mental acuity has gone steadily downhill.  The fact is, Donald Trump is a sociopath and as such is incapable of feeling things normal people take for granted such a guilt, regret, shame, remorse, fear.  If you're interested, there's a book titled Sociopath, A Memoir by Patric Gagne, an autobiography by a woman self-diagnosed as a sociopath who went on to get her PhD to better understand her condition.  It might give you a better understanding of what may be going on inside Trumps mind.  Also, it's a fact that it is commonly believed by mental health professionals, that these personality traits make sociopaths poor decision makers because they are incapable of understanding or caring about the possible adverse consequences of their decisions.  The fact is he's also a pathological liar, incapable of telling the truth and in many cases unable to even recognize that he's lying.  I really wish that one of you Trump supporters would give me some fact that demonstrates why my opinion of Trump and his policies are wrong or some record of his remarkable achievements.

Well that's just...... Something.... 

It makes me wonder if there is a DSM for persons who believe they are qualified to make psychological diagnosis for a person based solely upon what they have seen or read on that person via selected media. 

Possibly a form of derangement maybe...... Hummmm, yeah it seems to fit the category of a derangement. 

FYI; I'm not a Trump Tribalist sooooo yeah, guess again. 

See it's this that's really pushing people away. The polarized "your with us or else your with THEM" BS. 

I'm the middle. The middle looking on thinking "wow, your psychotic freak outs are NOT winning us over to your side of things". 

Post: Putting $1M into Crypto

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @Steve K.:
Quote from @Randy Dubiskas:

Remember the tulip bubble in 1634

I remember it like it was yesterday ;).

I wrote a paper on this for school once upon a time and an interesting detail about the "Tulip Bubble" is that the story as it is usually told today is actually mostly false. The story was extremely exaggerated by a Scottish journalist in 1841 who was ahead of his time in the "Fake News" sector, and the tulip "mania" actually didn't involve very many people and had very little economic impact: 

 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-...

I suppose we can still draw lessons from a story that is mostly fiction, but more accurate comparisons would probably be the South Sea Bubble in 1700s England, the 19th century railway bubble, or the dot.com bubble. 


I think the Tulip Bubble is a very apt comparison to crypto, not on the wildly exaggerated tales of it but the truths of it. 

Tulips were a legit thing of a legit utility. And via some actions a tail-spin up in it's valuation happened which became saturated by speculative investors who made argument after argument it was not speculating. 

And it was the very actions of those speculative investors that actually empowered the runaway appreciation. 

Sounding kinda familiar.... 

And as an exit began, thus dropping that pricing founded not on utility but on speculation, despite many arguing at the top otherwise, the decline was sharp and fast. Rapidly gaining compounded declines. 

It was a niche investment segment. 

I am not aware of any economic wide catastrophe from it. 

If anything it was a great education in speculative investments vs fundamental intrinsic investments. 

Post: Putting $1M into Crypto

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @V.G Jason:
Quote from @James Hamling:

@Steve K. I liquidated my entire crypto portfolio in January and I have 0-regrets, and 0-intentions of jumping back in any time soon, if ever. 

It was always a speculative investment, investing on sentiment and a trend. Not once did I ever consider or view it as anything of any intrinsic or utilitarian value. Not once ever. 

I was in crypto for years, flipping and trading. Again, gleefully out. And profitably too. 

I consider myself rather informed on it. Nowhere near the 1% because honestly there all cult members high on hopeum and drunk on the kool-aid. 

When I am paying for groceries and fuel with crypto, maybe. Until then, it's a shiny toy that's getting kinda old. No thanks. 

The new shiny toy is ai. 

Just bought my daughter-in-law a car strictly with bitcoin. This is with one of the most prestigious dealerships in Texas. And got her son a full sports outfit with crypto from a professional NBA franchise(same owners for the dealership & franchise).

People can disbelieve Bitcoin, etc., bottom line is emerging markets are usually correlated with higher population growth and desperate needs for infrastructure. With that comes a ray of hope for attaching to assets; bitcoin right now is the only tangible medium for that. Other forms of assets come with such steeper barrier entries coupled with devaluation of their current currency, it's very hard to resist this proof. Won't go deep and long in this, as I am not a fanatic but absolutely see the use case for it against currency. The US should view it as a threat to the dollar(and rightfully so), but to do that you need to get in front of it and not ban/eliminate it. It seems Trump's cabinet views it similarly in today's world. 

apologies niece not daughter in law....getting old.

In just the last 5 days BTC has ranged in value from a high of $94,380.26 too a low of $81,157.32. 

BTC is the very definition of volatile. 

No business can humanly exist selling say a loaf of bread on Monday at one value, and come Friday when they go to reorder items to produce more bread, 10% of the sale $ they took in has evaporated into thin air. 

And that's just in 5 days. Real moves.

The only reason 85% of people were on the BTC and crypto "train" was because it was going UP in value. Just like NFT's. Just like Tulips had long before. 

Now it's rhetoric and assorted other hype to keep the hopeium alive. Because all who have leveraged into it know the fade is running out of runway. 

