Anyone invest in crypto currency?

A few years ago, I bought 1 bitcoin for $800. A few weeks later I read that LTC was going to sky rocket and ended up trading my BTC for LTC (doh!). I still have them on hand and will sit on them for a few years I suppose. I recently saw BTC is now around $2500. Any of you holding onto or actively purchasing any crypto currencies?

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slinuxuzer

TechGromit wrote: »

If you going to be doing the day trader crap, I wouldn't bother. I'd toss $500 or a few thousand into the market and forget about it until it goes up a significant amount of $. If you can't afford to part with your money, you don't have the stomach for investing it cyptocurrency in my opinion.

Couldn't agree more - Crypto is very volatile, the best strategy is to buy and hold for 5+ years. Also be very careful, the vast majority of coins and ICOs out there are pure scams.

JDMurray

An interesting blockchain security "who dun it?" detective story about discoverable private keys used in Bitcoin.

https://pastebin.com/jCDFcESz

Discussions on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpastebin.com%2FjCDFcESz

TechGromit

NotHackingYou wrote: »

Litecoin is looking pretty good today!

I picked up 15 Litecoin (LTC) for $1,150 a few months ago for around $75, I try not to look at the current price, since I'm holding on to it long term. I just ordered a Hardware USB wallet from Amazon, I’m going to transfer 10 into that and convert the other 5 into other currencies. If increases they significantly, I may just sell enough to recoup my original investment and let the rest ride for years. I’m tempted to invest more, but I think the more I have in the market, the less risk I’ll be willing to tolerate.

Phalanx

I just dipped my toe for the first time today, purchasing £25 of Bitcoin to see the process. Interesting, to say the least.

NetworkNewb

slinuxuzer wrote: »

Crypto is very volatile, the best strategy is to buy and hold for 5+ years.

Listen to this! I purchased over 2400 IOTA coins back in June when the price was about 40 cents a coin and was planning on holding for long time and not watch it. Told myself to wait a few years... But it went up a little and sold right away only after a few weeks... This last week it spiked up and it hit over $5 a coin. Granted it is back down to about $4.20 a coin. But I still missed out on about $10,000 because I was impatient. Don't be me!

hurricane1091

TechGromit wrote: »

If you going to be doing the day trader crap, I wouldn't bother. I'd toss $500 or a few thousand into the market and forget about it until it goes up a significant amount of $. If you can't afford to part with your money, you don't have the stomach for investing it cyptocurrency in my opinion.

I'm mostly a long term holder - but sometimes opportunities present themselves like recently where it makes no sense to not day trade. Still extremely long term on ARK and still holding a boat load (har-har). This thread has been around for awhile. If someone didn't get it by now, they never will.

hurricane1091

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Listen to this! I purchased over 2400 IOTA coins back in June when the price was about 40 cents a coin and was planning on holding for long time and not watch it. Told myself to wait a few years... But it went up a little and sold right away only after a few weeks... This last week it spiked up and it hit over $5 a coin. Granted it is back down to about $4.20 a coin. But I still missed out on about $10,000 because I was impatient. Don't be me!

ARK is the only project I honestly believe in and it's the only long term hold I have. It's tough seeing IOTA 10x in price over a month but I never saw anything special in it. Honestly, I do not buy into most of the top 50 coins. I know I'm wrong about many but it's impossible to stay invested in something unless you really believe in it.

NEO will go up to huge prices one day, it's not a guess either. I just hate the language barrier. Some others look good, like PIVX. I've held NAV for periods of time and there's money to be made there, but it's not much different than other privacy coins that are well established. Any BTC forks or "classic" coins I never invest in. Monaco ruined the incentive to actually hold Monaco, so I am not really sure why anyone really wants that.

There's a lot of good coins in the top 50, but I mostly look for long shots to be honest. NEO, ETH, LiteCoin, etc will provide steady growth. Better than any 401k out there. It's a challenge to find something outside of the top 50 that is a winner. If you can do it though, the payoff is huge.

pharius

Does anyone have any recommendations for a multicoin wallet? I have been running individual wallets for Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin but would like to consolidate. I am looking at Exodus but am open to suggestions.

boxerboy1168

I first began reading about Bitcoin in 2011 on an internet forum and I almost invest $100 for fun that would be worth 100,000's of thousands or potentially millions of dollars now due to the fact that you could get hundreds of them back then for nothing.

