Reply With QuoteI'm guessing no one has any experience of or interest in Bitcoin or other digital currencies?
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Anyone sold any and how/where?
Price has shot up recently.
I'm guessing no one has any experience of or interest in Bitcoin or other digital currencies?
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i'll buy someOriginally Posted by Kingstepper
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
There#s a thread here which discusses buying & selling:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/...=1655799&i=140
Just read the whole thread and I'm none the wiser.
I'm sure one day there will be a 'nutmeg isa' platform approach to buying and selling Bitcoin. Until that day comes then....
It's not April the first is it?
Set up an account at localbitcoin and you can buy and sell from there once they verify your account.
Don't know if it's a good time to buy in as the price has soared in the last year
Didn't the price just hit a record high, but coupled with decreasing market share? Without knowing the full historical details etc, that would put me off considering buying
Bitcoin became legal currency in Japan on April 1 (start of the 2017-2018 financial year). You can pay with bitcoin at major department stores. A big step on its way to being mainstream.
Ethereum is the new currency, bitcoin has gone up a fair bit this year but Ethereum has increased 2000%. It might be worth a punt, banks are investing in blockchain technology so more institutions are getting involved. Could also be a huge bubble of course.
It is think it's something like £1900 per coin. a bit over a year ago it was £300
Seems a bad time to get involved.
Listened to a talk from the author of blockchain revolution on Tuesday…. Was fascinating
Has amazing power for contacts and verifying movement of coin…. It's unhackable
Too much scope for money laundering before it could be adopted by more mainstream institutions - is always likely to be an issue
Only unhackable with current technology.
In 10-20 years may be possible with quantum computers.
Moores law and all that!
Quantum computers could also make the blockchain more secure id guess (not knowing either way!!!)
I want a quantum computer!!!
At £1900 it's still vastly undervalued compared to eventual market value (hundreds of thousands per BTC) -- unless it all falls apart or people move to other currencies.
Currency competition is part of the issue, more than I thought it would be.
Last edited by markrlondon; 30th May 2017 at 15:50. Reason: Fixed typo
Well, now, that's the whole thing, isn't it? Shares in my nude-except-for-watch dating app are vastly undervalued because it'll eventually be worth billions, unless it isn't.
One year chart from blockchain.info
I bought my first bitcoins (BTC) some years ago (for 10 quid each, and at the time thought I had bought too high!) and since then I have heard it all, 'ponzi scheme' 'pump n dump' etc etc.
Since then, attitudes have changed, as has the proliferation of other crypto currencies- I currently watch over 500.
I now day trade across a number of alt coins and do well enough to buy myself something nice every now and again. Yesterday was fun, BTC breaching £2k was a nice mile stone to smash.
BTC isnt the only digital currency that is riding high. If you hold Etherium, Z Cash, DASH etc then you are also probably trading-up from lemonade to Dom P. There are also a number of smaller coins that are worth a punt, and thats where some (very) big wins can be had
Happy to share some tips if anyone is genuinly interested. Am also happy to sell BTC or other alt coins (within reason!) to forum members who may not have a trading account with an exchange, cheaper than going to Local Bitcoin if you need to make a purchase in BTC, or if you just want to invest.
I decided to de-bank about 5 years ago, and these currencies are an asset that I now lock my money into, along with watches of course :)
My feeling is that these alt-coins, crypto currencies, or whatever you want to call them, are a once in a life time opportunity that later generations will look back and curse for not having had the opportunity to be able to buy-in. As many are doing now with property.
And if you think the BTC boat has sailed for you, it hasnt. I'll link to this thread in a couple of years and you'll kick yourself for not buying in at 2K :)
Looks interesting. i have been watching Ethereum for a few days, it does seem very volatile, over $200 yesterday and now back down to $150.
I was thinking of buying a few for a bit of fun.
Can anyone recommend a good value platform to buy/hold them on?
I'm buying some BTC, even if it's dropping since two days, so if anyone is selling, PM me
I have been watching Bitcoin for the last few years and it has risen considerably.
Which are the other, newer and smaller crypto currencies you refer to ?
