Originally Posted by
Crazed_Insanity
Position trade, day trade...
Whenever you need to actively 'trade', I wouldn't consider it 'investing'. You might call it 'work', right? Whether if you trade stocks or goods... you have to keep trading in order to make money. That's work.
Investing is you set aside a portion of your money... and then you don't have to do much to see it grow over time while doing no work or minimal work. Lesser the work and higher the return... better the investment.
IMHO, gold and currencies probably won't grow in value over time... they will only fluctuate... so I would not consider buying currencies or gold as real 'investing'. If you consider the effects of inflation, buying these things is actually 'anti-investing'. We need to use currencies on our hands to buy other things that will grow in value.
Anyway, gold is probably better than US dollars. It's probably much harder to mine more gold on earth... so as it become more and more scarce, perhaps value will rise. However, can't see gold's value rise explosively... Whereas US dollars can be easily printed... so you know it's value will only drop over time. One could trade dollars to make money, but it makes no sense to invest in US dollars.
Crypto currency could eventually become a legit currency... then it becomes useful and we will be able to be free from central banks' manipulation... if you bought it cheap early, you'll make money. However, crypto-currency could also completely collapse and burst like dotcom bubble. We'll just have to wait and see.
Blockchain idea is a good one though. However, I really had no idea these computer systems are so energy hungry...
But then again, people waste a lot of energy playing games and watching porn too, right? Does crypto currency really contribute more to climate change than gaming and porning? Or is that just an excuse from nay sayers I wonder...?