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This is just one example of why Bitcoin is not a real currency to purchase goods, but rather it is only a currency trading platform.

Why would a person that understands the way that Bitcoin works use the currency to buy anything? For that matter, why would you sell anything in exchange for Bitcoin?

If you are acquiring a real product, using Bitcoin rather than a government backed security such as US dollars could mean that you are vastly overpaying for the product. According to the article, 50 Cent’s customers paid approximately 20X what they would have paid if they had used US dollars. At the time of the purchase, the combined value of his music was approximately $400K for those users that used Bitcoin. At the time of the publishing of the news, it had appreciated to approximately $8M.

I am perfectly confident that none of those purchasers would have paid 20X the list price for the flexibility to purchase the music using Bitcoin.

Selling a product is also riddled with risk! The volatility of Bitcoin means that if you sell a product today it is very likely that the Bitcoins that you receive could drop in value by 10-20% in a very short time – potentially before you can exchange the Bitcoins for a more stable currency or use the Bitcoins to buy a different product. This means that it could potentially destroy and profit from the sale of that original product.

Bitcoin is not a real currency. It doesn’t make sense to buy or sell products with it. Its only usefulness is to buy it in the hopes that the value increases or to short it in the hopes that the value decreases.

 

From The Verge:

In 2014, rapper 50 Cent let people buy his album Animal Ambition using bitcoin. He then let his account lie unused for years, and only just recently discovered that he’s now a bitcoin millionaire, as first reported by TMZ. 

At the time, a single bitcoin was worth only $662, and the rapper’s fans could pick up the album for a fraction of that. In total, he pulled in over $400,000. Since then, the value of bitcoin has soared: the price of the cryptocurrency rose as high as $17,000 earlier this month, only to drop under $10,000 in recent weeks. (At the time of writing, bitcoin is now worth a little more than $11,000.) After sitting untouched in his account for years, 50 Cent’s earnings are now worth $7 million to $8.5 million, based on the current fluctuating bitcoin valuation.

50 Cent confirmed his new windfall on Instagram and Twitter, saying, “Not bad for a kid from South Side, I’m so proud of me.” He later commented on his post: “Ima keep it real, I forgot I did that shit lol.”

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Big Tech can generate big numbers, but it was fast growth in the cloud business that helped ignite a buying frenzy Friday that drove up market values by nearly $139 billion in 30 minutes.

The stunning growth of the cloud businesses at Amazon.com Inc. [stckqut]AMZN[/stckqut] Microsoft Corp. [stckqut]MSFT[/stckqut], and Google parent Alphabet Inc. [stckqut]GOOGL[/stckqut] were a relatively small part of the strong quarterly results the three companies reported Thursday. But fast growth in cloud revenue, along with relatively stable service prices that helped profit margins during the quarter, gave investors reasons to bet the three giants could maintain their growth trajectories.

Shares of the three companies kept rising Friday, with their combined $147 billion market-value gain topping the value of more than 90% of the other companies in the S&P 500, including nearly every other company selling cloud-based software services.

Source: Tech Rally Is Juiced by Highflying Cloud Business – WSJ

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The so-called Dogs of the Dow—the top dividend-yielding stocks on the Dow Jones Industrial Average—are not fetching the kind of returns that investors may have been counting on this year, particularly after the strategy crushed the broader market in 2016.

The idea is to pick the 10 highest yielding stocks on the Dow and adjust the portfolio at the end of each year to reflect changes in dividends.

But the 10 blue chips that offered generous yields at the end of last year are up an average 2.4% so far in 2017, lagging the 6.3% gain logged by their non-canine peers and the Dow’s DJIA 5.4% year-to-date advance, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

Three of the Dogs—Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and Verizon Communications Inc.—are, in fact, the worst performing Dow stocks so far.

Source: The Dogs of the Dow are falling behind in the 2017 rally – MarketWatch

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Tech investors are a discerning bunch these days—a harsh reality that is pressuring Apple Inc. [stckqut]AAPL[/stckqut] more than it deserves.

In this yield-starved environment, stock investors are attracted to steady income. This would benefit Apple, except that like other former highfliers, it has been tossed out by investors. The iPhone giant’s shares have slid 6% this year and 21% over the past 12 months. While some of that is justified as iPhone sales have slowed, the selloff also looks overdone.

Much of the bearish thesis is due to weakening iPhone sales, which account for more than half of revenue. The iPad isn’t selling as well as it used to and the jury is out on the Apple Watch. Tech investors are allergic to anemic growth, which explains why the tech-heavy Nasdaq has lagged behind the Dow industrials and S&P 500.

Still, Apple has been punished more than enough. The iPhone slump appears priced in. And while the next iPhone, expected later this year, likely won’t be a significant upgrade, there is optimism that sales growth will soon bounce back. Analysts forecast iPhone unit sales will rise 5% for fiscal 2017, which ends next September.

Apple is the sort of stock that investors love these days. It plans to spend $250 billion on dividends and buybacks by March 2018, which would boost earnings per share and yield. Already, Apple’s 2.3% dividend yield is well above the 10-year Treasury yield.

Apple remains wildly profitable, too. Its $10.52 billion profit in the March quarter easily surpassed combined profits of Alphabet Inc. [stckqut]GOOGL[/stckqut], Amazon.com Inc. [stckqut]AMZN[/stckqut] and Facebook Inc. [stckqut]FB[/stckqut]

Source: Apple Is Ripe for a Rally

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Nothing in the history of money has been more diabolically efficient at getting us to spend than a smartphone. It’s an instant-gratification machine for music, games, takeout and catching a ride, anywhere, all the time.

Now, however, your phone can prevent you from burning a hole in your wallet.

A growing set of apps can help with the self-control that it takes to save money for the future. Apps like Acorns, Digit.co, Level Money and Mint track all the ways you spend to tell you in one glance how to stay on budget. Some even squirrel away extra cash before you blow it.

Apps are key to getting millennials back on financial track. The generation America most likes fretting about—adults under 35—has a savings rate of negative 1.9%, says Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi. (The savings rate for everyone 50 and under is also just south of zero.)

But phones are ideal for what behavioral economists, who study the psychology of money, call a nudge: always within reach and can make a game out of guiding us to good choices.

You can read the rest of this article by goinig to the original source: These Apps Can Finally Get You to Save Money – WSJ