OpenAI, which Elon Musk helped to co-found back in 2015, is the San Francisco-based startup that created ChatGPT. The company opened ChatGPT up for public testing in November 2022. In under a week, the artificial intelligence model amassed over a million users, according to OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman. By the end of January, ChatGPT was averaging about 13 million visitors per day. Users have had ChatGPT write everything from essays, to lyrics and even correct computer code. ChatGPT is part of a growing field of AI known as generative AI, which allows users to create brand new content including videos, music and text. But generative AI still faces a number of challenges, such as developing content that is inaccurate, biased or inappropriate. Now enterprises and the public are wondering what wide access to AI will mean for businesses and society.
Chapters:
00:00 — Intro
01:36 — Chatting with ChatGPT
03:03 — Understanding ChatGPT
06:39 — Use cases and limitations
10:09 — Future implications
10X Your Excel Skills with ChatGPT
In this step-by-step tutorial, learn how you can exponentially improve your Excel skills using OpenAI's ChatGPT artificial intelligence. Write nested functions with ease, calculate the number of unique text values in a list, write a basic invoicing macro, and more, all with just a few clicks and a few basic refinements.
Driving innovation: Nigerian artist Malik Afegbua creates hyper-realistic pictures of African people using artificial intelligence at his home in Lagos. China leads the world in this technology, as well as in the number of AI journals and related publications. — Reuters
SHANGHAI: Chinese tech companies are upping the ante in the fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content sector as ChatGPT, the latest chatbot launched by US-based artificial intelligence research company OpenAI, gains wide popularity since its November debut and revolutionises the field due to its advanced conversational capabilities.
Leveraging machine learning algorithms, ChatGPT is able to mimic humanlike responses with AI-generated content (AIGC) and assist people with tasks such as writing essays and scripts, making business proposals and even checking programme bugs, which it does within seconds.
AIGC-related stocks continued to rally in the A-share market, with Chinese AI companies, such as Cloudwalk Technology and Speechocean, seeing their shares surge by the daily limit of 20% on the science and technology innovation board on Monday.
Experts said that AIGC is likely to become a new engine driving innovation in digital content production and freeing human creators from tedious tasks, with a wide range of commercial applications in fields such as culture, media, entertainment and education.
Chinese tech heavyweight Baidu Inc announced yesterday that it will complete internal testing of its AI chatbot service, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, called “Ernie Bot” in March.
The Beijing-based company has invested large sums of money in developing its Ernie system, a large-scale machine-learning model that has been trained on massive data over several years and possesses in-depth semantic comprehension and generation capabilities.
Robin Li, co-founder and chief executive officer of Baidu, said in January that AIGC will subvert existing content production models in the next decade, and AI has the potential to meet massive demand for content at a 10th of the cost and a hundred or thousand times faster.
Jianying, an AI-powered short-video editing app launched by Chinese tech company Byte-Dance, allows users to generate creative videos by simply putting in a few keywords or a paragraph of text.
Online gaming company Net-Ease has released its AI music creation platform, Tianyin, where users can customise a song by entering lyrics.
Pan Helin, co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Centre at Zhejiang University’s International Business School, said that ChatGPT, as a milestone in AIGC-related technologies, uses reinforcement learning from human feedback to train the data model, with significant enhancements in natural language processing capacities that improve the logic of responses.
Chinese enterprises should step up efforts to roll out indigenous versions of the AI-powered chatbot and increase investments to improve related algorithms and computing power, Pan said.
Chen Jia, an independent strategy analyst, said: “Chinese tech enterprises have unique advantages in expanding AI application scenarios globally.”
China has made significant progress in developing the AI industry.
A Stanford University report showed that China filed more than half the world’s AI patent applications in 2021 and continued to lead the world in the number of AI journals, conference papers and related publications.
Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba have invested heavily in promoting the commercial use of AI, and some Chinese AI unicorns have grown rapidly in recent years, Chen said.
