[jhspaybar]

My dad just texted me today asking if I owned bitcoin and if he should pick some up. I described it as uninsured highly volatile fine art(can be destroyed/lost) with a huge counter-party risk if he doesn't have the technical ability to store his own coins. Does anyone out there have a better analogy to scare family/friends away from it?

[baxtr]

My sister told me she bought some and that she’ll buy more soon. She also told me that the price will rise and rise. I’m not sure what to say, I’m totally stunned. But I guess that is an interesting signal showing that the pool of people who could potentially buy more and thus drive the price is tremendously big.

[berdon]

Just keep in mind that if the price skyrockets you'll get to field more phone calls from angry family/friends who missed out because of your advice.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[nnfy]

Why are you trying to scare them? Just explain to them that it is high risk.

But there is a strong potential future for btc, and in spite of all the fear mongering, BTC has so far come back from every crash. You're not just throwing away money if you spend a couple hundred of your otherwise disposable income on some btc. Buying at any point in the past would have yielded a payoff today.

[komali2]

Can people elaborate why they are downvoting this? I hold a similar opinion - as long as your other investment instruments are intelligently diversified and filled-out, why not spend a small % on bitcoin? As nnfy has said, any amount in the past would have yielded payoff today.

"But a crash!" is not an argument alone. Every single other investment instrument I'm aware of has had a crash.

[allenz]

Investing in Bitcoin to diversify is fine. Buying Bitcoin because it's been rising? That's the definition of speculation. Most people are not qualified to be speculators because they are insufficiently critical. It's easy to imagine potential, and difficult to gauge risk. See also "most investors lose money".

[jhspaybar]

When I say "scaring them" I mean "explaining the high risk well". My words were imprecise, but are not at odds with your suggestion, except that I don't explain the potential benefits and strong future. That's for them to find out, I just want to make sure they understand the risks because it doesn't seem well shared at this point.