Buying bitcoins

alb

nuac wrote: »

In ordinary stocks etc a long term investor eventually gets a share certificate which can be kept at home in a safe.

Now you have these long numbers and hope there is someone at home when you try to access.

You can keep your bitcoin in a safe too. If you are planning to hold significant funds long term you can create a wallet on an offline machine, print it on paper and put it in a safe. The private keys have never been online so they can't be hacked over the internet.

You also won't get hacked if you use a hardware wallet, though you need to spend a little money to get one. The trezor and ledger nano are examples. They are little dongles that store your private keys, you plug them into your PC when you want to make a transaction.

These are the closest equivalent to having stock certs although unlike stock certs you don't need a 3rd party to transfer ownership of bitcoin.

Using a first world regulated exchange like coinbase is more like using degiro.

Keeping your money on a dodgy exchange (like MT Gox was) is like giving your money to Bernie Madoff to invest for you or putting it in a Greek bank.

In both crypto and traditional investments there are variable levels of counterparty risk, regulatory safety nets and bearer instrument depending on your own choices.

Dohnjoe

The risks in crypto are relatively higher

I don't keep my fiat under the mattress or in a safe, and I don't feel comfortable keeping crypto in the same way

It will be nice to eventually have independently rated third party institutions to act as custodians

jester77

Dohnjoe wrote: »

The risks in crypto are relatively higher

I don't keep my fiat under the mattress or in a safe, and I don't feel comfortable keeping crypto in the same way

It will be nice to eventually have independently rated third party institutions to act as custodians

That goes against what crypto is meant to be, the idea is that you are 100% in control and are solely responsible for the security of your currency.

If you want a third party to look after it, then just put money in a bank account. Much safer than giving a private key to some third party.

Dohnjoe

jester77 wrote: »

That goes against what crypto is meant to be, the idea is that you are 100% in control and are solely responsible for the security of your currency.

Yeah but that's a step backwards

We had all this before, hundreds of years ago. People generally gravitate toward a rated third party institution (e.g. bank) because it's less risky when larger and more important sums are involved

I'm not at all concerned about my fiat holdings - on the other hand I stress/worry about my crypto holdings

alb

Dohnjoe wrote: »

I'm not at all concerned about my fiat holdings - on the other hand I stress/worry about my crypto holdings

Honestly, I'm the opposite, I worry about how much I can safely have in my degiro account more than I worry about how secure my crypto is (however, worrying about the value of the crypto is a different matter)

Unlilke euros under the mattress or in a safe, if someone robs my home or it burned down I would not lose my crypto.

I don't think it's a step backwards because you can store crypto in ways you can't traditionaly store things, you can back it up redundantly, you can store it in multiple places at the same time. I'm not saying this is easy or foolproof, but when done right crypto can be extremely secure. The value it will have in the future is a greater concern.

Dohnjoe

Maybe for one or two coins, but just counted, have around 35 different cryptos, it's a nightmare to be honest

The quicker banks start offering safekeeping with this stuff the better I say

pro_gnostic_8

alb wrote: »

Honestly, I'm the opposite, I worry about how much I can safely have in my degiro account more than I worry about how secure my crypto is (however, worrying about the value of the crypto is a different matter)

Unlilke euros under the mattress or in a safe, if someone robs my home or it burned down I would not lose my crypto.

I don't think it's a step backwards because you can store crypto in ways you can't traditionaly store things, you can back it up redundantly, you can store it in multiple places at the same time. I'm not saying this is easy or foolproof, but when done right crypto can be extremely secure. The value it will have in the future is a greater concern.

To a large extent, I do agree with you and with Jester above.

However, there are most certainly threats that exist which are entirely outside our control irrespective of how careful and vigilant we might be.

I refer, of course, to software bugs in the underlying code. Only last week we witnessedanother case of this and of the devastating consequences. Over $30 Million siphoned from the Parity multisig wallets of three separate parties due to bad code in the Solidity software -- bad code written by Gavin Wood, the co-founder and chief software tech of Ethereum, for chrissake.