But he noted that Chinese tech companies lag behind top-notch foreign competitors in fundamental research and development input and comprehensive innovation abilities.
“AIGC is in the initial stage of development, and there is still a long way to go to realise large-scale commercialisation, as the application scenarios and related laws and regulations are far from mature,” said Guo Tao, deputy head of the China Electronic Commerce Expert Service Centre.
Meanwhile, the use of AIGC-related technologies raises concerns about ethics, copyright protection and privacy, he added.— China Daily/ANN
Self-made millionaire Ng will teach you how to generate safe returns
PETALING JAYA: Money games, GameStop frenzy, the constant rise and fall of crypto, to the untrained eye, these seem like the way to “invest”.
Adrenaline-pumping with a false promise of insane returns by the very next day as well as the constant monitoring of charts and graphs, it’s not for the faint-hearted and certainly not for everyone.
Amid all these fleeting trends, investment scams and market noise, millennial investor, Alex Ng, goes about his daily life calmly, collecting passive income and watching his investment double or triple in value.
But he wasn’t always like this.
He started dabbling in the stock market at 19. He got sucked into trends, chased short-term profits and bought whatever stocks his broker recommended.
And by 21, he had lost two-thirds of his parents’ retirement fund from investing haphazardly.
“It was a huge wake up call for me. It made me realise that what I was doing wasn’t investing. I was gambling in the stock market. Higher stakes and worse damages than if I would have gambled in the casino,” he said.
However, his saving grace was his fortitude.
He knew the importance of investing, if done properly. Growing up in a middle-class household, that was his ticket to afford himself and his family a good life.
“With just RM3,000 of my own savings, I found some mentors and learned the proper way to invest,” said Ng, who was a self-made millionaire by the age of 29.
Having been through that harrowing experience and turning his life around, he wants to make sure that no one makes the same mistakes he did.
He’s now a master trainer and speaker at VI College, the region’s leading financial education provider, helping aspiring and uninformed investors to develop the proper skills, knowledge and strategy.
The safe and consistent way of investing gets easily drowned out and might seem boring in contrast to the stock bros’ mantra of “high risk, high return” or the excitement and overinflated egos in the likes of The Wolf of Wall Street.
“Investing safely and consistently doesn’t mean you can’t get handsome returns. It just means that even if you start small, with consistent effort, your returns will multiply and compound,” he said.
In VI College, Ng and his peers have designed the programmes with beginners in mind. After VI College’s five-day bootcamp, even those who come in with zero knowledge can venture into their investment journey with confidence.
“In fact, many of my students with prior investing experience also saw the programme as a total eye-opening experience,” said Ng.
Students are added into the VI Community after the programme with support and guidance from trainers, coaches and peers.
VI College has also developed its own stock analysis tool, VI App, to make investing smarter, faster and easier.
“With VI App, you can easily check the risk rating, the overall health and performance of the company in just a few seconds,” he explained.
8BIT, the FinTech entity behind VI App, is licensed and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore’s central bank.
Check out VI App at www.vi.app.
“At the end of the day, we want to empower as many people as possible with financial literacy.
“That’s why our programme and tools like VI App are all designed to make it simple for everyone to start investing,” he said.
Join Ng to discover the right and safe way to invest in the “Discover Secret Stock Investing Techniques Webinar” on June 19.
Organised by Star Media Group together with VI College as the Education Partner, this free two-hour masterclass is designed to teach individuals across all age groups to generate safe and consistent returns from local and the US stock market.
Many investors suffered huge losses when they sold off their stock holdings at low prices at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic last year. Alex Ng, master trainer and speaker at VI College, shares how he weathered the market turmoil.
The key to surviving and even thriving during an unprecedented crisis is simple, he says:
"Stay invested, but do not be fully invested at all times."
We’re almost well into the third quarter of 2020 – have you made headway in any of this year’s financial priorities and goals? Or perhaps you have been thrown off guard by the state of affairs in by the Covid-19? In a challenging environment like now, it is even more crucial to sit down and do a critical review of your latest financial status.