TechGromit

So I picked up a Ledger Nano S from Amazon, it was advertised to allow me to transfer LiteCoins to it, but after setting it all up, it only had Bitcoins and Ethereum listed on it. The company website says there a way to add Litecoins app to it, but I haven't had any luck making it work. All I really want to do is transfer my Litecoins to my computer, move them offline and print the keys and toss them into a safe until some point in the future they are worth something (or nothing). Any suggestions? Any alternative apps / programs that will allow me to do what I want? I thought I read somewhere that Litecoins and Bitcoins are compatible because they share the same block code, but I want to be sure before I transfer them, don't want to lose $1,000 because some transfer does work right.

hurricane1091

ARK partners with a PR firm, nice. https://blog.ark.io/ark-signs-partnership-with-pr-release-firm-bitcoin-pr-buzz-22366e7ffb7e

So recently, ARK became an SCIC (French equivalent of an LLC or INC). They signed a deal with a PR firm. They are nearly done mobile wallets. They are close to re-doing some core code which will increase security and lower fees. They really listen to the community, it's nice.

TechGromit

I was doing a search for something unrelated to this topic and came across this:

http://wealthyconcepts.net/guide-to-buying-bitcoin-with-your-ira/

While I certainly agree that investing in Cyptocurrency has potential for a good return on an investment, I believe it's highly speculative, and certainly not a vehicle for a long term investment such as for your retirement. If anyone is considering seriously investing in bitcoins using there IRA / 401k, I would use caution and remember that to diversify your portfolio. While it's tempting to invest all of you money in Bitcoins given the recent spike in prices, just look at other investments offered by Bernie Madoff. Investing in funds run by Bernie Madoff had consistent returns on money invested for years, it was a sure thing, and a safe investment... till it wasn't. Don't make the same mistake others made, remember that Cyptocurrency is a unregulated, highly speculative market that has the potential to end up being nothing more than a giant pyramid scheme that could ending up worthless. There will be no Irving Picard working to recover part of your investment like there is for victims of the Bernie Madoff disaster. Be forewarned.

Priston

I've been thinking about getting GBTC Bitcoin Investment Trust in my roth IRA, it would only be a small part of my portfolio.

JDMurray

Does anyone actually sell crypto-currencies for US$? How much virtual currency can you sell at one time and how long does it take? What do you pay for the transaction? What brokerages have the cheapest transaction fees?

TechGromit

JDMurray wrote: »

Does anyone actually sell crypto-currencies for US$? How much virtual currency can you sell at one time and how long does it take? What do you pay for the transaction? What brokerages have the cheapest transaction fees?

This is actually a good question, while lots of exchanges are more than happy to sell you bitcoins, I can't help wonder if you were to cash in 10k, 100k, or even millions of dollars worth of bitcoins, would they really be able to handle the transaction? Or stonewall you with delays or daily exchange limits.

Welly_59

Any cryptokitty breeders here?

NetworkNewb

JDMurray wrote: »

Does anyone actually sell crypto-currencies for US$? How much virtual currency can you sell at one time and how long does it take? What do you pay for the transaction? What brokerages have the cheapest transaction fees?

Coinbase and Gemini are the two top ones I know of. Gemini has the lower transaction fee but Coinbase seems simpler and has a nice app where you can track your money/coins in real time.

I've used Coinbase to buy, the transaction is instantaneous if you purchase with a Credit Card. Otherwise you can purchase by directly linking your bank account but it has a processing time of like 5 days. The credit card purchasing also carries with it a higher transaction fee though.

JDMurray

I've been listening to a lot of Bitcoin talk on financial programs and podcasts. I'm hearing reports of not being able to sell more than $2K-10K of Bitcoin per day, and the sell transactions taking a very long time to complete, and requiring multiple attempts to successfully place a sell order. The fees and commissions on Bitcoin transactions are rather high too--much higher than a bank or stock brokerage.

I'm really interested to see what happens to people's interest in virtual currencies when a prolonged drop in the value causes holders to attempt a massive sell-off and they can't. Of course, there isn't enough real value in the system to match all the virtual value stored, so first-come-first-served and the rest loose their "investment." It sounds like a variation of a Pyramid scheme.

TheFORCE

JDMurray wrote: »

I've been listening to a lot of Bitcoin talk on financial programs and podcasts. I'm hearing reports of not being able to sell more than $2K-10K of Bitcoin per day, and the sell transactions taking a very long time to complete, and requiring multiple attempts to successfully place a sell order. The fees and commissions on Bitcoin transactions are rather high too--much higher than a bank or stock brokerage.

