Buying bitcoins

cnocbui

WhiteMemento9 wrote: »

You can't compare the two like that though. BTC is such a volatile market that you could easily be down 10% tomorrow. I am not saying it isn't a good investment but looking at returns over a tiny period like a day in BTC is crazy. It is completely meaningless.

I was mostly just commenting about the ludicrous situation with low interest rate levels, that taking a risk, I could get in one day what via a bank would take 3 decades. It's crazy. I wasn't advocating BTC as a safe investment.

I know I could be down 10% tomorrow, a few days ago I was down more than that, which is why I placed the small order.

Why do people continually comment about the volatility of cryptos as if that was a bad thing as it is exactly what allows people to make spectacular returns? It was that volatility I was trying to exploit, which I succeeded at, even at these high valuation levels. Volatility = opportunity.

Supercell

Major pump on XRP, cant help but feel this is coordinated, not going to jump onboard, though it is tempting.

lawred2

Supercell wrote: »

Major pump on XRP, cant help but feel this is coordinated, not going to jump onboard, though it is tempting.

I can't see a major pump on XRP anywhere...

pro_gnostic_8

cnocbui wrote: »

Why do people continually comment about the volatility of cryptos as if that was a bad thing as it is exactly what allows people to make spectacular returns? It was that volatility I was trying to exploit, which I succeeded at, even at these high valuation levels. Volatility = opportunity.

It is good for us, indeed, but volatility is bad for Bitcoin and other crypto's.
Excessive volatility hinders wider acceptance of cryptocurrency -- merchants and businesses become reluctant to accept payments if the fiat value of the bitcoin payment swings wildly on a daily basis.

DeVore

Thats only true if it goes down

Some merchants have been very quick to adopt BTC and I feel at least some of them its because they see a future in the growth of the currency. If you were that famous pizza delivery company, you're very happy today

I've taken a position with LTC now... lets see what tomorrow brings but its already up 20% from when I bought.

pro_gnostic_8

DeVore wrote: »

Thats only true if it goes down

Some merchants have been very quick to adopt BTC and I feel at least some of them its because they see a future in the growth of the currency.

Quite of few of them (merchants) have withdrawn from accepting bitcoin over the course of the past year, tho'.
Stability of pricing/payments is fundamental to a merchant's business. No point in accepting bitcoin if it crashes by 15% overnight as it has done many many times. Okay, price might rise too -- which is very likely with bitcoin -- but this scenario just does not play out with a merchants business model. A merchant is not a holder like us -- they need to cash out to pay the rent, pay wages, pay for replenishment of stock. If they were tempted to hold, they may as well pack in the business and become investors in btc instead.

Best of luck with the Litecoin buy, btw. Welcome to the crazy rollercoaster- ride of Crypto. 20% ROI in a matter of days is none too shabby -- acquaintances of mine wet themselves as they tell me how their shares have risen by 3% in a year. I haven't the courage to mention to them that Ether has risen by 2,600% in the same period.

DeVore

For a future currency, yes... instability is bad for the reasons you mentioned. As soon as the price trend is no longer so crazy positive, those issues become real, particularly if even a small but significant chunk of their income is coming from it. But the variance in crypto, particularly as the market cap grows, will settle down. I mean, Sterling dropped like a stone over brexit and people didnt stop taking sterling... variance of 3-4% is by no means unusual in the fiat world.

cnocbui

pro_gnostic_8 wrote: »

It is good for us, indeed, but volatility is bad for Bitcoin and other crypto's.
Excessive volatility hinders wider acceptance of cryptocurrency -- merchants and businesses become reluctant to accept payments if the fiat value of the bitcoin payment swings wildly on a daily basis.

For cryptos to be used as currency, you really need a fixed value, or essentially no volatility whatsoever, in which case investing would be pointless if you were after gains.

No crypto that requires anything other than negligible cost to transact, will ever get wide acceptance or use. Bitcoin fails spectacularly in that regard due to the exponentially increasing energy requirement.

DeVore

cnocbui wrote: »

For cryptos to be used as currency, you really need a fixed value, or essentially no volatility whatsoever, in which case investing would be pointless if you were after gains.

Sterling could hardly be called "fixed"...

People still invest in fiat currencies and they have been around for a long time (and are being QE'ed to bits quietly too!)

No crypto that requires anything other than negligible cost to transact, will ever get wide acceptance or use. Bitcoin fails spectacularly in that regard due to the exponentially increasing energy requirement.

