|
Story + question about bitcoins: I have a friend who has been dating a new partner for about 4 months. My friend has a good job and savings of about $40 or $50k. Her partner wanted to return to university but lacked the means to pay and he asked if he could borrow tuition for a year (about $6000). My friend wasn't comfortable loaning that sort of money for a 4 month old relationship causing her boyfriend to offer to give her $6000USD worth of bitcoins as collateral for the loan. My friend isn't that computer savvy and didn't know what a Bitcoin was so her partner set about studiously showing her magazine articles, pages printed from webpages, graphs showing their value over time and gave assurance after assurance that bitcoins were a real thing. She was still worried and, in the middle of an argument, her partner promised her his entire Bitcoin fortune (worth about $15,000 USD) as collateral for the $6000 loan. Wanting to avoid a longer argument she said yes and he set about putting the bitcoins in her name. Since then, he's been needling her and making snide, passive aggressive comments about how she's holding onto his entire retirement savings and making allusions about how unfair it was that he had to turn over $15,000 (which is apparently worth $18,000 now) in exchange for a "mere" $6,000 Anyway she's sick of it and wants to cash out $6,000 worth of bitcoins so she can settle the loan and then send him back the remaining bitcoins so this doesn't keep coming between them. Except she doesn't know how to convert her Bitcoin fortune into real money and asked me to help her. My question is, how screwed is she?
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2016 03:51
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 20:16 |
|
|
Blue Train posted:man she can sell them but I wanna say she's gonna lose like 15 or 20% on it to get the cash She hasn't told her partner she's going to sell them yet. I haven't met him but he's probably going to flip his poo poo, he looooooves his bitcoins
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2016 04:01
|
|
|
Darth123123 posted:From memory, but your a smart guy serrath, how do you know idiots like this? Please have them film the back alley rape/transaction quote:lol @ anyone who has only $18k in their retirement account Would it add more context to the story if I mentioned the victim in this case is a junior doctor and she likes this guy because he makes her feel "so free and uninhibited" in only the way that an unemployed 37 year old bartender who shares a rented house with 4 surfers in their early 20s can. I don't even think he's trying to scam her, he sincerely believes that this $18k will grow into hundreds of thousands by the time he's retired and this is his "plan" (which is why he's being so protective over the fact that he "signed over" the money to her - he really does intend to pay back this $6000 but he just started year one of a four year humanities degree with this tuition money so who knows what's going to happen). For reference (the way he tells the story, at least), he hasn't invested more than a couple thousand dollars into bitcoins, they've apparently just grown in value to this 18k. Before hitting up my friend, he's tried to use these bitcoins as a down payment on a house and he includes their value on personal asset tests and such. She says he's constantly on online forums talking with other Bitcoin collectors, reading things about bitcoins, attacking people on other message boards who say anything bad about bitcoins... Apparently he's really obsessed over this Pokemon money Like, they're not even real, my god.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2016 07:41
|
|
|
LegoPirateNinja posted:Odds are decent that this arrangement isn't legally enforceable at all and she could probably cash out all of it, dump him, and keep it. Any lawyer that doesn't laugh in her face with this story is probably scamming her themselves. I posted the story because it was funny; she's lost the 6k and I think she knows she lost the 6k. Dunno what she plans to do with the bitcoins that are apparently in her name but who even knows if they're in her name; I mentioned a few points raised in this thread to her about ownership and she started to pale and then start googling things on her phone. She'll be fine, $6k is an expensive lesson but this sort of life lesson is priceless. Ivor Biggun posted:Assuming he makes it through his first year without failing anything he's probably going to want another $6k for the next years tuition. And every subsequent year after that until he gives up or graduates. Yeah, I think the odds of him making it to second year are approximately 0 so I think this is a non-issue.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2016 03:56
|
|
|
Blurry Gray Thing posted:"You best start believin' in Bitcoin stories, Miss Doctor." The story I posted is really funny in just how reasonable it is to someone who is trying to act in good faith. I know about Bitcoins because of threads I've read on SA but it's something I could see someone who is financially ignorant falling for if you show them the right combination of magazine articles, news reports, and graphs and figures. She hasn't introduced him to any of her friends yet... I'm hoping to meet him eventually, he sounds like a treasure; this is the tip of the iceberg
|
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2016 04:11
|
|
|
Buttcoin purse posted:
Don't ever trust anyone in any healthcare profession if you don't want to see someone who will continuously and egregiously overestimate their proficiency in every domain outside of their own job (ironically, most will simultaneously carry a crippling insecurity about their knowledge of their own specialty). E: quote:dpr got scammed and extorted for hundreds of thousands of dollars by a couple of unknown people who also scammed silk road users When you say hundreds of thousands of dollars, you mean hundreds and thousands of imaginary numbers that a handful of people have agreed might be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, correct? Serrath fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jan 20, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2016 10:37
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 20:16 |
|
|
5-HT posted:dpr's attorney actually used this argument at one point to try to get the case dismissed Ah ha, of course they did. People who use bitcoins want this sort of crytocurrency to replace existing currencies, yes? How do people deep into bitcoin reconcile their hope that the value will continue to increase at an incredible rate (making them e-millionaires!) with the reality that a currency with wild fluctuations (up or down) cannot possibly hope to serve as a functional, day to day currency? Like, fulfillment of the latter goal (making it a currency that can be used for day to day transactions and normal finances) poisons the former goal, that their value can only up Up UP! (I know the answer to this lies somewhere between ignorance and delusion but I'm wondering if any e-philosophers have attempted to address these incompatible goals)
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2016 09:22
|
|