TIME flies by quickly when you’re going about your daily grind. We’re almost well into the third quarter of 2020 – have you made headway in any of this year’s financial priorities and goals?
Or perhaps you have been thrown off guard by the state of affairs in by the Covid-19? In a challenging environment like now, it is even more crucial to sit down and do a critical review of your latest financial status.
Loss of livelihood, pay cuts, unemployment, business closures, and a looming global recession – this is the trail of devastation left by a virus which has played havoc around the globe.
Interesting enough, if this health crisis is not enough to shake you into action to take charge of your finances, then what will?
According to the Oxford English dictionary, procrastination is defined as a postponement, “often with the sense of deferring though indecision, when early action would have been preferable, ” or as “defer[ing] action, especially without good reason.”
Throughout my experience as a licensed financial advisor, I have met many people who procrastinated over reviewing their financial status, let alone in growing their wealth. There are many reasons for this. Some lack the knowledge on where to begin, while others may cite the poor state of economy or our poor tax regime. However, the bigger reason usually lies in our tendency to procrastinate.
Procrastination is one of mankind’s biggest weaknesses – we have all procrastinated doing something important at some point. But in the world of finance, procrastination can result in an opportunity loss to mitigate risk and in growing wealth – sometimes an opportunity which can never be recovered. After all, it takes time for any investment to compound into a significant figure.
Yap ming HuiYap ming Hui
In this article, I’m going to highlight some of the common reasons people use to put off taking actions on their financial matters.
> “I don’t have enough time to plan and invest”
This is a common reason people often say, when putting off investing. In today’s economy, most households require both spouses to work full-time jobs in order to afford the lifestyle that they desire. In the office, you’re stressing about deadlines, projects to complete, and deadlines to meet.
At home you’re likely seeing to your family, social life, and chores, and any leftover time is probably spent away vacationing to rejuvenate so you can rinse and repeat. Add kids to the equation, and you’ll barely have any time left to breathe.
Who really has the time to spend to research, plan and invest? After all, you still have 20 years headstart till your retirement, you should be able to put it off for later, right?
Wrong. Pushing things for later is comfortable, as you convince yourself that it will get done eventually. However, as most of us know by now, later is a concept that is never ending. There is always a “later” to convince yourself about. Before you know it, too much time would have passed and you’ll have too little time to play catch up to achieve the financial goals you could have well achieved if you started earlier.
What you need to do: Set a date and time and clear your schedule. If being at home is too much of a distraction with the family present, then find a place where you can be isolated to focus on your financial planning. Alternatively, outsource these efforts to an independent financial advisor who can review your financial status and manage the wealth for you. > “I don’t have enough money to plan and invest”
Most people don’t realise it, but having enough money is a matter of perspective. If you don’t have enough money to invest when you’re earning RM5,000 a month, do you think you will have enough to invest when you’re earning RM50,000 a month? Believe it or not, I have met several people earning around RM50,000 or more per month and still lament about not having enough to save and invest.
We always think along the lines of “if only we make more money”, but once we actually start making more money, our expenses and lifestyle will also go up a notch.
The famous Parkinson’s Law coined by C. Northcote Parkinson in his book The Law and The Profits illustrates this concept best. The law says that work expands to fill the time that is allocated to complete it. In other words, if given a 24-hour deadline, a 20-minute job will take a day to complete.
He goes on to say that individual expenditure does not only rise to meet income but it tends to surpass it, and probably always will. So, if you’re waiting for a time when you feel you have enough money to save and invest, that time will never come.
What you need to do: Take a long hard look at your expenses. This is critical since we are now in challenging economic times. Mindfully track your spending habits for a month and cut back on luxuries that you can live without. If it helps, set up a standing instruction with your bank to automatically transfer a portion of your salary into another bank account. Use that to start investing. Every small portion helps, so don’t think that cutting back on a small luxury is insignificant.