As people get tired of it, don't see parabolic growth and profits, the shine is wearing off and people will sell and move on to what is current, shiny and with prospects of parabolic growth and profits ie ai. 

As people sell BTC value goes down. Because it's value is based on NOTHING, literally. It's based on people holding and buying it. 

So as it flatlines as it is, sentiment of it coming down grows as it is, selling takes hold and as it sells value drops reinforcing the downward movement and decisions to sell. And a downward spiral begins. 

AMC & GME was little different. People chasing rainbows of massive profits. Than bag holders holding out on hopeium. But as time passes more and more wake up to the reality that the rainbows are long gone and 100% annual returns are fantasy but 50% losses are real.

It's the Gold Rush mentality. or better said, a Pump-n-dump. BTC and crypto is just one with some longer track to it than others given the criminal utility of it all. Great if your an international arms smuggler, not so great for a 50-something Jane/John Doe. 

It was fun while it lasted, I'm over it now and onto playing ai. Selling Put's, taking leaps, selling calls, making $ 4-ways on market movements. 

And continuing to do Real Estate, good-ole-reliable. 

Why waste time on a literal gamble of BTC when it's at bizonkers high prices? 

It's called buy low n sell high, not buy high and pray for inhuman additional astronomical highs. 

Government promised...... Yeah well they been promising me peace on earth, clean water, clear skies, low tax's and all the other oh-so-good for long as I can remember. 

Words hype and hopes. 

I operate on facts, math and certainty. 


 That's very appropriate vol for BTC; VTI and QQQ were 3.5-4% negative in 5d and range quite strong too. Comparatively, that vol for BTC is quite normal. We've seen way bigger vol swings for BTC so not sure that's the point I'd make against it.

BTC vol will tighten once there's more adoption. That's proven given the fact we had significantly more drawdowns and significantly more often when less were invested. Just to give you a vol comparison in the last 10 years Nvidia has had 2 50% drawdowns. There's risk to everything. Given 10 years ago BTC was a fraction of what it's worth now percentage based draw downs are a bit misled given absolute value differential.

BTC adoption has gone institutional, prior it was emerging markets and little retail. It's hard to call it pump & dump now. 

BTC's biggest argument is it's a threat to the USD, and a savior for emerging markets. For that reason, BTC will continue to yield up to the right but also correct more harshly than any other asset class. Like I said in a previous post, this correction and perhaps recession that will take place will be quite devastating for BTC, but long-term BTC holders or maximalists will yield the most advantageous. 


Your making my point and completely missing it. 

BTC is volatile, very volatile. Even as an investment it's volatile. 

As a currency, it's arguably the most volatile on earth. 

Look at it's value movements vs USD, Euro, hell the Rubble.... 

This is why the notion of it's adoption in any public utility at scale is just a mirage of a notion. 

For years on end it's been the propaganda that as BTC scales it's volatility will lesson. And reality is it's volatility has increased, not lessoned. 

5% moves in a 24hr span, if any currency had that happen it would be world headline news. 

To put it in terms, the RAND of South Africa, a 2nd/3rd world nation, with substantial turmoil galore, on verge of national collapse, is far less volatile than BTC. 

The notion of BTC being any threat to USD is laughable. 

It's was a cool sounding catch-phrase for some years but nobody remotely considers it of any threat what so ever anymore. 

BTC is NOT untraceable as the FBI has proven with it's various tracings and "stings" around such. 

BTC is NOT unhackable as proven by the various BTC "heists" that have come to pass. 

BTC will come to be known as the long-con, it will.

Once value due to outflow drops sub $70k, facilitating a flight out dropping to sub $50k, justifying the branding of "over" empowering the mass flight away and price down to sub $40k, $30k, back into leveling in $20k's because that's the utility value of "dark money" in transacting of such. 

And as the price declines the blockchain starts collapsing because cost of operating nodes comes into significant losses, and mining loosing it's profit motive. 

The entire system is designed to collapse, it is. It requires perpetual increase in scarcity to hold incentive to use and decrease in use instantly reflects in decrease in value, thus empowering more exit, making value drop more, making more flight out, round n round it goes into the ground. 

It's a currency designed to embrace a "run on the bank". 

This is why and how it gained so much value as it grew. It's a double edged blade, cut's both ways. 

Fear has a psychological power of 4X pleasure. Meaning the drop will come powerfully, sharply, and painfully for those hold outs. 

January I saw the end on the horizon, hence my total liquidation. I know I am not alone in this. 

The last gasps for BTC and crypto is the hopeium that some big volume buyers will emerge. The push for funds has been exhausted, now gov holding crypto reserves looks to be all but reserved. 

I predict this is the last months of crypto before the decline get's going with compounding force. The US stock market decline is the catalyst to hasten it from years too months. 

I can expect a 2X+ return in NVDA over next 12-18mnths. A 2X return in BTC over next 12-18mnths is all but a fantasy, no catalyst to justify any logical expectation of such. So guess where my $ is going......

