Bitcoin anyone? Crypto?

[HKMurkure]

I've been in the business for several decades. I am a SEC Registered Investment Adviser (RIA).

I'd say your opinions are not going to work against the best in the world. JMO. Wall Steet and the hedge funds will get your money. I'd say buy a good dividend-paying stock and keep it. It's especially important when buying stuff that has no intrinsic value. You can calculate intrinsic value?

I'd say most guys sold at $126K and paid their taxes. You are going against the best in the world, and you will make big money? Good luck with that.

When playing with BTC, this about 1/100th of my investable assets. I have small amount of tokens, but even though my buy price is around 75k, I am talking maybe another $750 - $1,000. More gambling money than anything, which is exactly what I think crypto is at this point. Definitely could be much more in the coming years, which widespread adaption.

Curious GA 1911, who is your Broker Dealer? If you feel like answering privately, send me a DM.

 

[GA 1911]

Curious GA 1911, who is your Broker Dealer?

I am a SEC Registered Investment Adviser. Registered since July 1994. You are smart to ask that question as most guys don't ask it. I am not with any other broker/dealer. I am the guy that calls the positions.

Just asking you why you thought the Bitcoin would be a good investment for your future? It doesn't pay dividends every year like some stocks. It has no intrinsic value as a successful tech stock. So why?

 

[AceTracker]

XRP is the best ROI been in since 2017 look at the numbers

 

[GA 1911]

XRP
XRP is the native token of the XRP Ledger, and the cryptocurrency used by the Ripple payment network. Built for enterprise use on a global scale, XRP powers cost-efficient cross-border payments.

It's a penny fake so the values can (and are) multiplied by insider trading.

 

[HKMurkure]

I am a SEC Registered Investment Adviser. Registered since July 1994. You are smart to ask that question as most guys don't ask it. I am not with any other broker/dealer. I am the guy that calls the positions.

Just asking you why you thought the Bitcoin would be a good investment for your future? It doesn't pay dividends every year like some stocks. It has no intrinsic value as a successful tech stock. So why?

Awe, I see. I like to know which B/D is holding my accounts. I know of a few that are rapidly increasing their households as they are getting ready to either go public or sell out to a competitor. That is the reason I asked.

As I have stated in the past few threads, I think crypto or some iteration of it, will be used in the future for Global commerce. Is BTC the "gold" of that iteration? I have no idea... but I like to hedge my bets and "invest/gamble" on the possibilities. Even though it is down significantly right now (30%+), I am still in profit with my holdings. I think my cost basis is around 8-9k . So, it would need to fall almost to $10,000 to piss me off. I have sold in the 120k range, so I am happy with this gamble. So, BTC could fizzle away as the little idea that could, or it could be that store of value that some people hope it can be. With limited supply and no government being able to control the supply (inflation isn't possible), I think it could be around for a long time. Do not misunderstand me though, BTC can definitely still be manipulated on the market by governments or other bad actors, etc.

 

[GA 1911]

I like to know which B/D is holding my accounts.

I don't trust any broker-dealer that trades the bitcoin. They are not insured under SPIC agreements.

Look here:

SIPC - What SIPC Protects

Securities Investor Protection Corporation

www.sipc.org

I use two of the many financial services companies. i.e., Charles Schwab is insured through both FDIC and SIPC coverage.

What happens to your BITC if your dealer goes broke in a bad day? Does your broker have reserve cash if the market goes worse, and you need the money?

 

[GA 1911]

I just saw this Warren Buffett opinion.

It's going lower.

 

[basstracker89]

I just saw this Warren Buffett opinion.

It's going lower.

Very, very good video. I'm a Buffett fan anyway. I've been studying these guys for 5 1/2 yrs now to see what makes them tick......

 

[GA 1911]

Very, very good video. I'm a Buffett fan anyway. I've been studying these guys for 5 1/2 yrs now to see what makes them tick......

I sure agree. I still own the paper Berkshire Hathaway annual reports going back decades. Here is his last Thanksgiving letter before he retires as CEO. No more letters as the younger guys move in.
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As Thanksgiving approaches, I’m grateful and surprised by my luck in being alive at 95. When I was young, this outcome did not look like a good bet. Early on, I nearly died.

It was 1938, and Omaha hospitals were then thought of by its citizens as either Catholic or Protestant, a classification that seemed natural at the time.

Our family doctor, Harley Hotz, was a friendly Catholic who made house calls toting a black bag. Dr. Hotz called me Skipper and never charged much for his visits. When I experienced a bad bellyache, Dr. Hotz came by and, after probing a bit, told me I would be okay in the morning.

He then went home, had dinner, and played a little bridge. He couldn’t get my somewhat peculiar symptoms out of his mind, however, so later that night he dispatched me to St. Catherine’s Hospital for an emergency appendectomy. During the next three weeks, I felt like I was in a nunnery, and began enjoying my new “podium.” I liked to talk—yes, even then—and the nuns embraced me.

To top things off, Miss Madsen, my third-grade teacher, told my 30 classmates to each write me a letter. I probably threw away the letters from the boys but read and reread those from the girls; hospitalization had its rewards.

