Poll: Are You Investing in Cryptocurrency?

The last several weeks have been pretty crazy in the world of cryptocurrency. The value of Bitcoin, Etherium, and Litecoin have shot up considerably in the last weeks and days. People who bought $10,000 worth of Bitcoin in April would now hold nearly $25,000 worth of Bitcoin today.

I personally know several people in the domain investment space who are also active in the cryptocurrency space as well. I am curious if readers of my blog have been investing in cryptocurrency or if they are thinking about buying some. I invite you to vote in the poll and share your thoughts in the comment section.


Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

62 COMMENTS

  1. Cmgi, verticalnet, inktomi, pets.com, toys.com, realnetworks , geocities (that actually got acquired by yahoo), jdsu, nortel, cmtn, excite, mindspring, lycos, etc etc

    That’s what they remind me of. And that’s not good.

  2. Hello Elliot,

    I’m currently learning about bitcoins not for investing but for domain names sales. I opened an account with coinbase but they want too much personal information that I am not too happy to give out. I did download the app Electrum wallet for windows 10 and through some reading at bitcoin.com it looks like the best ( for me ) to use for windows.

    • Heh, it is still early. You may have to invest more than a few months ago, but you can still do it. Once it hits half a million, you will want to have some.

      A few months ago I got some money in my tax return, I put 1000 in BTC, and 100 a month since. I put 1200 aside this last month, and have the other 3000 in Ether now.

  3. Domainers like to think about what could “take them out”. What could disrupt domains as an investment, as a storage of value. Looks like Cryptocurrencies could very well be this force of disruption. Tradable 24/7, exchangeable 24/7, not affected by TM risks or UDRP’s, and secured by the blockchain technology. The whole 4L .com boom first started in Hong Kong because investors and money managers were looking for exactly these attributes in domains…

    • Well let’s see. 1 Bitcoin or 2 ounces of gold. I think I’ll take the 2 oz of AU. You can have the fiat electronic coin. As far as domains, they are no store of valuable and one would have to be awfully foolish to consider them such. They are risk assets.

      All that being said, the next storm will probably drag everything down. Problem is the cryptos might not survive. Just like the stocks I mentioned above from 1999.

      At least 20 years ago people didn’t throw their money at electronic pieces of nothing. They invested in actual businesses (with very poor business models). I know, this time is different. I haven’t heard that before.

    • Electronic pieces of 1s and 0s or unbacked fiat money printed by your government – what’s the difference? Bitcoin and others are no assets, they’re currency. The 1s and 0s in your online bank account are just as real as the blockchain.

      To AU: Gone nowhere in 5 years. No yield, no absolute return. Minus the carry costs for physical storage and insurance against theft (or do you bury it in your garden?) And if you hold cold as ETF or options, well here’s your 1s and 0s again.

    • “Minus the carrying cost for storage”

      You can fit $1M of AU in about 2 shoe boxes, or one safety deposit box. Costs about $100/yr. Pretty cheap compared to any other asset w/material value.

      Do you got $100M you need to stash away?

      You take a 5 year time frame for AU. Because you are looking for a quick score, not a store of value.

      In 1971 gold was $35/oz. Then US went off gold standard. Now it’s $1260/oz. Roughly the return of the S&P 500. You don’t understand what a store of value is or real wealth. You think you can just get rich quick because “cryptos are the new domains”. They really have nothing in common.

      If you think that central banks will allow a private, non regulated currency overtake gov currency you are a fool, with all due respect. If pushed into a corner the central banks will simply create their own blockchain crypto fractionally backed by the gold in their vaults. Everything private fiat will immediately be worth zero.

      But believe as you will young buck, and good luck. Fiat currencies have existed for thousands of years. They all have one thing in common. They all go to zero eventually. The US dollar in its current form, as well as Bitcoin, are no exception.

    • The whole point of AU is that you own it as an insurance against a catastrophic event that may never occur. And the irony is that it is traded in the very fiat currency you’re trying to get away from. So if you want to buy food, water, or a house you have to exchange it back to USD or the currency of the country you live in. And if that catastrophic event actually happens and there is no state or currency left, people won’t still exchange goods for gold.

      The US government seized gold before and made it illegal to own it. If a crisis comes, if trust in the USD diminishs, hyperinflation hits and gold will rise to – lets say $20,000 an ounce – they will make it illegal once again and when they seize it they will start with your “safe” deposit box. You are a fool if you think that any government will let you get away with your nice gold holdings if things get really ugly. Fiat currencies eventuelly all go to zero, I agree with that. You can’t escape the inflation. But neither can you escape death, and believe me, that will hit you first. Regarding BTC, what we are currently whitnessing is a very rare event of hyperdeflation in a single currency where the buying power of a currency increases rapidly. In 2011 you needed 5000 Bitcoins to order one pizza. Today those 5000 coins are worth $12,000,000. That is just a period of 6 years! Looks pretty “get rich quick” to me actually. Try that one with gold. 🙂

      By the way thanks for calling me a young buck. I haven’t heard that in a while and I really appreciate! Have a great day.