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I'd be looking at Ripple for a mid to long term hold, Pivx for short to mid gains and the same with Golem. I'm not a fan of Dash, but it's been climbing well and is looking good for short term gains, not convinced on long term, but I could be wrong.
Pick up Etherium now, while it's on a downturn, and always bolster your Bitcoin holdings on a downturn.
Also note, most acquisitions will need to be made using Bitcoin (PIVX, Golem, Ripple etc) with few currencies (Etherium, Dash) available for purchase with regular fiat, depending on the exchange you use.
Obv, this isn't financial advice, you invest at your peril etc.
I use Kraken to buy sell trade: it's quick and easy to get verified (you can be up and running within 24 hrs usually), has minimal lag and suits my needs. That said, it's market prices tend to be nearer the lower end of the average. Hope this helps.
For a donation to the fundraiser, I'd be happy to pool requests and front a single purchase (within reason) of BTC for members. Thereafter splitting the BTC to each member, commensurate with their stake at the time the purchase was made. Also, note that you dont need to buy a 'whole' coin, you can hold, trade, sell fractions of a coin.
I would do this through the Kraken exchange (rather than personal a sale) and would not seek to profit from the deal.
Not sure how appealing this would be to forum demographic, but I would be happy to help you, and others, dip your toe in the water.
I looked into mining Litecoins a few years back. Never took the plunge as i didn't totally understand it all tbh.
Saying that. What i did understand was interesting but not enough for me to take the plunge.
HewJardon, I read your posts with great interest. I'm baffled by how this works and I am a bit nervous, could I throw out my child like understanding so it can be corrected for my education...
1 - Several private companies (like Bitcoin) have established crypto currencies and the investor customers of those private companies rely on wider uptake to drive the value forward.
2 - There are investor customers who speculate on the alt coin markets and there are also short term customers who use the alt coins for monetary transfer and then 'cash out' to traditional currencies ?
3 - The currencies are not backed by any assets.
4 - The currency pool can grow if the original company (like Bitcoin) increases the supply.
5 - There are no limits to how many currencies can come into play (there are several mentioned above; Litecoin, DASH, Etherium, etc.).
6 - If a currency folds/ceases to exist there may be no recompense.
Any thoughts on the above welcome....
I bought some bitcoins back in 2013/14 when the price started rising significantly. Luckily I also bought some ethereum pre-launch. The ethereum is probably going to be the best investment of my life, it's gone up something like 60,000%.
I've sold a bit but am generally of the view that these crypto currencies will continue to rise in value. But unlike some previous comments I don't see their value as a value, I view their value as being widely adopted for their block-chains.
The wider adoption of their blockchains will drive price up imo.
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Please see answers in my quote.
If you google 'Bitcoin basics' or 'blockchain basics' there are lots of articles, videos etc
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/mobil...asics.amp.html
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Thanks for the response, I'm from an engineering/science background so the financial world often baffles me...
I have spent probably, 2-3 hours reading sources on cryptocurrencies. Not a lot of research I hear you say but I really feel this is risky. 2 quick reasons in my head...
1 - The rapid increase of cryptocurrency providers means one of the larger ones will eventually fail for mis-management (say over supply) or dare I say corruption. When that day happens a trust ripple will spread out to other currencies. It's bound to happen, people are people.
2 - The death of gold standard puts a human risk into traditional currencies also but structures like Exchange Rate Regime / International Settlements Bank are there, so there is some form of 3rd party governance at least.
I struggle to get beyond the fact there is no backing, no asset, no profit/loss. It all relies on voluntary or speculative uptake...
Any thoughts ?
I hope this doesn't sound stupid or confuse you but you shouldn't view these as a financial resource or a currency. If you purely view it in that way I would say that $ are far far superior in terms of currency.
I think you should look into blockchain technology. That is wat underlies the value of these crypto currencies. The blockchain technology is wat is groundbreaking and likely to be very widely adopted. And it is that which will lead to value rising imo.
For example at some point in the future all Rolex watches will probably have a tiny chip in them which buyers will use to check authenticity. The info on authenticity will be kept on a blockchain.
