Cryptocurrencies

[jazzboypro]

Hello all,

Anybody here experimenting/using cryptocurrencies ? I would like to know what you think about it.

Thanks

[Graceland]

comes in real handy buying weapons on the dark net

[Cep]

Was into it for a while but i had to sell everything because i was constantly looking at prices of everything it took over my life lol. I still have a small amount of bitcoin.  

I have a hard time believing that a cryptocurrency will be adopted by the masses or even a small percentage of the masses.  But i could definitely be wrong. 

Not a bad idea to own a little bitcoin or ethereum just in case it goes to the moon

 

[TheGipper]

Bitcoin is inherently deflationary, what with the 21 million hard cap.  An intriguing characteristic.

To borrow a phrase from our gracious host, "if you have the coin" you might want to own at least 1.0 BTC.  There's a very small (yet real) chance it eventually becomes a broadly accepted store of value, currency-independent exchange medium, or hedge against fiat inflation (or all of the above).  Read the Deloitte or Goldman Sachs reports on some of the best case scenarios and your mind will be racing with the possibilities of being moderately rich by just owning 1.0 BTC.

[JoeyGunz]

I dabble with a small crypto currency portfolio last month I made 83.65% on my investment.

As above I would get and sit on a bitcoin if you are in a position to do so.

Coinbase is worth a look at if you're interested in dipping your toe in the water.

www.CoinBase.com

 

[Ryan]

I'm currently sitting on 0.003 of a bitcoin, about $12, a gift I got a while ago for something online.

I know it has gained about 25% in the last week. Woohoo!

At moment I'd say only invest in any of those currencies if you can afford to lose all of it and not be sad. They have their applications but speculation is way too high at the moment.

I am finding Ethereum interesting though not from an investment point of view, though that is also showing silly gains.

From a technological point of view. I'm trying to find out more about the "smart contracts " Ethereum offers.

Basically a way of ensuring that two people, anonymous to each other, each fulfill their side of a deal, with no middleman.

That would have all kinds of applications and what's interesting is that I see some of the bigger names getting involved, Microsoft, some of the bigger banks.

Unicef is apparently running trials with it to ensure charitable payments get to their destinations.

Blockchain and blockchain applications could end up being the next "internet".

 

[Head83]

I was intrigued by it a few weeks ago when it dipped below $2k briefly.  It quickly rose back above 2k and I thought, there is no way it can go much higher, I'll wait for another dip.  Then it went above 3k and I thought, it had to come down. Now it's above 4 and rising quickly and questioning if I missed the bull or it's just the beginning.  It's hard to buy anything at this point given how fast it has gone up but this whole cryptocurrency thing is really confusing to me.  I think that's where I have a hard part pulling the trigger on it at this level, I just don't have a full understanding of how it works and how it is given a value so high at this point.  

[Philski]

10 hours ago, TheGipper said:

Bitcoin is inherently deflationary, what with the 21 million hard cap.  An intriguing characteristic.

 

When you say 'hard cap', is that a value cap?  Presumably not a supply cap...?

[JC67]

How do you purchase it?

[Cep]

It's a hard cap of 21 million.

Can be purchased on different online exchanges, depending on where you live. Or from another person. Or from a Bitcoin ATM. 

 

[jazzboypro]

13 hours ago, JoeyGunz said:

I dabble with a small crypto currency portfolio last month I made 83.65% on my investment.

As above I would get and sit on a bitcoin if you are in a position to do so.

Coinbase is worth a look at if you're interested in dipping your toe in the water.

www.CoinBase.com

 

I'm just getting started with cryptocurrency and went the CoinBase way. I got an account and my wallet setup. Unfortunately, the system seems to put a 10$ weekly limit on my credit card to buy bitcoin (or other) so i could  just buy 10$ worth of bitcoin. There seems to be ways of augmenting that limit but it does not seems to work so far.

[earthson]

I know several banks are investing in the blockchain, so there must be some faith in positive performance of the technology itself, though not necessarily in specific currencies.

As far as the "anonymous" aspect, I am to understand that the forensic techniques exist to discover both sender and receiver of the funds, so it's not exactly a bulletproof if you're trying to purchase illicits on the darkweb.

[jazzboypro]

2 hours ago, JC67 said:

How do you purchase it?

As it was suggested above www.coinbase.com is a good place to start. Buying is fairly easy. CoinBase is basically a digital asset exchange. It might be worth to also get acquainted with Blockchain technologies. It is a very interesting subject.

[Spanishcedar]

Sure, but make sure you have enough brass and arrows to back it up.

[NSXCIGAR]

Short term: buy it, use it, invest in it at your own risk. It is certainly useful, particularly the blockchain technology in terms of payment processing methods and efficiency.

Long term, it can never be real money. As to why, read up on the regression theory of money. While cryptocurrencies are probably superior to government-issued fiat currencies, the only real widely used money is and probably ever will be gold and silver.

[Overproof]

A bitcoin thread from a few years back. Some good info in there 

I've been looking in IOTA

 

[CrankYanker]

I will revive this thread due to Bitcoin going up and above $10k last night and hit over $11k today.  It has settled back down currently.