The negligible transaction costs is fair point, which in part is why I have put money into Litecoin.

scamalert

DeVore wrote: »

Sterling could hardly be called "fixed"...

People still invest in fiat currencies and they have been around for a long time (and are being QE'ed to bits quietly too!)

its fixed compare any top fiat in last decade to any crypto and its apples and oranges you have. One is based on physical and actual events, cryptos are based on speculation in their own realm.

Pro_gnostic is raving on returns vs bank/shares just because hes able to buy into penny amounts that shot out on random hype, its like putting 10$ in forex and using 500% leverage and after a tick either you bust or go rich and hype how it would take 20 years to get same result from bank.

I could do poker freeroll and make a bank enough to cover my interest for next 10 years that wouldnt mean i could live of it because i got lucky with minimal skills.

people make money on the side in millions ways these days, cryptos is smth that's low bar given 700 over to choose from on a gamble it might move up, but potentially its digital asset that's only good while you can move it back to fiat to reap into reward for risk.

Since almost every top crypto has all the structure to be fixed digital currency and used world wide, but in 10 years it hardly made any move, since there's no actual need for regular joe to go buying some coins when you can pay with existing money you have now to anyone anywhere, just extra hassle if your penny saving on once in a year transaction abroad really.

Dohnjoe

scamalert wrote: »

Since almost every top crypto has all the structure to be fixed digital currency and used world wide, but in 10 years it hardly made any move, since there's no actual need for regular joe to go buying some coins when you can pay with existing money you have now to anyone anywhere, just extra hassle if your penny saving on once in a year transaction abroad really.

Cryptos in their current form would be a nightmare as a replacement national currency

• Unregulated decentralised market behind in which there are no rules. Insider trading? no prob, Cartels? easy, no checks and balances, no limits, no laws, no regulation. A 25% one day drop in crypto may annoy us, a similar drop in a national currency would be catastrophic.
  
• Extreme risk to the individual user (scams, hacks, malware, loss of private keys, etc - no one wants to be personally responsible for their life savings under those conditions)
  
• Technically complex for the average user
  
• Cryptos themselves facing challenges, scaling issues, forks, hacks (like the DAO)
  
• Not possible to use physically or with no internet connection/electricity
  
• Central banks unable to enact fiscal/monetary policy to help stabilise or grow economy, to mitigate crashes, etc

There are dozens of reasons why current cryptos would be worse as a replacement currency. I am sure progressive countries like Finland and Switzerland will likely have small limited "trials" running alongside normal fiat, but that will probably be the extent of it

Current crypto's real potential is as a behind the scenes "smart" money. Being used in industry and financial infrastructure. That's huge. That's why so many large institutions are plowing money into and researching the tech behind blockchain and distributed ledger

I keep using "current cryptos", because if any country decides to adopt, they would create their own centralised digital currencies

As mentioned earlier in the thread, we can already pay for stuff in seconds (chip and pin, debit/credit cards, etc), we have relative stability, lack of risk, lack of a volatility, deposits insured, monetary stability (a once in a lifetime systemic crash was contained) and so on

cnocbui

DeVore wrote: »

Sterling could hardly be called "fixed"...

People still invest in fiat currencies and they have been around for a long time (and are being QE'ed to bits quietly too!)

The negligible transaction costs is fair point, which in part is why I have put money into Litecoin.

I will bet that no more than 0.0001 % of any given country's population ever engage in currency speculation. It's never called investing, for good reasons.

What I meant by stable is that from day to day, a fiat currency does not change in purchasing power relative to the vast majority of goods and services that people pay for on a daily basis. Exchange rates between currencies do indeed vary, but aside from Venezuelas, and Zimbabwes, the price of goods and services in most countries is very stable relative to income as most are domestically produced. Indeed such stability was one of the core reasons for establishing the Euro

DeVore

Day-trading this stuff is like trying to jump from elevator to elevator trying to get to the top of a building

I used to be a pro poker player and I had more info to go on then than I do now
LTC has treated me kindly tho but I'll be jumping back to the relative safety (ha!) of ETH shortly. Looks like the BTC guys and gals are on their own private rollercoaster!

DeVore

ps: I used to write software for institutional share traders (yeah, I've had a weird life )... one thing occurs to me, they would never have traded this dynamically because the inherent cost of the trade would dampen their activity (this was before electronic/programmatic trading became a thing). With crypto the potential gains are so large that the % cost (and the ease of making the trades so slight) that it makes any cost (financial or human) very slight. I wonder how much that plays into the volatility.

