Bitcoin et al.
 

Has anyone here used bitcoin and have an opinion?

Just noticed that newegg.com is accepting bitcoin and wondering if its becoming more mainstream now.

I used to "mine" for bitcoins. I had it run 24x7 for a few months and ended up with just over 0.00035 bitcoins.

I trust it as much as I trust Paypal/Venmo for realtime payments. Very skeptical about the long term value with the dual threats of government crackdown and more hardcore/surreptitious cryptocurrencies like ZCash.

Based on the posts in this thread it appears most were like me and simply overlooked Bitcoin in the past. Now with Bitcoin about to cross $9000 in the next hour(s)/day(s) did anyone invest early enough to make this an extra nice holiday season?

I invested a little bit when it was just over 4k(2-3 months ago). Its a roller coaster ride that is for sure. The fact that it could just all bottom out in a heartbeat is the scary aspect of it. It has that feeling that you are either going to multiply your investment numerous times or end up with zero with no in between so it would only be for an ultra aggressive investor.

I started paying attention about a month ago. Bitcoin was $5600. Figured I'd missed the boat. So I've been putting some money into XRP and Litecoin.

XRP (Ripple) seems to have a good use case. Plenty of big banks are adopting some of Ripple's tech. Plus I like that they are cheap right now. About $0.24 will buy you an XRP. Feels like you've accomplished something instead of buying 0.08 bitcoin! Of all the alt coins out there, this one just struck me more than the others as being a decent long term bet.

Litecoin I bought on a hunch a few days ago at $72.00. It's up to $84 right now.

My brother put in about 5k back in July, so he has a healthy profit going

Looks like it is crossing $10,000 tonight.

All the alt coins I own are riding the coattails.

Started my coinbase account back in November of 2013. Bought a little bit. Sold it a few months later. Regret it now.

Litecoin, IOTA, XLM, Agrello and Cardona have been great recently for me.

I’m in on IOTA and EOS. Cardona I hadn’t seen until today

I put a little into XLM about a month ago @ $.035. Nice to double my money. I still think XRP is ahead of them in terms of use case. But XRP hasn't seen the astronomical gains the past few days like XLM.

Picking up some gambling winnings today at the local tavern. Might just plop that into crypto and gamble some more. Debating on which one is a good buy at the moment.

IOTA through the roof now, peaked at 60% profit today and now it's down to around 26% vs yesterday. Too bad I didn't invest on it but now it might be a good time before it rebounds again after some investors stop selling for profit, specially with the news about big companies Microsoft, Samsung, Fujitsu, Cisco & Wolkswagen supporting it.

I have a few k invested on BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP and XLM but it was just as a way to force myself to learn about blockchain technology that at some point will affect my business.

If I had the time now, I see a good time to speculate and work on a trading algorithm connected by API to the exchanges. I did some day trading for a few days and got a few hundred $ while having fun but it was way too stressing doing it manually and don't have the time to focus on it right now.

It's like the stock market on steroids and based more on emotions than real base by now, so it means high profit potential at high risk too, never invest whatever you're not ready to lose.

Waiting for some USD to get put into my Coinbase account. Probably going to buy some NEO and maybe some ETH. Those two look like decent buys at the moment.

XRP hasn't moved much during this craziness, in fact I'm a little in the hole on my XRP investment. Right now that's the biggest part of my little portfolio so I think I'm going to go after a few different ones that I don't have.

XLM has been crazy. I'm at almost 300% return in a month and a half. Wish I would have a few extra zeroes after my initial investment. I thought about getting more at $0.10 but now it's up around $0.14 so I might hold off to see if a correction is coming. Same with IOTA. That's just a little too crazy for me at the moment.

Yea, I'm up a tidy 150% in one month. Mainly thanks to IOTA and EOS but I've also recently added XLM to my mix.

Hoping to get ARK moving in the right direction...

