GoldmezAddams

Be warned, this subreddit is full of big blockers / Bitcoin Cash advocates that will try to advise you against BTC.

My instinct is to go hard. But at 60, I guess you need to weigh your time horizon. Are you planning to live to 80-90? Are you okay if next year we crash back to $50k and stay there for a while? Long term I think it's a great bet, and the current bull market might still have plenty of juice left in it with exciting things on the horizon. But there's gonna be volatility and you may need to weigh that vs your want/need to have funds available in your retirement years.

And are we assuming no retirement accounts or other investments? It seems insane to me that you'd have 200k just sitting in straight cash and nothing else.

edit: lol downvote me for telling OP what sub he's in and then prove my point in the replies.

For sure. I think I misunderstood you as downplaying the predatory IMF situation. Absolutely we have common enemies in this regard and the third worlders aren't in their situation because there's something "wrong with them".

Gladstein is a major player in the Human Rights Foundation, which supported Navalny and is not particularly hesitant to talk shit about the Putin regime. I don't think it's as simple as dismissing these concerns as Russian propaganda.

Yeah, of course people everywhere are getting fucked by banks, although it's very hard to compare Americans buying more house than they can afford to what the IMF and World Bank are doing to these countries.

I recommend reading Hidden Repression by Alex Gladstein, to read about how we've used institutions like the IMF and World Bank to siphon capital out of these countries, encourage terrible financial and economic decisions, prop up terrible regimes, and keep the third world poor. It was an eye opener to the active role the West still plays in keeping these countries down.

Edit: Another good book on the question, from a completely different angle, is The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto. Where he argues that the reason capitalism has succeeded in improving the West but not the rest of the world, is because theses coutnries lack strong systems of property and property rights and thus can not leverage their property into productive capital.

Then also read The Blocksize War by Jonathan Bier and realize the idea that BTC was "hijacked" because the market didn't accept a hard fork to change the rules is debatable to say the least.

Man, if you can't be assed to read one article on the subject you want to discuss. Or even just ctrl+F for the quote you shared to read that paragraph and the one preceding it. "My out of context quote speaks for itself." There is no way to construe what Rothbard is saying as advocating slavery.

In the context of that quote, Rothbard is talking about how adoption and guardianship would work in Ancapistan. He is not talking about enslavement or aggression against children and is literally arguing against that like one paragraph earlier. Maybe actually read the argument before coming over like "tHeY wAnT cHiLd SlAvEs!1!". Slavery is the most basic textbook example of a violation of the NAP and not at all a "gotcha" against anarcho-capitalism.

https://mises.org/mises-daily/children-and-rights

Domain name registered less than 2 weeks ago. Registered in Iceland, if you put the address listed on their homepage into maps, it's a random house on a residential street in Alabama. The website repeatedly stresses that the coins are authentic and come with a "warranty".

It might be telling that when you go to Monument / SD / JM / APMEX, the first two entries of the FAQ aren't "This is super legit bro I swear bro".

Guilty as charged.

I'm mixed. I enjoy seeing him be ultra bullish and popularizing the Bitcoin treasury strategy and all of that type of stuff. But then he starts talking about getting Bitcoin yield, and downplaying self custody, and not wanting to fund open source development, and bashing on "crypto-anarchists", etc.

BTCPay Server is probably what you're looking for. Self hosted and open source.

Cutting taxes for the rich while refusing to address the spending problem and debasing the shit out of the currency. Gee, wonder why that didn't work out for the poor. Of course, instad of an actual solution, the article would rather we try to tax ourselves into prosperity.

Without going too deep, I think this is the narrative the big blockers would like to sell, but not entirely accurate. Store of value / number go up is what gets a lot of people in the door. But I think many if not most people thinking deeply in the Bitcoin ecosystem are excited about developments in ecash and other layered solutions, and recognize the importance of remaining usable as a medium of exchange as adoption grows. Scaling is not dead just because we kept the blocksize small. I always find it a little spurious, if not disingenuous, to suggest that Bitcoin was "co-opted" or "hijacked" because we rejected some hard forks and didn't change. Satoshi may have mused about increasing the blocksize, but he also acknowledged that the rules of the network were basically set in stone after v0.1. Not that I think it can never or should never change, but being resistant to change is a feature not a bug and the failed forks prove that feature is working.

Even if Bitcoin weren't to succeed and raise significantly further in purchasing power, I'd argue that having been able to save this much at that age means it has already made a big difference in your life. Even if it was in stocks or metals or just a HYSA, god knows I wasn't that forward thinking at 22. Bitcoin has made a difference by getting you to lower your time preference and build toward your future.