> “I don’t really need to invest”
People won’t admit to thinking this, but they do. This fallacy of not needing to invest stems from the fact that when they retire someday, they will have their EPF savings to rely on. Technically, if you are earning a comfortable amount and do not make any EPF withdrawals before you retire, you may be right in thinking this.
However, this is hardly the case. EPF has reported that more than two-thirds (68%) of EPF members aged 54 had less than RM50,000 in EPF savings, while only 18% of its members had the minimum savings target of RM240,000 in their account by 55. This amounts to a monthly withdrawal of RM1,000 to cover basic needs for 20 years – sufficient if you want to live a basic retirement lifestyle, but nowhere near what is needed for a comfortable retirement in a middle-class lifestyle.
So if you’re thinking of relying mainly on your EPF savings, think again. Your EPF should act as an additional retirement fund on top of your other retirement savings, instead of being the only pillar in your retirement plan.
What you need to do: Start planning now for additional retirement savings. Before you invest, determine the lifestyle that you want to live when you’re retired and calculate how much you’d roughly need over the span of your retirement. Don’t know where to start?
Use a holistic financial planning app, like iWealth, to do a comprehensive calculation on your retirement and other major financial goals. Remember to factor in inflation.
While half of the year has flown by just like that, it’s never too late to examine your financial health and take the necessary steps to protect and grow your wealth.
Over the years I’ve shared many articles to inspire middle class folk like yourselves to take control of your financial destiny.
I certainly hope this knowledge has proven useful and relevant to your personal circumstances.
However, I also hope that you have begun putting into place some of these practices. Today, you may have gotten a better idea of what has been stopping you from investing properly.
Procrastination is a very human trait – but if you’re able to identify what’s been holding you back and take the necessary measures to monitor yourself and counter this, you’ll already have the upper hand on your future.
Remember, true power comes from knowledge. But knowledge without action, is useless.
During good times, there may not be an urgency to act. But we have now arrived at an unprecedented juncture where there will be a cost or consequence to our inaction. If this is not the time to take the bull by the horns, then when?
Bitcoin investments have undeniably become a trend among savvy investors in search of the golden goose, but one financial planner is against the use of it as part of the financial planning portfolio for retirement.
Max Growth Wealth Education Sdn Bhd managing director Nicholas Chu said one should not use bitcoin as part of the retirement portfolio and the public must be well aware of the risk in bitcoin trading before getting in.
“It is not asset-backed, it is very unsecure. It is, basically, you want to participate in the future changes. It’s not a proper financial planning way. It is just an experimental thing that you want to go through in this era, but it is not a proper investment product,” he told SunBiz.
“I definitely don’t agree if they use this for their financial planning. But for those who are able to try new ventures, they can go ahead provided they have extra money. If this doesn’t affect their existing financial planning, then I’ll leave it to them. We need to tell them the pros and cons of this investment. It’s up to the clients to do the final decision,” he said.
Chu cautioned on the uncertainties of bitcoin trading, which is driven by market forces.
“It is beyond anybody’s control, all the participants contribute to the bitcoin value. From that, I can say that there are a lot of uncertainties in the future,” he said.
Nonetheless, with the setting up of a few bitcoin exchanges, Chu noted that there will be demand and supply with tradeable markets available.
Bitcoin was the best-performing currency in 2015 and 2016, with a rise of 35.8% and 126.2% respectively.
Year to date, bitcoin prices have leaped more than three times. It stood at US$2,840 (RM12,140) as at 5pm last Friday.
Bitcoins are by the far the most popular cryptocurrency, which exists almost wholly in the digital realm and has no asset backing it. Bitcoin generation, known as mining, while open to anyone with a “mining application” on their computer, needs a great deal of computing power to solve complex algorithms which are later verified with the entire bitcoin network.