NomadicGray

Any Ants in your pants lads?

jester77

NomadicGray wrote: »

Any Ants in your pants lads?

If only, mad gains

Thargor

This unaturally stable BTC and ETH price is making me think a crash is coming...

makeorbrake

Some debate above about the stability of btc. Hasn't this improved over the years? Don't get me wrong - it's still wild - but as we move forward, year-on-year, is there not an expectation that it will become ever more stable with less and less volatile swings?

scopper

DeVore wrote: »

ps: I used to write software for institutional share traders (yeah, I've had a weird life )... one thing occurs to me, they would never have traded this dynamically because the inherent cost of the trade would dampen their activity (this was before electronic/programmatic trading became a thing). With crypto the potential gains are so large that the % cost (and the ease of making the trades so slight) that it makes any cost (financial or human) very slight. I wonder how much that plays into the volatility.

It's an issue for sure, I have long noticed that crypto traders pay little attention to the cost of trades. Most don't even track their portfolios very well, effectively going on a whim!

DeVore

Thargor wrote: »

This unaturally stable BTC and ETH price is making me think a crash is coming...

Its kind of a sign of the crazy that a prolonged (!?) period of calm foreshadows a crash? (I dont share this view but I have little more evidence for my opinion than the poster offered for his!)

The one consideration is the concept of a hard ledge of "worth". If the currency trades at this level for a while, if it then varies from that position it will be viewed as a "delta"... a divergence from the "agreed worth" of a currency. Any spike is potentially just a surge that will return after profit taking, any trough is an opportunity to invest now before it returns to its "agreed value". So, how would any crypto grow... because of inflationary pressure from incoming money. Once the currency stablises and shows it can maintain worth, more cautious investors will buy in, believing in a sort of "hard floor" of its current value and expecting another round of surges until a new "floor" is established. The whole thing is like a roulette where which pays 3:1 on black and 3:1 on red... in the long run, its bound to pay off (this is also not my view, but its my view of what THEIR view is).

Look back through the history of the currencies... with only a few exceptions whenever the currency (Eth, Btc, LTC) has been stable at a value for a numbers of days/weeks... its never fallen below that again for any length of time. two exceptions are BTC's crash last year and LTC's crash after a blitz to 50USD. The latter is explained as a spike, the former I dont know. Probably initial offering profit taking.

Of course, because this is all based on a token which in the end has no real value per se , its all a study in psychology.

makeorbrake

DeVore wrote: »

Of course, because this is all based on a token which in the end has no real value per se , its all a study in psychology.

Coins, bits of paper, plastic cards - all a study in psychology and sentiment. Of course, the former established over time. No reason crypto's can't do this over time.....as they do offer some advantages (some would say they add value i.e. no comparison with tulipmania - others would say they have no intrinsic value...).

Thargor

DeVore wrote: »

Its kind of a sign of the crazy that a prolonged (!?) period of calm foreshadows a crash? (I dont share this view but I have little more evidence for my opinion than the poster offered for his!)

Oh dont worry you can take it as read that any opinion of mine on future cryptocurrency price movements comes directly from between my ass cheeks...

wannabecraig

i know I can probably ask my broker this but how do you feel it look for me trying to get a mortgage while buying crypto on my current account?
I'm buying small amounts.

DeVore

Thargor wrote: »

Oh dont worry you can take it as read that any opinion of mine on future cryptocurrency price movements comes directly from between my ass cheeks...

My point really was that absolutely nobody actually knows

el diablo

el diablo wrote: »

True, there's quite a bit of uncertainty in both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Might take some time for them both to get back to their previous highs.

lawred2 wrote: »

Uncertainty? ETH is up 40% in one week.

I meant uncertainty since the crash in the middle of last week.

lawred2

el diablo wrote: »

I meant uncertainty since the crash in the middle of last week.

Healthy profit taking

Every single one of my coins is greening up today.. Busy night.

lawred2

anyone looking at Status ICO today?

crowseye

lawred2 wrote: »

anyone looking at Status ICO today?

Ya I'm going to buy in but with less than I planned originally the vagueness around the hard cap is making me more cautious.

Grumpypants

Antshares took off, bit of a correction now and a good chance to take a punt since they are below $10.

Edit: bought 12 for the laugh, 0.05 bitcoin. (about €120)

KilOit

crowseye wrote: »

Ya I'm going to buy in but with less than I planned originally the vagueness around the hard cap is making me more cautious.