I agree that most of the coins in circulation today will prob be worthless in 10 years time. Bitcoin has the advantage of being first. Ethereum has advantage of having most useful blockchain
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Resources were used to mine the coins and an alternative currency cannot be produced on demand at no cost.
I read through the Blockchain information and I spent a while on Etheriums website which I found very interesting. My thanks.
Sorry here, I feel that I understand the application of these currencies as a token based financial transaction tool (a PayPal type model if you will). My understanding breaks down when some people rely on these cryptocurrencies as investment vehicles (and this was highlighted by Ribena, thanks).
Would it be fair to say the Blockchains are supporting the cryptocurrencies as they are constructed as opposed to being actual 'assets' themselves ? For example, would a large Blockchain structure ever be of use to a private company as a tool or as an other form of asset ?
I'm thinking here of gold mining where we do a very hard days work to extract a mineral from the earth which we then treat as a commodity. Sometimes the Blockchain to me feels like the hard work without the commodity, we hammer computers to create the Blockchain but do we ever use the Blockchain afterwards, was it just a big mFlop hurdle ?
I think the hard numeric coding and mathematical structures that we are building here are groundbreaking but I think the investment prospect might be misplaced.
Investing in Bitcoin or ethereum is probably best described as speculation, because as uve said there is no underlying asset as such. Ur speculating that Bitcoin will become more popular.
A blockchain can be used and intact developed by a company for its own use.
The blockchain is a central ledger ie a database. And it's value is that it's decentralised, in theory no individual can manipulate it.
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lol
If man made the market then he can manipulate it.
Last edited by studly; 29th May 2017 at 02:31.
If I remember correctly, theoretically could happen if someone were to control 50% of the mining capacity.
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It will be interesting to see if it breaks $2000, and even more interesting if it breaks $1600.
Can someone point me in the direction of chart software with indicators like fibonacci retracements etc (yeah i know, i know) for bitcoin and ethereum?
Have been offline over the weekend but a few comments, and hopefully some answers to points above.
The blockchain ledgers that underpin transactions are, in the case of Bitcoin, decentralised and for ease of understanding is best considered as 'open source'. Bitcoin is the marker, either explicitly or implied, for most, if not all alt-coins. many alt-coins can only be bought with Bitcoin. And if you then want to sell those coins, you need to convert them to Bitcoin, then to cash. This further underpins the long term value and importance of Bitcoin.
Can it be manipulated? the price of any asset (eg diamonds, stock, shares) or currency (Mr Soros...) can be manipulated. The same is true of any alt-coin, although the greater the adoption the harder this is.
Will newer coins usurp the incumbents? Its possible, but first-mover advantage is a big advantage. Do we conceive of newcomers being able to challenge, say Amazon, or Ebay?? Well, I guess its possible.
Having the blockchain at arms length, and in effect, untamperable (eg Bitcoin) should underpin a degree of trust that might not be so well placed with currencies that operate on a more centralised basis. As mentioned above, do some background reading on each coin, the tech behind it and the team operating it.
Are all coins the same? No. Some alt-coins hold there value in alteranitve areas. Let me explain..BTC enjoys the biggest adoption of all alt-coins, it is truly decentralised and works as well as an asset as it does a currency, in the trad sense of the word. Other alt-coins, arguably, hold value in other areas, for example Etherium has a private and a public blockchain, underpinned by the Etherium coin/token. The private blockchain is of huge interest to third party developers. The ledger is a time stamped, tamper-proof record that can be utilised for many purposes by large corporate interests, for contract tracking for example.
Bitcoin relies on miners to validate and process transactions on the blockchain, as well as mine new coins. At present the majority of mining syndicates are based in China. There is an argument that this is, in effect, centralising control of the blockchain. My feeling is that they are as invested as I am (if not, much more so), so it makes no sense for them to undermine the system, or trust in it. Make no mistake, the cost (hardware & electricity) of mining Bitcoin has become huge. Each batch of mined coins is smaller then the previous batch, and takes more time/power to mine.