I bought in a little on bitcoin back when it was at 10K. I'm not really sure what to do. The reality is I could lose every penny and be OK, so I will probably ride it out in a fairly risky manner. I have to admit, I'm not sure about any of the other currencies on coinbase. I've only noticed Ethereum and Litecoin - are there more available?

Those are the ones available on Coinbase. Other exchanges will have some more variety. Kraken is where I got my XLM. Bitstamp has the three that are on Coinbase plus XRP. I've opened an account on Binance in order to get some NEO.

Be careful, there are some shady ones out there. I'm soon moving all currency to a Ledger Nano S to get them off the exchanges.

Binance is what I've been using to buy IOTA.

Can someone answer a real simple question for me: if I got in early on Bitcoin
(I didn't) and had 10 of them (I don't), and wanted to sell all 10 at the moment you are reading this (I wish), could I?

It's hard to concede that something that isn't really anything has any value just because someone made it and said it was valuable. It's like a modern day Beanie Baby.

https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-...keeps-growing/

I would say it's the modern version of junk bonds. But, you can still make some money. I sold a portion of my investment at 16K (bought in at 10K).

I use Coinbase to trade. I'm not sure the max you can sell there, but I've been able to buy and sell fairly easily so far (at my fairly modest amounts).

Is there any vehicle to buy something like a put against Bitcoin?

Yes. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/with...g-to-work.html

I'm kicking myself for not getting in on Bitcoin early when a guy I know who is usually bang on with these type of things told me to get in a few years ago. I grabbed a token amount a little while ago just to follow along really.

I did pick up some litecoins a few days ago when they were a little over 100 AUD a coin, and they've nearly doubled in value overnight.

Curious to see what happens over the weekend and into Monday with the new Futures trading of Bitcoin. I'm personally expecting a bit of a dip but who really knows.

BTC unstoppable at this time.

Similarly really upset I didn't get into this in 2013 when a Friend was telling me he had started mining. Hindsight and all that

Litecoin is even better right now, 82% up in the last 24 hours, Ether also going up a lot as do other alt coins.

The whole thing it's crazy bubble that at some point will explode, but even with huge margins already if i sold, the greedy side of me is not willing to sell but to forget about the investment I did (a few $k) and see if they ever reach 100x value again or if I just lose everything.

I bought two more Litecoins yesterday at $198. Thought I was making a mistake as I didn’t wait for a dip. Well, it’s almost $350 this morning....

I’ve almost doubled my money in cryptos now. And that’s without the majority of my holdings (XRP) doing much of anything and not holding any bitcoin. This is all since the end of September.

XRP finally making a nice run.

An extremely nice one!

After xrp now it’s eth turn!

I've been assuming everyone has been doing this from the start, but I will make a quick post reminding people to trade on GDAX instead of Coinbase. Coinbase charges fees between 1.5% and 5% for trades and/or adding money. You can trade on GDAX (with your coinbase account) for free by using the Limit/Stop method of trading. I've made 5-6 different trades over the past 24 hours via GDAX and not paid a cent. Here's a YouTube video on how it is done if you guys haven't used GDAX yet:

Nearing 12k and falling fast.

Is this a temporary drop or has the bubble popped?

I think it's a factor of all the crap CNBC and others laid on Coinbase for the whole Bitcoin Cash fiasco. Plus, I think there has been a fraction of people pulling out money for Christmas going on over the past week.

Just google "reason bitcoin dropping" and you will see a ton of stories over the past 2-3 years panicking about a 30+% drop in a short period. I think a lot of short term investors panic when they see it starting to drop. If you are in it for the long haul, just keep cashing out small pocked of profits after a certain number and let it ride. I've cashed out about 70% of my original investment through the good times of late and bought back in this morning at 12.5K again. It seems like this is par for the course with bitcoin - I'm guessing it will be back to 15-17K by the New Year.

Probably due for a correction anyway.

XRP got over $1.00 but has come back down to ~$0.90ish right now. I still think XRP is going to have a big year in 2018. Considering I bought in at $0.24 in October, I won't panic that it's come down a bit.

What bitcoin wallets do you recommend?