Colbert Low, founder of bitcoinmalaysia.com, said the recent spike in bitcoin prices could be partly due to the legalisation of bitcoin by the Japanese government.
He is unsure if the sharp rise in bitcoin prices will create a price bubble, but stressed that one cannot judge its price movement based on the “old economic theory”.
“This is a new economy based on a different model. It’s very hard to say,” Low opined, noting that there has been a growing number of retail outlets that accept bitcoin.
He foresees the usage of bitcoin propagating, especially in different types of payment methods.
However, Low opined that there will not be any “big movement” in the local market if the regulators do not regulate bitcoin.
“Our new Bank Negara governor is forward thinking and he is very much into fintech, technology and innovation. So there would definitely be improvement,” Low said.
The positive development of blockchain will be a catalyst for the growth of bitcoin, he added.
“Blockchain is a real thing that will change the way the IP system is architectured. We need to go down to a deeper level to see how blockchain can change the current problem and solve it.
“There are a lot of projects right now, over 500 companies are looking at this (blockchain) right now. Even IBM, HP and Microsoft are looking at it.”
Blockchain refers to distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, secure from tampering and revision. Bitcoin is just an application or software that runs on blockchain technology.
“If you look at blockchain technology, government agencies like the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are looking at it. This is the best way to secure your data,” Low said, noting that the usage of bitcoin will help reduce operating cost.
Currently, there are about 16 million bitcoins in the market and the number is capped at 21 million.
Bank Negara has said that it does not regulate the cryptocurrency and advised the public to be cautious of the risks associated with the usage of such digital currency.
Bitcoin investments have undeniably become a trend among savvy investors in search of the golden goose, but one financial planner is against the use of it as part of the financial planning portfolio for retirement.
Max Growth Wealth Education Sdn Bhd managing director Nicholas Chu said one should not use bitcoin as part of the retirement portfolio and the public must be well aware of the risk in bitcoin trading before getting in.
“It is not asset-backed, it is very unsecure. It is, basically, you want to participate in the future changes. It’s not a proper financial planning way. It is just an experimental thing that you want to go through in this era, but it is not a proper investment product,” he told SunBiz.
“I definitely don’t agree if they use this for their financial planning. But for those who are able to try new ventures, they can go ahead provided they have extra money. If this doesn’t affect their existing financial planning, then I’ll leave it to them. We need to tell them the pros and cons of this investment. It’s up to the clients to do the final decision,” he said.
Chu cautioned on the uncertainties of bitcoin trading, which is driven by market forces. “It is beyond anybody’s control, all the participants contribute to the bitcoin value. From that, I can say that there are a lot of uncertainties in the future,” he said.
Nonetheless, with the setting up of a few bitcoin exchanges, Chu noted that there will be demand and supply with tradeable markets available.
Bitcoin was the best-performing currency in 2015 and 2016, with a rise of 35.8% and 126.2% respectively.
Year to date, bitcoin prices have leaped more than three times. It stood at US$2,840 (RM12,140) as at 5pm last Friday.
Bitcoins are by the far the most popular cryptocurrency, which exists almost wholly in the digital realm and has no asset backing it. Bitcoin generation, known as mining, while open to anyone with a “mining application” on their computer, needs a great deal of computing power to solve complex algorithms which are later verified with the entire bitcoin network.
Colbert Low, founder of bitcoinmalaysia.com, said the recent spike in bitcoin prices could be partly due to the legalisation of bitcoin by the Japanese government.
He is unsure if the sharp rise in bitcoin prices will create a price bubble, but stressed that one cannot judge its price movement based on the “old economic theory”.
“This is a new economy based on a different model. It’s very hard to say,” Low opined, noting that there has been a growing number of retail outlets that accept bitcoin.
He foresees the usage of bitcoin propagating, especially in different types of payment methods.
However, Low opined that there will not be any “big movement” in the local market if the regulators do not regulate bitcoin.