I fear that we have not seen the last of such fubar's. As the complexity of cryptosystems increases so too will the vulnerabilities and attack vectors.
It's such that occasionally wake me up in the dead of night.

cnocbui

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Yeah but that's a step backwards

We had all this before, hundreds of years ago. People generally gravitate toward a rated third party institution (e.g. bank) because it's less risky when larger and more important sums are involved

I'm not at all concerned about my fiat holdings - on the other hand I stress/worry about my crypto holdings

Do you remember Cyprus? Argentina and foreign currency bank accounts? We came fairly close to having the Cyprus haircut scheme become more than a one-off. reportedly some Germans wanted the idea to be extended and to be used rather than bailouts, such as Ireland's.

You could wake up one morning and find all bank accounts frozen with the government then taking a large chunk of it.

I'd put the intrinsic safety of my crypto holdings way above that of the fictitious notion that fiat deposits are safe in a highly leveraged fractional reserve banking system.

Dohnjoe

cnocbui wrote: »

Do you remember Cyprus? Argentina and foreign currency bank accounts? We came fairly close to having the Cyprus haircut scheme become more than a one-off. reportedly some Germans wanted the idea to be extended and to be used rather than bailouts, such as Ireland's.

You could wake up one morning and find all bank accounts frozen with the government then taking a large chunk of it.

I'd put the intrinsic safety of my crypto holdings way above that of the fictitious notion that fiat deposits are safe in a highly leveraged fractional reserve banking system.

We had a once-in-a-lifetime systemic crisis and our accounts weren't affected

Our deposits (up to a certain level) are insured

The current banking system is much safer than cryptos, which is why we often hear the phrase "don't put in more than you can afford to lose" when anyone asks about getting into cryptos - it's risky as hell

Fractional reserve banking has been around for a few hundred years, cryptos around 8 years

alb

I should clarify that my previous comment applied only to bitcoin, which I consider relatively mature. I would not trust ethereum and especially not smart contracts on top of ethereum to the same degree.

There are two main risk vectors I see with my bitcoin:

1) that the hashing algorithm works so that my private keys cannot be reverse engineered from my public address. By all accounts this cryptography is solid and it has been around longer than bitcoin. It would be a disaster for bitcoin is this was broken.

2) That the wallet(s) I use really generated random private keys. This is a bigger risk, in fact the mobile blockchain.info wallet had a bug with this already in the past. I only use established open-source wallets that have been vetted and stood the test of time so far.

I don't worry about anyone getting access to my keys and knowing the required passwords to decrypt them.

Regarding banking have been around for centuries. If it really was so robust Greek people wouldn't have been denied access to their money for weeks on end. For how many years have 100% mortgages existed? derivatives to the extent and complexities we see now? interdependence between the financial institutions of countries on each other? A single monetary union between many diverse sovereign countries?

I'm not a zero-hedge guy predicting the apocalypse, I'm not predicting global failure but I'm just conscious of the fact that much of the current financial state of the world is something that has only existed recently, that the euro is as an experiment just like bitcoin is.

(If you're interested in the the biases people tend to have regarding authority, the status quo, risk calculation and predictions I recommend reading The Black Swan by Taleb - the success of bitcoin so far will make a lot more sense)

Dohnjoe

alb wrote: »

Regarding banking have been around for centuries. If it really was so robust Greek people wouldn't have been denied access to their money for weeks on end.

Depends on how hard people push their system and how many mistakes are made

With Greece for example, tax evasion was/is a national sport, they cooked the books, public servants were retiring in their 40's, banks were severely under capitalised and over-leveraged.. doesn't matter how robust a system is, if a country is run into the ground, then it will have economic and financial consequences.... the root cause of which was not the system itself

We all did the same in 2000-2007, pushed various systems to their limits, over-exuberance, "bubble thinking", out of control lending/borrowing, under-regulated markets, bad collateral, thinner margins, lack of risk mitigation, you name it

Despite all that, the US pulled out of the crisis in 2 and a half years, Greece is getting by, Cyprus hasn't gone back to the Gold standard and Argentina has reentered the bond market

alb

Is Greece really recovering or did they just kick the can? Has grossly unsustainable debt become sustainable? What are the chances Greece and/or Spain and/or Italy are in crisis again in the next 5 or 10 years? 5%? 10%? What impact could it have on the euro and Ireland?