Hardware wallet: Ledger Nano S

This.

And.... I'm pretty much back to where I was two days ago in terms of value of my coins.

Any predictions?

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...-crash-n844056

It'd be silly to think it was going to continue on the same trajectory it was on. I'm not in Bitcoin but with my entry point being the end of September 2017 into cryptos, I'm still at 125% profits. Yeah, the people who bought in when BTC was touching $20,000 are hurting but the people who bought at $1000 one year ago are still sitting pretty good.

I'm in buy mode right now after taking a break during the craziness of that bull run.

(edit: not)-dola,

Not really predicting anything, I just think of that scene every time someone asks for predictions.

I just don't understand the purpose of these cryptocurrencies other than speculative investment vehicles. The wild swings in valuation make them terrible choices for currencies.

Money laundering, payment for black market items, drugs, etc.

Transfer of money to/from sanctioned countries/individuals. Transfer of money in support of terror or terror regimes. It wouldn't surprise me if the government spent a ton on bitcoin for the black budget projects for the military.

The coding that allowed for the electronic anonymity on the Dark Web came from a U.S. naval research facility, and the U.S. is behind a lot of the funding that keeps it running, because that anonymity allows for communication with assets in sanctioned regions or ones where their anonymity protects them. I don't think it's even a secret, just a poorly communicated one.

U.S. (and allies) covert operations more or less accept that the anonymity is a requirement for the work they're doing. But that anonymity needed to be available to others in general, otherwise everyone would know that someone who was untracrable online was almost certainly a U.S. agent. That of course means putting it out there for the general public to use, including criminals and geopolitcal enemies.

Strangely enough, one hand of the U.S. foots a big portion of the bill behind the elements that keep the Dark Web up, while another part of the U.S. government works to track down enemy actions on that same Dark Web (counter-intelligence, antiterrorism) and criminal activities (FBI, DEA).

Bitcoin is also probably propped up by the U.S., but I suspect the primary funder is China. From what I understand, crypto really got its start and support there, and some of the biggest cryptomining and blockchain operations are in China because the People's Republic works to keep them hidden while also partaking of their services.

Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general ) was a business necessity once online anonymity became a thing because financial transactions could be tracked even if online identities could not. Dark Web users needed the protection provided by both elements (online and financial).

So the U.S. has an immense role in the existence and even support of crypto. Which is why I think it's here to stay, just as the Internet is. I do suspect a lot of the current valuations and price volatility in crypto and particularly Bitcoin are a result of a bubble founded on greed and uncertainty by the vast majority of crypto owners, but over the long haul, it is likely to settle down and move up and down in a similar fashion to basic stocks.

I highly recommending giving a listen to the Dark Web series available for free to Prime users on Audible. It is fascinating and scary at the same time. There is a ton on there about Bitcoin and crypto.

Downloaded it, going to give it a listen. Thanks for the suggestion.

Classic!

Amazing!

Just setup a coinbase account today. Haven't bought anything yet, and plan to "invest" cautiously and only what I can afford to lose.

I think cryptos are here to stay and need to understand it better by dipping into it.

Feel free to share any words of wisdom.

Not a bad time to get in. I know people that lost their ass getting in the past few months while stuff was sailing along at all-time highs. I'm still in the green overall but any money I've stuck in the past few months hasn't made anything yet.

Here's my outlook right now:

Safe plays: BTC, ETH
Decent Upside, but fairly well established: LTC, NEO, XRP
Lottery Tickets: ADA, TRX

I like platforms, so NEO and ETH are seeing most of my money at the moment.

Something I have learned today after installing a new app the tracks all my sales/buys, is that even when I thought I knew what I was doing, at the end I would have had similar results not doing any trading at all and just sitting on my portfolio :D

Of course with all the trading I have learned a lot, both about markets in general and specially about the different coins, the technology behind them etc

What is your definition of "safe play" e.g. it won't crash much further, won't go to $0, can only go up etc.?"