“Our new Bank Negara governor is forward thinking and he is very much into fintech, technology and innovation. So there would definitely be improvement,” Low said.
The positive development of blockchain will be a catalyst for the growth of bitcoin, he added.
“Blockchain is a real thing that will change the way the IP system is architectured. We need to go down to a deeper level to see how blockchain can change the current problem and solve it.
“There are a lot of projects right now, over 500 companies are looking at this (blockchain) right now. Even IBM, HP and Microsoft are looking at it.”
Blockchain refers to distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, secure from tampering and revision. Bitcoin is just an application or software that runs on blockchain technology.
“If you look at blockchain technology, government agencies like the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are looking at it. This is the best way to secure your data,” Low said, noting that the usage of bitcoin will help reduce operating cost.
Currently, there are about 16 million bitcoins in the market and the number is capped at 21 million.
Bank Negara has said that it does not regulate the cryptocurrency and advised the public to be cautious of the risks associated with the usage of such digital currency.
A textbook bubble in Bitcoin prices is developing right now.
And it has everything to do with Bitcoin's investors.
I'm probably not going to gain any friends
with this perspective. But there are inarguable factors that suggest
Bitcoin's own buyers are irrationally driving up prices. And their
exuberance is setting the market up for a crash.
The Secret Gold Market They're NOT Telling You About
This hidden playground is completely OFF LIMITS to retail investors...
But it holds a secret that can help you predict spikes in gold with mysteriously uncanny accuracy...
Here's how you can piggyback off it for gains of 468%, 935%, 1,657%, and more...
Money is typically used in exchange. And while Bitcoin can
be used in exchange, it's largely not. Gary Schneider, Professor of
Accounting at California State University, says only about 10% of
Bitcoin is held by people who use it as currency. The large majority are
speculators hoping to sell at higher prices.
The fact that the market is dominated by
speculators is not necessarily the problem for Bitcoin. And here's where
I'm sure to piss some people off... The problem for Bitcoin is its
buyers.
Who are they?
Well, according to a recent survey, approximately 60% of Bitcoin owners are under 35 years old.
In short, most Bitcoin buyers are
millennials. And that's all we need to know about them to make an
inarguable point (told you I wouldn't be making any friends here).
The fact is this: A 35-year-old speculator
intrinsically has much less experience in risk management than a
60-year-old. And remember, most Bitcoin owners are mostly speculators,
as opposed to users of the product.
AND remember they're speculating on a currency, which is among the most volatile of financial instruments.
AND remember they're speculating on what essentially amounts to a new, experimental currency.
All this considered, Bitcoin looks to me as one of the (if not the) most speculative financial instruments available...
Expect for Bitcoin's derivatives, of course.
Yes, believe it or not, Bitcoin has a
futures market. And there are products that offer even more risk. On its
Perpetual Bitcoin/USD Swap Contracts, BitMEX offers up to 100x
leverage!
But to really understand why I think
Bitcoin is eventually headed for a crash, let's consider the most famous
market bubble in history...
Dutch Tulip Mania
In the 17th century, formal
futures markets developed in the Dutch Republic, providing the
infrastructure for a massive bubble in the price of tulip bulbs.
The tulip first became fashionable in
France, where early modern ladies of the aristocracy began sporting the
flower on their dresses. From there, the tulip became the flower to show
off social status and wealth. The demand for bulbs subsequently
skyrocketed, and prices immediately followed.
At the peak of Tulip Mania in 1637, a
single tulip bulb could cost as much as 10,000 gilders, the price of a
nice middle-class townhouse in Amsterdam. According to one author, 12
acres of land was once offered for one rare bulb. For a flower bulb!
The Semper Augustus was the most coveted of all Dutch tulips.
Of course, the bubble eventually burst. The
price of tulip bulbs collapsed, and fortunes in perceived value
disappeared over night.
This patent describes a groundbreaking
technology that could simply blow Elon Musk, and frankly the entire
solar industry, out of the water.