Post: Putting $1M into Crypto

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @Steve K.:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Steve K.:

Update: After signing an executive order to start a Strategic Crypto Reserve, the "Crypto President" held a "Crypto Summit" at the white house today with all of the "Crypto Bro's" in attendance (including his own crypto company, World Liberty Financial). He seems all in on crypto. Although he did flip/flop on having XRP, Solana and ADA (or any altcoins) in the strategic reserve... and it was announced that it would consist only of bitcoin seized by the US government. So a lot of crypto bros are actually upset with the way things went, despite Trump claiming to have ended the US Government's "War on Crypto". 

It's crazy how not long ago he was crying about how crypto was a scam and calling Elon Musk a "bullsh*t artist", now he's got his own meme coin and platform for selling crypto, and Elon Musk paid for his election campaign with crypto.  

Even though XRP is down on today's news, I'm going to buy some more anyway. $TRUMP (the meme coin) was down today also, but Trump and his company that started it have already made $350M on it, so I doubt he cares, even though most people who invested in it lost money. I am never buying that. Crazy world we are living in!

I think it could easily be a better year for crypto than real estate! But like everything else with this president, the jury is still out...


If stock market goes down another 5%, I assure with certainty it's going to be bad times for crypto. 

The best hopes for crypto is the stock market rallies here n now, launching to all time highs and holding. 

Because with those like NVDA touching 100 per share, or really just pick your favorite company doing great, and be offered an entry at 50% - 75% discount of it's expected fair market value in 9-18 months..... Well that's a whole lot of incentive to cash-out of BTC and into NVDA. 

There is good and really good "deals" starting to price into the stock market right now. Add another 5% decline and were getting into very good - great territory. Go 10% added decline and it's "Holly-smokes I can't believe these discounts". 

Nvidia, Coca Cola, Ford, Realty Income Corp and on and on, these are names we know with absolute certainty will be around and performing for decades and generations to come, 0-doubt what so ever. 

The OPPORTUNITY COST to hold crypto vs snag a great position on a rock-solid "sure thing"..... 

People say if they could go back to 2009/2010 they'd buy all the real estate they could get there hands on, right.     Well, that's what's kind of starting to come into play with stocks now. No brainer buy opportunities. 

Head my words, if the stock market continues to go down crypto will also. Not because the market is pulling it down, but because smart $ is liquidating crypto to acquire the stock deals. 

Yeah it’s funny how crypto was initially touted as a hedge for the stock market but now they move together, we’ve got mutual funds including crypto in their portfolio and crypto ETF’s… strange times! 

Strange times to the max! 

Post: Putting $1M into Crypto

James Hamling
#2 Real Estate News & Current Events Contributor
Posted
  • Real Estate Broker
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Posts 4,254
  • Votes 5,561
Quote from @Steve K.:

Update: After signing an executive order to start a Strategic Crypto Reserve, the "Crypto President" held a "Crypto Summit" at the white house today with all of the "Crypto Bro's" in attendance (including his own crypto company, World Liberty Financial). He seems all in on crypto. Although he did flip/flop on having XRP, Solana and ADA (or any altcoins) in the strategic reserve... and it was announced that it would consist only of bitcoin seized by the US government. So a lot of crypto bros are actually upset with the way things went, despite Trump claiming to have ended the US Government's "War on Crypto". 

It's crazy how not long ago he was crying about how crypto was a scam and calling Elon Musk a "bullsh*t artist", now he's got his own meme coin and platform for selling crypto, and Elon Musk paid for his election campaign with crypto.  

Even though XRP is down on today's news, I'm going to buy some more anyway. $TRUMP (the meme coin) was down today also, but Trump and his company that started it have already made $350M on it, so I doubt he cares, even though most people who invested in it lost money. I am never buying that. Crazy world we are living in!

I think it could easily be a better year for crypto than real estate! But like everything else with this president, the jury is still out...


If stock market goes down another 5%, I assure with certainty it's going to be bad times for crypto. 

The best hopes for crypto is the stock market rallies here n now, launching to all time highs and holding. 

Because with those like NVDA touching 100 per share, or really just pick your favorite company doing great, and be offered an entry at 50% - 75% discount of it's expected fair market value in 9-18 months..... Well that's a whole lot of incentive to cash-out of BTC and into NVDA. 

There is good and really good "deals" starting to price into the stock market right now. Add another 5% decline and were getting into very good - great territory. Go 10% added decline and it's "Holly-smokes I can't believe these discounts". 

Nvidia, Coca Cola, Ford, Realty Income Corp and on and on, these are names we know with absolute certainty will be around and performing for decades and generations to come, 0-doubt what so ever. 

The OPPORTUNITY COST to hold crypto vs snag a great position on a rock-solid "sure thing"..... 

People say if they could go back to 2009/2010 they'd buy all the real estate they could get there hands on, right.     Well, that's what's kind of starting to come into play with stocks now. No brainer buy opportunities. 

Head my words, if the stock market continues to go down crypto will also. Not because the market is pulling it down, but because smart $ is liquidating crypto to acquire the stock deals.