I'm really interested to see what happens to people's interest in virtual currencies when a prolonged drop in the value causes holders to attempt a massive sell-off and they can't. Of course, there isn't enough real value in the system to match all the virtual value stored, so first-come-first-served and the rest loose their "investment." It sounds like a variation of a Pyramid scheme.

@jdmurray I did a test and opened an account with Coinbase. You need to go through an approval process where they ask you even for your employer information, not sure why that is necessary.
Step 1, i tried to add my credit card to buy coins, contrary to everyone's beleive and success so far this is not an authorized method to buy coins. Coinbase and other exchanges might have that option but the credit card company will not allow you to do this. I verified this with Visa, the transaction where declined.

Step 2, I added my bank account to transfer funds. This worked and it took more than 5 days, close to 6-7 days.

Step 3. Deposited $200 and bought approximately 1.90 Litecoins. The transaction fee was $1, this is the only fee that i havr seen so far. However this transaction took place 5 days ago and I have yet to receive the Litecoins in my Coinbase wallet.

Issues so far, 1. There is no limit price buy option, the transaction happens at market price, in my case i bought litecoin at 103.80 which means I'm already down $9 on my $200. I can see how this might be a reason why prices keep going up, people are only able to sell and buy at market price. Who are the Makret Makers though? How does the price drop when it does? Dont know yet.

Issue 2. When completing the transaction even though I selected my USD Coinbase wallet as the method of payment Coinbase actually went into my bank account and did a withdrawal to process the transation. So now I'm $400 into this with $200 still in the USD Coinbase wallet.

Personally i dont see why the crypto currencies even exist, they are not used to purchase anything yet. I see the benefit of blockchain but not crypto currency at this time.

Issue 3. The transaction has yet to be completed even after 5 days but my funds were already withdrawn. I thought this was suppose to be fast?

Bitcoin went up $3000 in 1 day, this is insane and as i read in an article they were describing it as a game of "who is the greater fool"

The limit by the way is $5000 a day in Coinbase for coin purchases, not sure what it is for the reverse.

JDMurray

I have not heard of anyone mentioning waiting so long to see a coin purchase appear in your online wallet. I wonder what the actual buy price of your Litecoin purchase will end up being one the transaction completes.

Great review and thanks for taking one for the team!

UPDATE: Great article answering some of my questions: http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/07/technology/bitcoin-explainer/index.html

JDMurray

This makes me think that it might not be so smart to transfer a local wallet file created by personal bitcoin mining activity to an online exchange, like Coinbase: Millions 'stolen' in NiceHash Bitcoin heist - BBC News

On the other hand, how else can you find value in Bitcoin unless you transfer your local wallet(s) to an exchange?

bhcs2014

TheFORCE wrote: »

@jdmurray I did a test and opened an account with Coinbase. You need to go through an approval process where they ask you even for your employer information, not sure why that is necessary.
Step 1, i tried to add my credit card to buy coins, contrary to everyone's beleive and success so far this is not an authorized method to buy coins. Coinbase and other exchanges might have that option but the credit card company will not allow you to do this. I verified this with Visa, the transaction where declined.

Step 2, I added my bank account to transfer funds. This worked and it took more than 5 days, close to 6-7 days.

Step 3. Deposited $200 and bought approximately 1.90 Litecoins. The transaction fee was $1, this is the only fee that i havr seen so far. However this transaction took place 5 days ago and I have yet to receive the Litecoins in my Coinbase wallet.

Issues so far, 1. There is no limit price buy option, the transaction happens at market price, in my case i bought litecoin at 103.80 which means I'm already down $9 on my $200. I can see how this might be a reason why prices keep going up, people are only able to sell and buy at market price. Who are the Makret Makers though? How does the price drop when it does? Dont know yet.

Issue 2. When completing the transaction even though I selected my USD Coinbase wallet as the method of payment Coinbase actually went into my bank account and did a withdrawal to process the transation. So now I'm $400 into this with $200 still in the USD Coinbase wallet.

Personally i dont see why the crypto currencies even exist, they are not used to purchase anything yet. I see the benefit of blockchain but not crypto currency at this time.

Issue 3. The transaction has yet to be completed even after 5 days but my funds were already withdrawn. I thought this was suppose to be fast?

