Someone recently advised me to speculate in ‘Bitcoin’. By way, of trading. Trading takes a lot of close analysis every day, and you can wind up losing time and money.

If someone were to give me a paperclip and were to tell me it were worth 1 million ‘bit’, should I believe him or her? And who would believe me? That paperclip might be worth that much, but how would I know? How would I distinguish it from an ordinary paperclip?

Maybe I could, if I had heard of any paperclip having that much inherent value before. But, could anyone make change for me on that highly valued paperclip if all I needed were a small provision? No. That seller wouldn’t be able to trade with me. Except online.

Having a highly valued object would require the person I’m trading with to be able to provide me with the correct amount of change in return.

Enter speculation/gambling. Essentially, it is and always has been, the act of making money by pooling financial resource and investing together… betting on whatever you’re gambling on, and betting on it increasing in value. That would matter to someone investing in the ‘Bitcoin’ stability and growth.

‘Bitcoin’ takes cash value (or some kind of subjective value), and translates its value to digital currency. This digital value fluctuates. My advice to anyone who accepts ‘Bitcoin’ for Internet commerce: charge a lot! Why? Because the value of the currency is highly inflated and highly volatile. More importantly, today (literally today.. it is worth a lot – subjectively). If you accept ‘Bitcoin’, be an expert in knowing its real daily or even intra-daily value. Why? Because, if ‘Bitcoin’ crashes, as a seller, you get scammed and have no recourse. Or, as some people say, you would get “assed-out”. And, if you use ‘Bitcoin’, you may not be able to buy that “whatever thing it was that you needed for the day”, that was worth less an hour before you got to the store. And for the seller, the same is true.

So, for online commerce, sellers, and buyers… beware. Those paperclips sure are looking pretty valuable right now aren’t they? I suppose you could laser inscribe “In God We Trust” on that paperclip. But are you the government?

Sellers online and anyone who accepts ‘Bitcoin’ as a trading currency… a word of advice, adjust your price at the time of each sale (P.O.S. point of sale), to be a ratio. That is, add or delete the appropriate number of zeros to whatever your price is, to equal the subjective value of the ‘Bitcoin’. Enter… government and banking regulators.The need for that is great with digital currency like ‘Bitcoin’. And can you imagine if a hacker hacked into your ‘Bitcoin’?

Do we understand why we do not want organized crime nor wild speculation within a currency that can be wiped out by potentially short-circuited digital network? Boy, this ‘Bitcoin’ could get pretty gosh darn out of hand without proper regulation. Don’t get suckered by competing currencies, whatever you decide to do with your time and money.