Bitcoin and Ethereum are the current top two. In the crypto space, won’t go to zero is probably as safe as it gets. Ethereum is a platform coin. Most of these initial coin offerings are run off the Ethereum platform. Basically, it is operational. While 99% of these other coins are a hope and a dream.

Bitcoin is pretty self-explanatory. It’s the big name right now. It drives the market.

I like NEO. It’s a lot like Ethereum. It provides passive income in the form of another coin (Gas). It is often called the Ethereum of China.

Just bought the "Ledger Nano S".

Decided to buy direct vs Amazon. Paid $10 more for the peace of mind.

Fun times ahead (and a lot more reading).

Good move. Don’t be afraid to delete apps on the Ledger even if it has coins stored on it. App storage is kind of limited. But you can delete an app and reinstall it later without losing your coins

Reading up on Bitcoin and how some exchanges were hacked (e.g. Mt. Gox).

Question -

I assume that Coinbase can also be hacked. If Coinbase is hacked, my bitcoins in the Nano S wallet will still be safe right?

Some articles seem to indicate this but wanted to confirm.

Everything can be hacked. If your coins are stored in your wallet, Coinbase being hacked will not impact your coins though.

I think BTC becomes a black market currency and is constantly under attack by the powers that be globally and the price becomes difficult to bet on as it becomes harder and harder to convert it to paper.

Just saw the video re: GDAX (thanks Arles).

When I went into GDAX, I could see trading on a Sat. Its 24/7 trading (guess should have known) and Bitcoin is $8K, down approx 6% today so far.

I don't understand why there are so many different altcoins and how they can make money and be sustainable (e.g. steemit)

After an hour of googling, I'm still not sure what the answer is - each altcoin has their own "IPO" / ICO and can be viewed as their own corporation with their own raison d'etre.

I see the benefit of digital currency ... I don't yet see the benefit of so many different types. Its smells a lot like the dotcom boom/bust to me ...

... my altcoin education continues

Definitely a lot of shitcoins out there. I look for ones that solve a problem.

I think it's asinine that as a society we are supposedly more environmentally aware while at the same time inventing new ways to waste massive amounts of energy doing arguably useless calculations. Show me a coin that doesn't consume ever-larger amounts of energy as the chain grows, and the energy it does consume is useful beyond just the mathematical proof in itself, and I might get interested. As it stands something like BitCoin just appears completely wasteful and unsustainable to me.

Welp, its been interesting reading the Bitcoin and Ethereum reddit pages past couple days.

Definitely a lot more negative/hodl sentiment than positive (which I guess is to be expected). BTC and ETH down 4.5% and 10% today.

Its obvious to me that one needs a different mindset to invest in BTC, ETH etc. vs stocks, mutual funds, ETFs. I think definitely more "gambling" than "investing".

XRP? Pre-generated coins. Agree re: energy, but that's a large part of why the coins are valued as they are (although not disagreeing that its an incredible waste of energy - the tech equivalent of a leather jacket made of white rhino hide).

Oh great.

Just a PSA for Ledger Nano S owners.

A “tamper-proof� currency wallet just got backdoored by a 15-year-old | Ars Technica

Haven't dipped into the market yet with my Nano S but still educating myself.

I think there is an overall negative/bear sentiment in Bitcoins in reading the reddit pages. I don't mind missing the "bottom" so think I'll wait until there is a more positive/stable outlook.

Question for those more experienced here.

1) Do you believe there are massive pump-and-dump schemes in Bitcoin & Ethereum? I'm pretty sure some of it is going on but r/buttcoin make it sound as if this, solely, is what's driving the large swings?

2) Unlike stock market where companies have "fundamentals" that can be analyzed and therefore priced accordingly, many seem to be analyzing Bitcoins and such using "technical" analysis/patterns etc. Do you think this is a valid way of gauging the up/down/price movements?

3) What is your sentiment Bitcoin & Ethereum now?

Always seemed like a speculation or a concept driven by other nefarious market forces.



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...osses-reach-80

I've been riding out this bear market. Of course I've only put in money I can afford to lose.