Bitcoin went up $3000 in 1 day, this is insane and as i read in an article they were describing it as a game of "who is the greater fool"

The limit by the way is $5000 a day in Coinbase for coin purchases, not sure what it is for the reverse.

Coinbase KYP policies are required by law. Your bank probably blocked the transaction, not Visa.

Coinbase runs on top of the GDAX exchange. It's meant for novices so there is no limit buy/sell options. You just automatically buy at market price. Get on Gemini or GDAX if you want to do limit orders. In conclusion, don't use Coinbase.

The idea behind bitcoin is that it is a decentralized currency that can't be controlled by government. There is a fixed amount so there is no inflation. It's a cute idea but IMO government will never allow it to go mainstream. If anything they will create their own smart crypto that they can automatically track, tax, etc.

Yes, crypto's are a bubble. Going to be very interesting to watch the selloff.

TheFORCE

bhcs2014 wrote: »

Coinbase KYP policies are required by law. Your bank probably blocked the transaction, not Visa.

Coinbase runs on top of the GDAX exchange. It's meant for novices so there is no limit buy/sell options. You just automatically buy at market price. Get on Gemini or GDAX if you want to do limit orders. In conclusion, don't use Coinbase.

The idea behind bitcoin is that it is a decentralized currency that can't be controlled by government. There is a fixed amount so there is no inflation. It's a cute idea but IMO government will never allow it to go mainstream. If anything they will create their own smart crypto that they can automatically track, tax, etc.

Yes, crypto's are a bubble. Going to be very interesting to watch the selloff.

How did my banl block the transaction when I was trying to buy coins with a credit card?

I personally called my credit card company 2 different times and spoke with 2 different people. They saw the attempt for authorization on my record and they told me this activity or transaction is not an approved transaction that you can complete with a Visa card.

Other people might have been able to do that before but Visa is cracking down on this and not allowing people to do this going forward. Look it up online, plenty of reddit threads on the topic.

Didnt know about GDAX i might try that.

By the way, did another test and bought bitcoin with my $200 USD Coinbase wallet, this was instantaneous purchase and rhw coins where in my BTC wallet right away. Lets see what happens now.

JDMurray

GDAX uses your Coinbase authentication credentials, so making a new GDAX account with 2FA is easy. However, GDAX wants a webcam picture of your legal ID. I have no idea how secure GDAX is, so I'm not going for that.

And GDAX does have some ops problems: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price-manic-gdax-goes-down-after-price-clips-19000/

Russell77

bhcs2014 wrote: »

Coinbase KYP policies are required by law. Your bank probably blocked the transaction, not Visa.

Coinbase runs on top of the GDAX exchange. It's meant for novices so there is no limit buy/sell options. You just automatically buy at market price. Get on Gemini or GDAX if you want to do limit orders. In conclusion, don't use Coinbase.

The idea behind bitcoin is that it is a decentralized currency that can't be controlled by government. There is a fixed amount so there is no inflation. It's a cute idea but IMO government will never allow it to go mainstream. If anything they will create their own smart crypto that they can automatically track, tax, etc.

Yes, crypto's are a bubble. Going to be very interesting to watch the selloff.

The rapid rise in the price of bitcoin is the very thing that makes it useless as a currency. A currency needs stability to be accepted by the general public. Imagine if you sold your house for 10 bit coins at todays price and the price drops by even 5% the following day. No bank is going to take the chance on that happening if they are holding the paper on the real estate. The US government tries to control the value of the dollar against other forms of currency by adding to or withdrawing liquidity from the money supply. Without control mechanisims there can bullish or bearish runs on the dollar. I don't see a control mechanisim for bitcoin Forks seem to add liquidity but I don't see how liquidity can get taken out of the system when the economy overheats. Who is accountable for doing this if it's possible?

Blockchain technology/cryptocurrency does seem to have it's use in closed economic systems. I could see large multinational corporations using there own currency to transfer wealth between countries. These are controlled applications that are not subject to open market bidding. Just cutting out the cost of currency exchange will save companies millions.

I have seen a lot of bubbles in my day but this is one has gone up faster than any one that I can remember except maybe the dot com boom. I have seen this movie before and know how it ends.

NetworkNewb

Russell77 wrote: »

I have seen a lot of bubbles in my day but this is one has gone up faster than any one that I can remember except maybe the dot com boom. I have seen this movie before and know how it ends.