LItecoin offers fast transactions. Ripple is being sold-in to banks to facilitate fast, cheap inter-bank, inter-market financial transactions. Monero offers fast and secure transactions etc. I feel these are the elements that will add value to their respective coins'tokens etc Therefore it can be argued that they aren’t just tokens to lock-up monetary value but have third-party value that will drive their market price.
How/where to buy? join an exchange .. there are many Poloniex, Bittrex, Kraken etc. Alt-coin prices vary from exchange to exchange and different exchanges may offer different ranges of alt-coins to buy. Some may permit purchases of some coins in fiat currency, others may need to be bought in Bitcoin (as mentioned above).
How and why do they hold their value? Simply because those that use, or hold them, attribute value to them. Exactly the same as gold, or a Rolex etc
When looking at alt-coins always check the market capitalisation, what is the total value of the total number of Coin X in the market at a given time. The market cap will increase in accordance with 2 factors, the number of coins available in the market, and the current price of each of those coins. This should give a ‘true’ picture of popularity and adoption, ergo ‘value’.
Charts, fib sequences etc.. I also use Tab Trader on my phone for at a glance candle charts etc and also use Bittrex, Kraken and Poloniex exchanges. There are many more out there, find what suits and what represents the data in a way you prefer. LeonArdo is great (on the whole) trading software, just keep an eye on those bots and they should see you ok.
This is a good read on blockchain tech, and the type of value they hold, over and above being a distrubuted ledger for alt-coin transactions
https://hbr.org/2017/03/how-safe-are...ins-it-depends
I've been looking into this for a few weeks.
I think I'm ready to invest. I like the look of Bitcoin ethereum and ripple.
Any advice on a safe and easy way to trade these and keep them safe?
I'm signed up to Polinex but it seems like you have to buy BTC from somewhere else then transfer them to this exchange rather than depositing money into the account and then buying it.
Am I correct?
Keeping them safe? if you want to store them, then use an off-line wallet. I use 'Ledger Nano', a USB stick with very good recovery facilities should you damage the key. Alternativly, store your wallet on a portable hard-drive, or read up on creating a paper wallet.
I buy in using a Euro account and do so thorugh Kraken, and assume you would be buying with GBP?
Polo is good, but in my mind not the best. And yes, there are restictions on what you can buy. The service has a tendancy to lag when there is a high transaction volume, not ideal if you are chasing a particualr price and need an 'instant' trade. Also, purchasing with GBP can be tricky, with most exchanges focusing on USD or Euro. Try Coinbase or Bitstamp if you are buying with GBP, then trasnfer to Polo.
I never leave too much in my exchange account as, no matter what they say, they are all vulnerable to attack.
Re: your previous post
Meant to say that you could download a wallet onto your desktop (Multibit or Electrum are good) but then if you trash or lose your computer you may find it hard to retreive the balance of your wallet. I would always store long-term off-line and off-computer.
Thanks.
So I open a coin base account, Deposit a couple of grand and then switch it over to a polinex? Should I just use coinbase instead?
'Yes', and 'your call'.
I'd probably stick with Coinbase until you find your feet, iassuming you plan to buy/sell.
I know you can buy ETH at Coinbase, but not sure about Ripple. Im also pretty sure that you cant buy Ripple at Polo, although I beleive that wil soon change.
Or if you just want to hold the BTC, buy-in at Coinbase, then transfer the BTC into your (offline) wallet storage
This is an interesting insight into the people who help control Bitcoin, and the power plays going on, for anyone who is interested:-
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/20...itcoin-divided
Frustratingly I haven signed up to Coinbase but I cant add a payment method for another 24 hours. Painful.
yup, the various money laundering regs, "know your client" etc are a huge pain in the butt, and lead to a frustrating start to the alt-coin ride. On the plus side, by the time you are verified and cleared funds available, the BTC price may be lower than it is now :) However, its looking like ETH will be slightly more expensive than it is today (hopefully!!)
Given the recent run up in BTC and especially ETH, does anyone have an inkling of what's driving it?
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Update - I've just read that a big Chinese exchange called huobi will allow ethereum trading from 31st May. Will that potentially be next leg up?
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I would suggest taking financial advice from someone who uses "ur" instead of "your" is not a great starting point.
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