Any other thoughts on this?  I did buy some LTC as well to dabble in.

[HarveyBoulevard]

My only regert is not buying a 1000 shares when it was 1 USD per share when it reached parity with the USD in 2011...

...'how to turn $1000 USD into $11 Million USD in 6 years'...

My creedo is 'no regerts' so I'm not going to worry about it

[hedgeybaby]

My thoughts: Bitcoin is the mother of all bubbles and a lot of people are going to be seriously hurt once it finally goes BANG. That however isn't to say it won't go to 40,000 before it goes back down to 100. I read sometime ago that the theoretical price could be either 1 million or 10 million (I forget which.)

I do however love the idea of crypto currencies. I abhor the fact that government is the only  issuer of legal tender. Many moons ago, banks used to issue their own notes, and theoretically market discipline would look after the rest. Sadly, human nature won. 

With regards to BTC being deflationary, this is one nail in its coffin , as the one thing governments can't allow is deflation. 

Another being, that government doesn't control it - another no no.

That along with its bad reputation and dark net reputation will have fingers wagging. 

A few months ago I was having a chat with James Turk, the founder of Gold Money, and I said that government s will find a way of switching it off (BTW I know that this is meant to be impossible, but..) And he agreed with me - a very proud moment for me as he is a very smart man.

Ultimately, this is Tulip , .com 2.0

 

If you have a few bitcoins knocking around, I suggest you sell and pay off some of the mortgage.

The technology is a great idea but just not yet. If you really want some excitement, open a forex account, as at least it is made implicitly clear that you can lose your shirt.

 

 

[CrankYanker]

1 hour ago, hedgeybaby said:

If you have a few bitcoins knocking around, I suggest you sell and pay off some of the mortgage. for really good cigars

 

 

 

I fixed it for you  

[fastkiller13]

I think cryptocurrency is a great experiment. I think in the long run there will be no real value in the "coins" themselves, but the technology has immense potential. As far as banks and financial firms investing in BTC, if they are, they're not talking about it. What they are investing very heavily in is the blockchain technology. What this is in the case of BTC (bitcoin) is a simple ledger of transactions. The ledger is immutable because no one person owns enough of the mining power to change it, this can change. It can't be "shut off" as the blockchain lives on every computer that uses BTC. The blockchain can be changed this happens as a "fork" where one group decides to follow one chain and another group follows another chain, a chain being a sequence of transactions, there are various reasons for this.

Downsides of cryptocurrency are that it is can be very widely manipulated, there is no oversight, and no one agency has any control of it, it's highly volatile and there are tons and tons of scams and scammers involved in it. Bitcoin isn't really the currency of choice for terrorists or drug lords because the blockchain is public and we know exactly where every coin has gone since inception. XMR is what a smart criminal uses, or someone that wants to truly be anonymous. 

The blockchain tech however is amazing. Imagine every time you visit a Dr. they just take your public address and upload the reports to it. The encryption is uncrackable (until we invent quantum computing) and you would be the only person with access to it through your private key. See a new Dr. unlock the info get a new report and lock it back up again. The information won't have to live in one location it will exist in bits all over the internet and called when its needed through a torrent like process. 

If your a large business owner imagine making a coin for your company, every department gets a certain amount all the transactions are controlled by smart contracts so Joe Smoe can't just steal all the money and every transaction is recorded in minute detail. You can also store information as well, encrypted so that only certain people can access it. Even though it will be stored on every employees computer only those select few can retrieve it. Information Storage costs will be next to nothing as will accounting as the blockchain takes care of it. Those are just two simple things the blockchain can do and is doing right now. 

As far as the short term if you like gambling buy some BTC and head over to kraken or poloniex and try trading, I use it as my cigar funds. Just be prepared to lose everything in a second.  

[Overproof]

On 8/27/2017 at 9:11 PM, Overproof said:

A bitcoin thread from a few years back. Some good info in there 

I've been looking in IOTA

 

MIOTA Hodlers MIOTA!! Today was crazy.

 

 

 

[Overproof]

[Philc2001]

On 8/18/2017 at 12:02 AM, Cep said:

Was into it for a while but i had to sell everything because i was constantly looking at prices of everything it took over my life lol. I still have a small amount of bitcoin.  

I have a hard time believing that a cryptocurrency will be adopted by the masses or even a small percentage of the masses.  But i could definitely be wrong. 

Not a bad idea to own a little bitcoin or ethereum just in case it goes to the moon

 

In places like Venezuela, Zimbabwe and others where the local currency is either worthless or deflating rapidly, and banking is corrupt or nonexistent, cryptocurrency is the only way to transact, to hedge the inflation and to hang on to your wealth. With just a cell phone, people in poor and failing countries have few other options to transact business. Crypto is a savior for them. And sure, you may be laundering cash or buying nukes with it too, but it's already legit and gaining ground. Square is accepting it. CME will commence futures trading of bitcoin shortly. Lots of institutions are preparing ETFs to trade it. 

I suspect governments and banking institutions will soon start offering their own cryptocurrencies to get a piece of the action.

[CrankYanker]

BTC is closing in on $13k. What is the next one to take off?