PNC Bank announcing they are adopting one of Ripple's products has sent XRP skyrocketing the past few days. It was hovering in that high 20 cent range a few days ago and is now trading around 60 cents.

The majority of my holdings are XRP so my portfolio is a lot less ugly today. When I started this, I was thinking five years and I'm not even a year into it yet. Sure, I should've cashed out when I was up 500% but you can't win 'em all!

Good to know. The only thing I've used bitcoin for so far is to fund my offshore sportsbook accounts.

Bot?

The fact that you're asking worries me.

Bots editing posts is new, yes?

Bloodbath yesterday in the crypto markets

Is it just me or are 95% of NFTs just outright scams? And it's crazy how much money they're claiming to have raised. I need to figure out how to get people to handy me nothing and give nothing in return.

Or maybe I've just been watching too many of Coffiezilla's videos on Youtube.

I'd say 95% is too low.

NFTs make so much more sense when you see them as money laundering schemes.

I've got IT!

I'll create a FOFC poster line of NFTs! Imagine you getting to have a bullshit claim of ownership over posters such as JPhillips, Brian Swartz, Lathum or even past posters such as jbmagic!

I'll be rich when I rugpull the whole thing!

Everyone thinks that everyone else is the sucker who will get left holding the bag.

if you lose all your bitcoin, buy twice as much

I hope nobody was heavy into Luna.

PRICE CHANGE (7D)

-99.98%

I see no flaws here.

Oh, no! A pyramid schemes are going bust? Who would have thought?
NFT's are like baseball cards, beanie babies, comic books etc. They become hot collectables, every one stampedes to buy them up, then the demand disappears and you are left with a worthless whatever.

just bought a little $LUNA today... not enough to worry over, but... i mean...if it doesn't go to zero, who knows

Yeah, I'm so glad I only invested in the traditional stock market like a regular sucker.

We don't agree all that often but you certainly nailed this one.

Bingo

This struck me as sensible. I quickly signed up on Coinbase that evening and bought $50 worth of something called Wrapped LUNA Token. I figured I'd try to quickly double my money with the dead cat bounce and have a nice steak dinner as a reward.

Well, the dead cat hadn't finished falling :-) My balance has been hovering between $3-$7 since then.

I guess I'm a buy-and-hold crypto investor now.

My buddy is really in to it and keeps telling me to buy more. I have picked up a bunch of Solana and Cardano. It is hard to watch day after day it go up a little or drop but he keeps insisting this time next year I'll be glad I held on to it.

I will never buy crypto on principle. It needs volatility to be successful, which is the exact opposite of what you want in a currency. And that leaves aside contributing to all of the negative consequences that result from the industry in general.

For me, once I understood the concept of the 4 year cycle it all started to make sense. The 4 year cycle is driven by the Bitcoin halving. Bitcoin is the big fish, and will dictate the market.

I think the term cryptocurrency is very misleading, the future of almost all of these assets are not as a currency. Most never intended to be.

The last 4 year cycle ended in 2017. The peak was mid December 2017. This time round the peak was a little earlier, mid November 2021. A double peak cycle, like the 2013 cycle.

I think its a pretty good bet our next cycle peak will be around Q4 2025. All this talk of volatility and crypto crashing makes no sense to me. Simply refer back to this point 4 years ago.

Always possible for black swan events to have an impact, but typically the cycle gets back on course quickly.

Traditionally the bottom of the cycle has been right around the 200 week moving average, which is currently around $22k. We have already seen $25.4k so whilst its possible that was the bottom, history would indicate we likely go lower. The Bitcoin halving isn't until 2024, so it appears we have several years ahead before the market sees real strength again.

But to put things in to perspective, the bottom in the last cycle was around $2,500 in 2018. Now we are talking about a likely bottom around $22k. You will see everyone freaking out on social medial. Even if we drop in to the teens, lets say $17.5k...we would be x7 in 4 years and everyone will tell you the sky is falling.