    • Yes, today, AU is traded for what we all call “money” — someday, our “money” could become backed by gold again. The pendulum is constantly moving, albeit often slowly from our collective perspective.

    • 1. I live in Arizona where gold/silver is pretty easily bartered or traded in physical form. Additionally, AZ just passed a state bill that nullifies federal capital gains on precious metals i.e. real money.

      2. I love Bitcoin. I just don’t own it and don’t think it will survive as a medium of exchange in current form. Same with rest of private cryptos. They are putting pressure on central banks to back their fiat, and agree with intentions of private cryptos.

      3. “Gold is money, and nothing else” – JP Morgan in 1912

      4. Real estate, .coms, precious metals, tech stock options, mining warrants. Pretty diversified in case hyperinflation takes place.

      Good luck with, apparently, all of your eggs in one basket of fiat coin

  4. I made over $400K in Bitcoin in the last 2 years, profit, and if I sold the remainder now, would have another 700K based on today’s market of 2400 at time of posting. Domains used to be good, but ICANN saturated the hell out of the market, domains are not liquid, except gems, or super short .com.

    Domains were good for me for 2006-2015, but it’s not were the action is anymore, renewal fee’s suck, and domain conferences have become infomercials for guys like Frank Shilling to pitch there overpriced GTLD which is a joke.

  5. One more thing, just like I got tired of convincing domains had value for many years, I got tired of telling why I think Bitcoin has value. People are going to do what they want to do anyways, so now I don’t even care what people think. Lot’s jealous and haters out there when they see other’s had success in Bitcoin and they missed out, just like I saw in domains.

  6. Getting a lot more folks inquiring about bitcoin and blockchain names in the past few weeks with the runup in bitcoin and other cryptocurrency.

    One other interesting way to play the trend without buying actual bitcoin is stock ticker GBTC- which mimics the pricing of bitcoin- and has had quite the runup as well.

    Cheers,

    Mike

  7. Pump and dump. Small guy left holding the Bitcoin bag, like always.

    Bitcoin will get regulated eventually, then it’s game over.

    It’s not different this time, it never is.

    • It’s not like they didn’t try already. But it is decentralized and on a technical blockchain that governments still can’t figure out. Small guys bought Bitcoins at 2 cents a piece 5 years ago. I wouldn’t mind holding that bag…

    • I meant the small guy buying at the top and holding the bag when it drops, which it just did and will probably drop more.
      You will probably see bitcoin at $1,500 before $3,000.IMO

    • Bitcoin’s price is trading like a stock now and that is not a good thing. Wall Street and hedge funds have their hands on Bitcoin now.
      But, Bitcoin is here to stay.

  8. Look at all the money most people waste on crap domain names. Why not waste some on that brand new technology that’s revolutionising the financial in business world?

  9. It is CRAZY that Domainers, who trade in virtual assets, are missing the boat in virtual currencies. All those people saying that now it’s too late remind me of Frank S. When did he start? When everyone thought it was too late.

    PS: if you bought Ethereum in January this year you are now sitting on 1800% value gain. Liquid.

    • Counterpoint:

      Many domain investors literally hold millions of dollars worth of domain names, which are considered to be speculative investments. Why would those people want to expose their investment capital to even riskier investments in cryptocurrencies, which they have very little control over?

      It may be a smarter strategy for domain investors to invest in other types of investments – real estate, stocks, gold, bonds….etc. in order to diversify their holdings.

    • Spot on. Ask 50 people on the street if they own BTC or any other cryptocurrency. If more than one say yes I’d be surprised.

      $10,000 invested in a Ether last year are now worth $150,000. But just keep buying those fancy new TLD’s with premium renewal fees and zero value…

      • That’s awesome.

        On the other hand, had someone bought $27,000 worth of BTC yesterday after feeling like the train was leaving the station, their investment today would be worth $24,000. Neither you nor anyone else can say for sure whether it will be worth $35,000 or $15,000 next week or the week after.

        Yes, the same can be said about any investment. I would not lose sleep over a $25,000 investment in Apple stock though.

      • You’re comparing a 1500% rise in one currency that happened over a period of 6 month with another that fell 15% from an all time high yesterday and is still up almost 100% since January. Cost average effect works for cc’s too by the way.

    • Only “worth millions” in their own book. Try to liquidate your entire portfolio TODAY and be happy if you get 20 cents on the dollar. You can liquidate Bitcoins 24/7 in a market with a hundred million dollar daily volume. Market cap of BTC and Ether are in the billions of dollars now. They’re not going anywhere.

    • Sure, but as I mentioned before, BTC is worth 20% less today than it was at its high yesterday. Nobody can say whether one BTC will be worth $3,000 or $1,500 by the end of today. If someone holds $1m in domain names (as in their inventory has an actual investment cost of $1 million – not considering current value of holdings) they may think twice about investing in other, more volatile investments.