The highlight of my recovery—which actually was dicey for much of the first week—was a gift from my wonderful Aunt Edie. She brought me a very professional-looking fingerprinting set, and I promptly fingerprinted all of my attending nuns.

My theory was that someday a nun would go bad, and the FBI would find that they had neglected to fingerprint nuns. The FBI and its director, J. Edgar Hoover, were revered by Americans in the 1930s, and I envisioned Mr. Hoover himself coming to Omaha to inspect my invaluable collection. I further fantasized that J. Edgar and I would quickly identify and apprehend the wayward nun. National fame seemed certain.

Some years later it became clear that I should have fingerprinted J. Edgar, as he became disgraced for misusing his post.

Well, that was Omaha in the 1930s, when a sled, a bicycle, a baseball glove, and an electric train were coveted by me and my friends.

{He paused]Charlie Munger, my best pal for 64 years, lived a block away from the house I have owned and occupied since 1958. [Munger was Berkshire Hathaway’s vice-chairman from 1978 until his death in 2023.] Early on, I missed befriending Charlie by a whisker. Charlie, six and two-thirds years older than me, worked in the summer of 1940 at my grandfather’s grocery store, earning $2 for a 10-hour day. (Thrift runs deep in Buffett blood.) The following year I did similar work at the store, but I never met Charlie until 1959, when he was 35 and I was 28.

After serving in World War II, Charlie graduated from Harvard Law and then moved permanently to California. Charlie, however, forever talked of his early years in Omaha as formative. For more than 60 years, Charlie had a huge impact on me and could not have been a better teacher and protective “big brother.” We had differences but never had an argument. “I told you so” was not in his vocabulary.
I lived a few teenage years in Washington, D.C., when my dad was in Congress, and in 1954 I took what I thought would be a permanent job in Manhattan. New York had unique assets—and still does—and I made many lifelong friends. Nevertheless, in 1956, after only a year and a half, I returned to Omaha, never to wander again.
Two years later, I bought my first and only home, about two miles from where I grew up (loosely defined), less than two blocks from my in-laws, about six blocks from the Buffett grocery store, and a six- or seven-minute drive from the office building where I have worked for 64 years.
Our country has many great companies, great schools, and great medical facilities, and each definitely has its own special advantages, along with talented people. But I feel very lucky to have had the good fortune to make many lifelong friends, to meet both of my wives, to receive a great start in education at public schools, to meet many interesting and friendly adult Omahans when I was very young, and to make a wide variety of friends in the Nebraska National Guard. In short, Nebraska has been home.

Looking back, I feel that both Berkshire Hathaway and I did better because of our base in Omaha than if I had resided anywhere else. The center of the United States was a very good place to be born, to raise a family, and to build a business. Through dumb luck, I drew a ridiculously long straw at birth.

Now let’s move on to my advanced age. My genes haven’t been particularly helpful—the family’s all-time record for longevity (admittedly family records get fuzzy as you work backward) was 92 until I came along. But I have had wise, friendly, and dedicated Omaha doctors, starting with Harley Hotz and continuing to this day. At least three times, my life has been saved, each with doctors based within a few miles from my home. (I have given up fingerprinting nurses, however. You can get away with many eccentricities at 95, but there are limits.)

Those who reach old age need a huge dose of good luck, daily escaping banana peels, natural disasters, drunk or distracted drivers, lightning strikes, you name it.

But Lady Luck is fickle and—no other term fits—wildly unfair. In many cases, our leaders and the rich have received far more than their share of luck—which, too often, the recipients prefer not to acknowledge. Dynastic inheritors have achieved lifetime financial independence the moment they emerged from the womb, while others have arrived facing a hellhole during their early lives or, worse, disabling physical or mental infirmities that rob them of what I have taken for granted. In many heavily populated parts of the world, I would likely have had a miserable life and my sisters would have had an even worse one.
Thank you, Lady Luck.
At my age, however, it’s Father Time that seems most interested in me. And he is undefeated; for him, everyone ends up on his scorecard as “wins.” When balance, sight, hearing, and memory are all on a persistently downward slope, you know Father Time is in the neighborhood.
To my surprise, I generally feel good. Though I move slowly and read with increasing difficulty, I am at the office five days a week, where I work with wonderful people. Occasionally, I get a useful idea or am approached with an offer we might not otherwise have received. Because of Berkshire’s size and because of market levels, ideas are few—but not zero.

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My children are all above normal retirement age, having reached 72, 70, and 67. It would be a mistake to wager that all three—now at their peak in many respects—will enjoy my exceptional luck in delayed aging. To improve the probability that they will dispose of what will essentially be my entire estate before alternate trustees replace them, I need to step up the pace of lifetime gifts to their three foundations. My children are now at their prime in respect to experience and wisdom but have yet to enter old age. That “honeymoon” period will not last forever.
All three children now have the maturity, brains, energy, and instincts to disburse a large fortune. [Buffett’s is currently worth $150 billion, according to Forbes.] They will also have the advantage of being above ground when I am long gone and, if necessary, can adopt policies both anticipatory and reactive to federal tax policies or other developments affecting philanthropy. They may well need to adapt to a significantly changing world around them. Ruling from the grave does not have a great record, and I have never had an urge to do so.