We’ve managed to uncover the tiny company
with exclusive rights to this technology. It trades at less than $0.15 a
share, but don’t expect it to stay there for long.
I’ve included the patent filing and everything you need to know about this small company in this brief, free video presentation.
Here's what I really want you to take away from this story...
If we consider whom the people were who
took part in Dutch Tulip Mania and compare them to the majority of
Bitcoin owners, it seems both groups share the same shortcomings.
First, we know both groups are speculators
betting on the hot new product. But I think we can also make good
assumptions to compare the investment sophistication of the Dutch tulip
investors and today's Bitcoin buyers.
Because formal futures markets were only
recently developed, the Dutch tulip buyers were inherently
unsophisticated investors. All of them. They simply didn't have the
experience.
The majority of today's Bitcoin buyers are
generally younger, so they share the same inexperience. For many Bitcoin
buyers, I imagine it represents their first real investment. They
simply don't have experience in risk management. And I think that's
pretty clear considering some are buying products with 100x leverage!
Bitcoin could be the tulip of the 21st
century with the development of a textbook bubble. And I think could be
setting itself up for an eventual crash.
Now, even though I've been talking about a
crash in Bitcoin prices, there's an epilogue to the Dutch tulip story
that's often overlooked... and that actually provides a bullish outlook for the technology.
Truth is, the Dutch tulip bubble never
really ended... it evolved. The price of tulip bulbs collapsed in the
17th century. But the flower industry at large eventually recovered and
has never been bigger. Global floral production value is currently
estimated at $55 billion.
People still pay thousands for rare
flowers. In fact, an anonymous buyer paid over $200,000 for a rare
orchid in 2005. And that's not even considered the most expensive flower
in the world. Rose breeder David Austin spent 15 years and $5 million
to develop Juliet rose.
My point is, the tulip as an individual
product lost favor. But the collapse of the tulip market didn't
completely kill the flower market. In the same way, I don't expect a
collapse of Bitcoin prices to completely kill the blockchain-based
currency market.
Bitcoin is simply one product of many blockchain-based currencies. A crash in Bitcoin would throw a wrench in the blockchain-based revolution. But there is little doubt that blockchain technologies are the future.
As we speak, every major central bank and
large financial institution is researching how to implement blockchain
into its own systems. It has already been proven to eliminate
verification redundancies and improve security, and new applications are
being tested every day.
So while I think Bitcoin itself could
eventually be headed for a crash, the blockchain technologies that are
supporting all these digital currencies seem set for unprecedented
growth.
A textbook bubble in Bitcoin prices is developing right now.
And it has everything to do with Bitcoin's investors.
I'm probably not going to gain any friends with this perspective. But there are inarguable factors that suggest Bitcoin's own buyers are irrationally driving up prices. And their exuberance is setting the market up for a crash.
The Secret Gold Market They're NOT Telling You About
This hidden playground is completely OFF LIMITS to retail investors...
But it holds a secret that can help you predict spikes in gold with mysteriously uncanny accuracy...
Here's how you can piggyback off it for gains of 468%, 935%, 1,657%, and more...
Money is typically used in exchange. And while Bitcoin can be used in exchange, it's largely not. Gary Schneider, Professor of Accounting at California State University, says only about 10% of Bitcoin is held by people who use it as currency. The large majority are speculators hoping to sell at higher prices.
The fact that the market is dominated by speculators is not necessarily the problem for Bitcoin. And here's where I'm sure to piss some people off... The problem for Bitcoin is its buyers.
Who are they?
Well, according to a recent survey, approximately 60% of Bitcoin owners are under 35 years old.
In short, most Bitcoin buyers are millennials. And that's all we need to know about them to make an inarguable point (told you I wouldn't be making any friends here).
The fact is this: A 35-year-old speculator intrinsically has much less experience in risk management than a 60-year-old. And remember, most Bitcoin owners are mostly speculators, as opposed to users of the product.
