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John_Maxwell_IV comments on A proposed inefficiency in the Bitcoin markets - Less Wrong
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Is there a way to outguess real estate markets that doesn't involve buying relatively illiquid properties for thousands of dollars?
BTW, I would be interested in seeing a list of exotic markets if you've got one handy.
That would be interesting, if only for amusement. I heard of first "wine funds" appearing, if that scratches your itch for exotic markets.
No, although you could pool resources with a friend. If you have less than, say, $100,000 to invest you really, really shouldn't be speculating on Bitcoins.
eBay is your best starting point for finding exotic markets.
Unlike real estate which requires much higher amounts of capital (read: your after-tax savings) to invest in, Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies allow for people with just double-digit or less discretionary income to speculate.
In this manner, speculators/gamblers/investors are able to gain some experience with actual money and trading. The fees on the cryptocurrency exchanges are rather low, and since cryptocurrencies can go down to multiple decimal places, transaction fees of 0.45% (for example) are still feasible even on sub-$1 trades.
Of course, one could say that play money is just as useful for this type of scenario, but I think there's a cognitive fallacy that tries to explain how people behave when real vs. imaginary money is in play, even though the net effect is essentially the same (let's ignore the salient point that just $100 invested in Bitcoin in Jan 2013 would have netted $5000 in Dec 2013 as that needlessly distorts the point).
EDIT: One is unlikely to outguess the bitcoin market vs. any other exotic or local real estate market. However, cryptocurrencies allow for one to cheaply test whether they can outguess or not. Real estate is not cheap to test your prediction skills.
It's hard to say how general financial guessing skills are, and something like "I bought Bitcoin in 2011 and held for two years and now my $1k is $1M, time to start buying real estate because I'm clearly a good investor" seems like a poor idea.
Why?
The percent of your assets you should put in Bitcoins is small enough that if you have less than $100,000 you should have basically nothing in Bitcoins, plus having that small amount of cash almost certainly means you are not a sophisticated investor, and since Bitcoins are very risky (could easily go to zero value) if you don't have much of an asset cushion you shouldn't speculate on them.