Understand the 4 year cycle which is driven by the halving and it starts to make sense. Yet people will likely still start buying when things start rolling in 2024, and even the peaks in 2025.

Probably diminishing returns as the market grows in size, but I imagine 4 years from now people are tearing their hair out as Bitcoin "crashes" to $50k or so. Having bought at $100-150k I am sure it will seem awful, and the narrative will be no different from what it is now.

One more key point I learnt. Don't hold alt coins in a bear market. They will bleed against Bitcoin. Alt coins will not show strength until Bitcoin does. So plenty of time to get in to them. They go down harder, and rise faster.

There is a real chance some of these alt coins don't make the next bull market. They could be replaced by superior technology or collapse Luna style. Worth the gamble in maybe a year from now IMO, but right now the risk reward doesn't work for me.

Good chance we see Bitcoin lose 30% or so this year, that would likely mean 50%+ for even the larger cap alts such as Solana or Cardano. More for smaller cap alts. As the bull run gets closer I suspect we see new projects take a shot at those high cap alts. Who knows how that ends up for them.

Honest question; what do you think the future is, if not as a currency?

To my way of thinking, that's the only way they can even pretend to have actual value. This isn't like owning stock in a company that produces goods and services. If Bitcoin isn't a currency, what is it and why should anyone place any value on it, ever?

Great question! I think the beanie baby response above might be the best comparable.

I guess the only reason anything has value, is because people agree it has value. Between ourselves we establish a market value for something.

To answer the question more directly, I would suggest Bitcoin should be viewed as a store of value. Perhaps in a similar vein to a precious metal. As the world as moved online it seems that physically storing a precious metal is cumbersome and outdated. No doubt there is a generational divide, people hate change. It seems to me people like to fall back on their experience and knowledge of the world as it was, rather than what it is now. You won't find too many young people buying gold. I think the market cap of gold is around 12 trillion, to Bitcoin's half a trillion. As time goes buy I suspect that gap closes.

One huge problem with any store of value has been increasing supply. We are seeing it now with fiat currency in particular, and to a lesser extent with metals. They can be mined, and increase the supply, which decreases the value. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin (around 19 million are currently mined). Less actually, as some are lost and will be gone forever.

One major difference between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is that Bitcoin is decentralized. Nobody owns it. No CEO, who impose choices or future directions, or skims profits. It runs on a blockchain, every transaction is available for everyone to see. Simple and fair.

It was designed in such a way for the price to go up over time, due to the Bitcoin halving (halving the supply that hits the market every 4 years). But with diminishing returns of growth. With that comes diminishing volatility. Its still fairly high growth/high volatility, but much less so than it was. In time things will become a lot more boring.

It's possible that down the line it could be replaced by a Bitcoin 2.0. However every project that comes out has a CEO who wants to make money, which kills the threat to Bitcoin. Bitcoin has that first mover advantage, it just seems an almost perfectly designed concept.

Most of the media don't seem to understand the 4 year cycle (dictated by the halving). You read headlines of its crashed etc. The point they miss is where in the cycle we are. Look up a chart, and go back 4 years at any point. It put things in to context. Most people don't get it, they buy at the wrong point in the cycle. When everyone else is talking about Bitcoin.

But this won't last forever, the growth. Things will start to flatline over time. It will become more of a store of value than an investment. Who knows if it will pass the test of time, but for now it is working as intended.

It is currently my 3rd largest holding behind Tesla and Google, and this year the plan is for it to move to 2nd. I have pretty high diversification so it might be 15% of my portfolio by year end.

Sorry about the size. This is a guy telling everyone to calm down about Celsius freezing withdrawals because it is probably just a liquidity crisis.

When a liquidity crisis is the good interpretation of what's happening, then you are several steps past fucked.

Haha. :D

Sounds like a "run on the banks".

I guess another good reason to store stuff in cold wallets?

I grabbed another 0.5 btc at $22.8k. Straight to the cold wallet until 2025. Great opportunity. Hoping to see prices in the teens but couldn't take the risk that it doesn't happen.