AND remember they're speculating on a currency, which is among the most volatile of financial instruments.
AND remember they're speculating on what essentially amounts to a new, experimental currency.
All this considered, Bitcoin looks to me as one of the (if not the) most speculative financial instruments available...
Expect for Bitcoin's derivatives, of course.
Yes, believe it or not, Bitcoin has a futures market. And there are products that offer even more risk. On its Perpetual Bitcoin/USD Swap Contracts, BitMEX offers up to 100x leverage!
But to really understand why I think Bitcoin is eventually headed for a crash, let's consider the most famous market bubble in history...
Dutch Tulip Mania
In the 17th century, formal futures markets developed in the Dutch Republic, providing the infrastructure for a massive bubble in the price of tulip bulbs.
The tulip first became fashionable in France, where early modern ladies of the aristocracy began sporting the flower on their dresses. From there, the tulip became the flower to show off social status and wealth. The demand for bulbs subsequently skyrocketed, and prices immediately followed.
At the peak of Tulip Mania in 1637, a single tulip bulb could cost as much as 10,000 gilders, the price of a nice middle-class townhouse in Amsterdam. According to one author, 12 acres of land was once offered for one rare bulb. For a flower bulb!
The Semper Augustus was the most coveted of all Dutch tulips.
Of course, the bubble eventually burst. The price of tulip bulbs collapsed, and fortunes in perceived value disappeared over night.
This patent describes a groundbreaking technology that could simply blow Elon Musk, and frankly the entire solar industry, out of the water.
We’ve managed to uncover the tiny company with exclusive rights to this technology. It trades at less than $0.15 a share, but don’t expect it to stay there for long.
I’ve included the patent filing and everything you need to know about this small company in this brief, free video presentation.
Here's what I really want you to take away from this story...
If we consider whom the people were who took part in Dutch Tulip Mania and compare them to the majority of Bitcoin owners, it seems both groups share the same shortcomings.
First, we know both groups are speculators betting on the hot new product. But I think we can also make good assumptions to compare the investment sophistication of the Dutch tulip investors and today's Bitcoin buyers.
Because formal futures markets were only recently developed, the Dutch tulip buyers were inherently unsophisticated investors. All of them. They simply didn't have the experience.
The majority of today's Bitcoin buyers are generally younger, so they share the same inexperience. For many Bitcoin buyers, I imagine it represents their first real investment. They simply don't have experience in risk management. And I think that's pretty clear considering some are buying products with 100x leverage!
Bitcoin could be the tulip of the 21st century with the development of a textbook bubble. And I think could be setting itself up for an eventual crash.
Now, even though I've been talking about a crash in Bitcoin prices, there's an epilogue to the Dutch tulip story that's often overlooked... and that actually provides a bullish outlook for the technology.
Truth is, the Dutch tulip bubble never really ended... it evolved. The price of tulip bulbs collapsed in the 17th century. But the flower industry at large eventually recovered and has never been bigger. Global floral production value is currently estimated at $55 billion.
People still pay thousands for rare flowers. In fact, an anonymous buyer paid over $200,000 for a rare orchid in 2005. And that's not even considered the most expensive flower in the world. Rose breeder David Austin spent 15 years and $5 million to develop Juliet rose.
My point is, the tulip as an individual product lost favor. But the collapse of the tulip market didn't completely kill the flower market. In the same way, I don't expect a collapse of Bitcoin prices to completely kill the blockchain-based currency market.
Bitcoin is simply one product of many blockchain-based currencies. A crash in Bitcoin would throw a wrench in the blockchain-based revolution. But there is little doubt that blockchain technologies are the future.
As we speak, every major central bank and large financial institution is researching how to implement blockchain into its own systems. It has already been proven to eliminate verification redundancies and improve security, and new applications are being tested every day.
So while I think Bitcoin itself could eventually be headed for a crash, the blockchain technologies that are supporting all these digital currencies seem set for unprecedented growth.