Its due for a large correction, but I don't think you will be done seeing Bitcoin for a while still. I could see it hitting 50k in the next couple years easy before finally bursting imo. A rule of thumb I go by is don't put it in any money that you wouldn't mind being ok with if you lost it all.

TheFORCE

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Its due for a large correction, but I don't think you will be done seeing Bitcoin for a while still. I could see it hitting 50k in the next couple years easy before finally bursting imo. A rule of thumb I go by is don't put it in any money that you wouldn't mind being ok with if you lost it all.

Isn't that what everyone tells everyone even for the stock market where you have real companies, making real products and having real profit?

Anyway, I knew that this would happen, the moment I'd buy BTC the thing would go the opposite direction. Yesterday it went from 15k to 18k in 1 day. I bought it at 17k, this morning it's at 14k!

I bet a lot of people are pulling their hair at those prices. Maybe this was a correction? Maybe this is the start of the storm? Who knows. There are so many limitations that I can see on this, not very practical.

Imagine you go to buy some expensive watch that is worth $17k and you pay using 1 BTC. The next day BTC goes down to 14K and the company that makes the watch just lost 3K on their watch valuation/profit. The opposite could be true too, but would you say at that time that your watch is worth 17K when you in fact bought it for 14k?

Paypal actually stopped accepting BTC as payment because of that reason, huge volatility. Even though they had limited support back in 2014-15.

Would be interesting to see where my $400 will end up. One thing I know, have to explain to my wife we now own 1.90 Litcoins and 0.11 Bitcoins and how we spend $400 but are now actually only worth $350.

Phalanx

TheFORCE wrote: »

Isn't that what everyone tells everyone even for the stock market where you have real companies, making real products and having real profit?

Anyway, I knew that this would happen, the moment I'd buy BTC the thing would go the opposite direction. Yesterday it went from 15k to 18k in 1 day. I bought it at 17k, this morning it's at 14k!

I bet a lot of people are pulling their hair at those prices. Maybe this was a correction? Maybe this is the start of the storm? Who knows. There are so many limitations that I can see on this, not very practical.

Imagine you go to buy some expensive watch that is worth $17k and you pay using 1 BTC. The next day BTC goes down to 14K and the company that makes the watch just lost 3K on their watch valuation/profit. The opposite could be true too, but would you say at that time that your watch is worth 17K when you in fact bought it for 14k?

Paypal actually stopped accepting BTC as payment because of that reason, huge volatility. Even though they had limited support back in 2014-15.

Would be interesting to see where my $400 will end up. One thing I know, have to explain to my wife we now own 1.90 Litcoins and 0.11 Bitcoins and how we spend $400 but are now actually only worth $350.

Hold tight for the ride! Monday will see the launch of Futures being sold for BTC, so this is about to get VERY interesting!

NetworkNewb

TheForce, I'll agree with you I don't think that it is the future of currencies cause of the volatility. I've heard others argue their point that is still young and it will settle down. But the price of Bitcoin just acts like a stock or gold. It is worth what people think it is worth and also it is not regulated by anything. There will always be some volatility in it. So I'd compare the value in holding it is like holding gold. (I know some people won't agree with that, but that is my view)

The thing that makes it more valuable is the ease on how it is transacted. But also there is still ALOT of people out there who have not invested in Bitcoin that will do so. More and more people hear about and see the prices go up want to put money into it and it just doesn't stop. It is what it is. Which is why I don't see the price stopping anytime soon. I see one of two things happening, governments will start shutting down crypto currencies because it is very hard for them to track it and they have no control over it. Or the growth of people who will be willing to put their money into it stop. Investors stop seeing it is a investment and every one takes their money out. Will either of those happen anytime soon? I doubt it.

One thing I saw this morning was yesterday South Korea reportedly banned the trade of futures contracts and other derivatives tied to bitcoin. South Korea is crazy over Bitcoin and actually has ATMs for it and they use alot for transactions. So that is a good reason why it probably went down. There is new news coming out all the time and prices are effected by it so if you really want you could track those and try and buy and sell. Otherwise it's a good idea just not too pay much attention to it or you'll get doubt put in your head everytime you see a drop like this. Which will happen alot.

Edit: funny fact, just read that Coinbase is now the top downloaded (free) app on Apple's App Store.

JDMurray

Steam and Valve are no longer accepting Bitcoin as payment due to its volatility (i.e., instability) as a currency: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/game-over-steam-no-longer-accepts-bitcoin-due-to-high-fees-and-volatility/