Exact same feelings about it. If this ico turns sour it'll be really damaging to the Crypto network. All these ICO's are absorbing all the ETH that it's slowly becoming centralized. is all this money really needed for a start up company? the devs are instant millionaires after the the ICO

lawred2

KilOit wrote: »

is all this money really needed for a start up company?

Maybe but probably not

KilOit wrote: »

the devs are instant millionaires after the the ICO

That is probably the real purpose

KilOit

Grumpypants wrote: »

Antshares took off, bit of a correction now and a good chance to take a punt since they are below $10.

Edit: bought 12 for the laugh, 0.05 bitcoin. (about €120)

Really interesting that it remained somewhat steady after that huge spike, think this could be really big and it has a low market cap. China love buying Chinese and these guys seem like pros with all the right connections, ETH 2.0 for sure

Grumpypants

KilOit wrote: »

Really interesting that it remained somewhat steady after that huge spike, think this could be really big and it has a low market cap. China love buying Chinese and these guys seem like pros with all the right connections, ETH 2.0 for sure

From what I have read it seems to be ETH for China. With the volume of money going around the Chinese Crypto market it could really take off. No harm in having a bit of diversity in my Crypto portfolio too.

makeorbrake

KilOit wrote: »

ETH 2.0 for sure

what improvement does it make on ETH? Is it an improvement or improvements that ETH wouldn't be able to implement?

These ICO's seem like a never ending trawl through crud (albeit that I accept one or other of them has to have something cutting-edge to offer at some stage).

machiavellianme

ETH dropping fast again. What happened this time?

PopePalpatine

Wow, that is not a pretty sight.

pro_gnostic_8

machiavellianme wrote: »

ETH dropping fast again. What happened this time?

Maybe money flowing back into Bitcoin following the really good news today? Signalling for Segwit2x has passed the 80% hashrate required for ctivation. Implementation ofr Segwit is now a foregone conclusion. Really positive stuff.

As an aside, today's Status token ICO seems to have been an even bigger farce than the recent BAT one. Bordering on a scam, even. It turns out that 120K ether worth was pre-sold to favoured whitelisted individuals (two in number) whilst only 1660 Eth worth was available to the public. Two or three whales now control 95% of the total supply and can easily manipulate the subsequent market for the token to their own advantage.

SteelyDanJalapeno

I don't get the comments on ethereum dropping, it's down a few euro. Nothing compared it's from and recovery last week

el diablo

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Wow, that is not a pretty sight.

That's meaningless unless you're a trader.

pro_gnostic_8

TiltedBrain wrote: »

I don't get the comments on ethereum dropping, it's down a few euro.

It is down 12% against bitcoin in the ETH/BTC pairing -- which is a significant drop in any language.

NomadicGray

Ethereum wallet and all associated with it have been offline on Bittrex all day, would that have an affect on the price?

dashoonage

Hey guys....sent a SEPA to belgacoin last night. Bank say it is completed but no coins in my wallet ?

Also...my got Kraken are slow to verify accounts

Thargor

Oh look panic over again, see you all back here tomorrow...

NomadicGray

dashoonage wrote: »

Hey guys....sent a SEPA to belgacoin last night. Bank say it is completed but no coins in my wallet ?

Also...my got Kraken are slow to verify accounts

Id say anything Ive done on Belgacoin has taken 2 days for me to see the coins, sometimes 3 I think.

DeVore

NomadicGray wrote: »

Id say anything Ive done on Belgacoin has taken 2 days for me to see the coins, sometimes 3 I think.

Been waiting 3 weeks for Kraken to give me tier 3. Have given up and am trying to get Coinbase to verify me (seems simpler tbh).

el diablo

DeVore wrote: »

Been waiting 3 weeks for Kraken to give me tier 3. Have given up and am trying to get Coinbase to verify me (seems simpler tbh).

Coinbase are even worse. My account has been "restricted" (can't buy or sell anything) for over a month with absolutely no explanation or no response from customer support.

DeVore

Weird, I signed up two days ago and can already buy... waiting to get some money SEPA'ed over there. Will let you know how it goes.

iguot edgar

If i'd put in the 2 euro I'd planned to put in to eth a few weeks ago when it was plastered all over every news site, I'd have over 8 euro now.

Ah well.

dashoonage

Cheers all. Belgacoin email last night. Money received.

Can you buy XRP on coinbase? A buddy signed up to Kraken last week and has everything verified in a few days.

Roonbox

iguot edgar wrote: »

If i'd put in the 2 euro I'd planned to put in to eth a few weeks ago when it was plastered all over every news site, I'd have over 8 euro now.

Ah well.

Expensive lesson learned Edgar