      Look, I am not going to argue or debate you about the merits of cryptocurrency. I am also not going to share whether or not I own any BTC either 😉

      I just don’t think it is fair to be critical of domain investors who aren’t jumping in and buying BTC, which could be worth $10,000/each in a year or back down to $500/each.

    • I guess for the same reason I wouldn’t revisit this in 6 months if cryptocurrencies lose 80% of value and be critical of you for not selling at the high.

      Hindsight is 20/20. It is easy to tell people they should have done something after the fact.

      As mentioned, by nature, domain investors already have very speculative investments, and making an investment portfolio even more speculative may not be a good idea.

    • That is an awesome point in terms of risk reduction.

      My point stems from the fact that many domainers pride themselves to be at the forefront of technology – ahead of the curve.

      If that is your pride, I think today you should have a very close look at topics like virtual currency, VR or AI.

      If you don’t, in 10 years you may say again, damn im too late.

    • Got me all wrong. I’n not at all telling people what to do or what to buy, but just making a case why Bitcoins and Ether make sense to me. Just my opinion.

      I will revisit this in 6 month however 🙂 Even if I’m down 90% then.

  10. Remember the Internet was supposed to be a blip on the radar. Hmmmm. Replacing a corrupt global financial system with a immutable blockchain ledger seems like a decent risk. Can you day Greece, India, Venezuala … more to follow soon. ☺ Ask those people how easy it was to get “their” money when the bank restricted access!?!?!?!

    • Good point. When Greece had it’s banking crisis they just shut the banks over the weekend, did not reopen them for 2 weeks and then limited the amount you could get from ATM’s to 100€. Same in Cyprus 3 years ago. Bitcoins are traded 24/7 with lower spreads than most stocks and definitely lower spreads than domains lol. No bank holidays in crypto currencies because they are decentralized.

    • But is it? 🙂

      I mean, we have seen BTC go from $0 to $2,800. With many ups and downs in between. But overall, that’s a heck of lot of growth.

      How much safer are domains as an investment really? Especially considering that you have to apply judgement what to buy, see Rick’s “90% should just start over” comments.

      Just playing with fire. 🙂

      For a fun look back, check out this discussion when Bitcoin dropped by $1.3 a few years back: https://web.archive.org/web/20110525031933/http://www.reddit.com:80/r/Bitcoin/comments/hgaxf/so_bitcoin_value_just_took_a_huge_dive_how_come

    • Rise of BTC exceeds the return of heavyweights such as Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook… by far. Every asset class has certain risks, think about real estate in 08, think about Enron or Valeant. Billions of market cap wiped out in days or month. Can Bitcoin correct 60-70% from here? Sure. But then the absolute return over 6 years would still be higher than those of all other asset classes.

  11. There are several good hardware wallets like Ledger or trezor. Also keep your private key’s private and very very safe. Without your keys you have nothing.

  12. Breaking point will be when the combined market cap of BTC will have a notable impact on the underlying economy. When BTC is sucking so much money in that it hurts actual consumption or when so much BTC is used for consumption that it actually affects the inflation rate. But until that happens I guess BTC can easily go another 1000%.

  13. Crypto technology and Bitcoin in particular are the biggest revolution after the Internet (which was supposed to never catch on or, at best, to be a temporary fad). As investors who missed the golden age of domaining in the 90s, we shouldn’t be silly and think of Bitcoin as another fad, especially when it’s been around for nearly a decade and in constant growth. Rick once said “Domains have and will continue to go up in value faster than any other commodity ever known to man”. I agree but will add “apart from Bitcoin.” After all, you have something that was worth literally cents just 7 years ago and $2,000 now.

  14. Surprising no domainers are asking ‘where are the assets?’

    Counterparty, the asset layer on Bitcoin

    Sorry, 1994 already happened… 3 years ago, 66,666 asset names already reg’d

  15. $100 into btc may not be a bad idea. What will happen when this house of fiat cards comes tumbling down is there will be a “news item” late on a Friday that says the banks will be closed for the weekend due to a “computer” problem. On Monday you won’t be able to access you cash. It will be too late to get $100 of btc then. just saying…….

  16. Hi Elliot,

    I just started in bitcoins. kind of exciting like when I lost my first domain and realized there’s a market for this?

    Opening and trading accounts with the bitcoins is decent but many coins out there now. Ethereum is a good alternative and is blowing up as I’m typing. But the real money is in ICOs there’s a new one coming out which I put a couple of dollars into and this is my referral link if you want to use it I get an extra coin when they get released. https://minexcoin.com/ref/8618

    I thought I’d share since I’ve been reading your stuff for many years. On that old forum and other articles you posted about your projects.

    I’m new at the crypto currency game but if you need a couple tips let me know. too much garbage out there to sort through when you’re doing it as a hobby.

    Cheers
    Albert

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