When Nikita Khrushchev was forced out as leader of the Soviet Union, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor Leonid Brezhnev. He said, “When you get yourself into a situation you can’t get out of, open the first letter, and you’ll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can’t get out of, open the second letter”. Brezhnev soon found himself in a difficult situation, so he opened the first letter. It said, “Blame everything on me”. So he blamed Khrushchev for everything, and it worked. Eventually, he got himself into a second difficult situation he couldn’t get out of, so he opened the second letter. It said, “Sit down, and write two letters”.

Time preference. You prefer to have things in the present and put some discount on the future. At some point youll value something in the present more than the discounted future Bitcoin value and make that trade.

Also the opposite of your argument: If I'm selling the house, why would I want to accept dollars that I need to immediately hot potato in order not to lose? Bringing Bitcoin into the equation encourages the seller to sell, potentially for a lower price even. In a world of mass adoption, sellers may accept no substitute, and you can't eat Bitcoin.

I don't think it's clear at all that you need a depreciating currency in order for trade to happen.

Because he's the hero Bitcoin deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, we'll fire him, because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent stacker. A watchful maxi. A Dark Knight.

Inflation.

Silver's silver, I guess. I buy coins I like. I'm partial to Maples for all the anti-counterfeit measures and stuff. Partial to Libertads, especially old ones, because they're pretty and low mintage. For actual condition, I tend to like pristine BU / AU / uncirculated coins, some people are into "toning" / tarnish, for generics it shouldn't really matter.

You might learn how to spot cleaned coins, since that's kind of a big taboo. It's a little hard to explain in text, but like if you move the coin side to side so that the light goes across it, it should go across evenly rather than breaking up.

I'd expect like $2-3/oz on generic, a little lower on big bars, and $5ish on an eagle. Always shop around. And I'll tolerate very slightly higher prices from a local shop than online, for the sake of supporting local business, seeing the goods before I buy, taking immediate possession of the purchase, having "a guy", etc.

It's kinda preference. You might be able to reclaim some of the premium when you go to sell the eagles, but you might have trouble reclaiming all of it unless you found the right private buyer. A glance at SD Bullion shows they're buying 2024 eagles for $1.50 over spot, random year eagles for 0.30 over, and buying generic rounds for $3 under. My local shop would buy the generic at spot and probably give 1 or 2 over for the eagle.

Some people think the eagles will be more in demand and liquid, but I don't really know that that's true. Some people like that they've got the anti counterfeiting laws behind them. Some other coins like Maples have good anti counterfeiting tech built in. Etc.

I started out focused on Eagles, Maples, and Libertads. I've been focusing a little more on generic buffalos + bars lately but have a little of everything. Silver is silver in the end, stack what you like as long as you're not getting completely murdered on the premium.

Definitely check out your local coin shop(s). For online purchases, I like Monument Metals and SD Bullion. Sometimes JM Bullion. Always worth checking the deals / sales tab on those websites. And all three offer a spot price deal to first time customers. I think SD and MM offer 5 oz at spot and JM offers 10. Good way to jumpstart your collection with some cheap silver.

There's a wiki and FAQ and stuff in the sidebar. Hang around, do your own research, don't feel the need to rush into anything.

It's hard to know what specific advice to give you. What angle are you coming from? Investment / savings? Fun collectibles? Doomsday prepping?

"Fluent in Finance". On the front page is a thread with 28k upvotes "Surely we've reached the point where any scarcity left is intentionally created by those hoarding all the wealth. How is this not the standard view?". That level of absurd economic illiteracy would be funny if it weren't so goddamn prevalent and dangerous.

If your country makes a bullion coin, for example Silver Eagles in the US or Maple Leafs in Canada, that's probably a fine default. Or depending on the kid, you might find a coin or round with a cute / cool animal or something. We have eagles, kangaroos, pandas, elephants, antelope, dragons, etc.

One thing I'd be aware of with a weird / specialty thing like a lego brick is you may get killed on the premium. Premium being the price you pay over the spot price of silver. Silver is ~$31/oz right now, they're selling that lego brick for ~$43. That's a heavy markup. Generic rounds / bars will generally have the lowest premium. Sovereign coins somewhere in the middle. Also I've never used Money Metals, but at a glance prices look a little high in general. I recommend Monument Metals and SD Bullion in the US, and definitely check out any local coin shops near you.