Even if the value of investing in bitcoin has been underestimated in the past, it doesn't follow that the value of cryonics has been underestimated.
Not what I was trying to get at, sorry for the confusion. My aim is to boost cryonics reputation, and my concern was that e.g. associating it with bitcoin could harm it if bitcoin becomes devalued. (Actually a fairly minor concern, since cryonics already has a lot of early-adopter types.)
Why should we assume that?
Learning from experience. I had 400 bitcoins at one time. Had I held them, they would be worth $40k at $100 each today. This is roughly what I would have predicted at the time, too. I let short-term fluctuations ruin my confidence despite knowing the technology was good.
Beware of the hindsight fallacy.
Yeah. But I have to update based on evidence.
Beware of the conjunction fallacy.
Success of cryonics and success of bitcoin aren't necessarily independent variables. Holding some bitcoins for cryonics could boost the chance of e.g. having assets needed for cryonics research, or having the ability to get people signed up to take advantage of cryonics.
The bitcoins that I had set aside for a Cryonics contest two years ago (and were unredeemed) are suddenly worth a lot more.
Details: I had added 10 bitcoins to get things started, and there were 4.75 worth of additional donations. These were partially lost when the hosted online wallet that I was using (MyBitcoin) was hacked, but 49% was recovered. As of today, after refunding part of the donated money, it is now worth 5.2675. I will be adding from my personal store to bring it up to an even 5.5. At $140 per coin, the new total is $770.
I've decided to follow the buy-and-hold strategy for at least another year, since it worked so well. I don't have exact details on what I'll do with it, but it will not be converted or spent for at least one year, and will eventually be used for promoting cryonics in some way.
Some things I have in mind if it gets big include:
Contributions can be made to:
1Jdn36JUwvJdr3Qiie4aAseFdcoTsND9Qo
(Updated, since the previous address was attached to my personal wallet on an outdated client, which was causing money to be moved out of it by accident. The above is a brainwallet with a reasonably secure passphrase, generated using Blockchain.info.)