Anyway I don't want to harp on about this, because as I said, I'm not a zerohedger, I'm not predicting anyone going back to the gold standard or mad max becoming reality. That's not the point I'm trying to make.

3 years ago if you'd asked people which was a riskier buy - Bitcoin or National Bank of Greece shares I bet nearly everyone would have said Bitcoin was riskier. But it wasn't, so why was this so hard to evaluate? because of unknown data? because of inability to analyse data? because of human biases that favour the status quo over the new and different?

I bet against Brexit happening and I was wrong.

The best example I've seen of the biases people have for whatever they're used to over something new and better is the self driving cars. Some of the arguments people make are fascinating, I'll highlight two with the general mistake they make:

"Eventually someone will die in one" - versus currently over 1 million people dying globally every year already in human driven cars.

The illusion that something is more dangerous because it's new, because it's dangerous in a *different* way than the status quo, but overlooking the fact that it's safer in other ways that more than counteract it

"They won't be able to see traffic lights" - in a world of self driving cars, why would we have traffic lights?

Considering the new tech only in the context of the old. Assuming that everything else stays the same instead of imaging both how the world will progress and how the new tech will change the world.

The same patterns were/are evident in criticism of crypto.

Dohnjoe

alb wrote: »

3 years ago if you'd asked people which was a riskier buy - Bitcoin or National Bank of Greece shares I bet nearly everyone would have said Bitcoin was riskier. But it wasn't, so why was this so hard to evaluate? because of unknown data? because of inability to analyse data? because of human biases that favour the status quo over the new and different?

The risks are of a different nature

3 years ago BoG was CCC, which is one above default. Experts know the risk, because it can be quantified. Numbers can be put on it.

Bitcoin is still high risk, but it's more of an unknown risk.

The illusion that something is more dangerous because it's new, because it's dangerous in a *different* way than the status quo, but overlooking the fact that it's safer in other ways that more than counteract it

Yeah true, but ironically BTC falls under this. People claiming it's less risky than other crypto because its "stood the test of time".. 8 years as opposed to a few months or years.

The same patterns were/are evident in criticism of crypto.

I have big faith in crypto as a type of digital gold. Zero belief that it will ever "replace" a standard fiat currency in it's current form.. swings and roundabouts really

Nermal

alb wrote: »

I don't worry about anyone getting access to my keys and knowing the required passwords to decrypt them.

This is something you definitely should worry about...

petethedrummer

Dohnjoe wrote: »

cnocbui wrote: »

I'd put the intrinsic safety of my crypto holdings way above that of the fictitious notion that fiat deposits are safe in a highly leveraged fractional reserve banking system.

Fractional reserve banking has been around for a few hundred years, cryptos around 8 years

We don't have a Fractional reserve banking system. It is a credit based system. Under a fractional reserve system, deposits lead to loans. Under the current system, loans create deposits. If you're not a fan of the monetary system you'll probably be more frightened by the system we actually have, lol!

This series of videos is the clearest explanation I have found on the topic. All 6 are worth a watch, though I don't entirely agree with their solutions in video 6...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvpbQlQwl0A

Microsoft Edge is messing up my posts!!!!!

cnocbui

Nermal wrote: »

This is something you definitely should worry about...

What, MIB's are going to rappel down ropes from black helicopters and then seize and torture me?

Blacktie.

cnocbui wrote: »

What, MIB's are going to rappel down ropes from black helicopters and then seize and torture me?

Or you know spending time ensuring someone can't just have access to your private key in some way you haven't thought of yet. Really don't know why you jumped to the above conclusion as to what he meant.

TheJackAttack

Sold at 2300 now I'm salty af

Zascar

Lads does anyone use Coinbase or can you suggest better alternatives? I'm about to put in some money but the fees are quite high. However I do like the site for its simplicity. Is it worth using a different site? Any suggestions?

milltown

Kraken gets my vote. Quick to process deposits and trades in my experience.

scamalert

alb wrote: »

3 years ago if you'd asked people which was a riskier buy - Bitcoin or National Bank of Greece shares I bet nearly everyone would have said Bitcoin was riskier. But it wasn't, so why was this so hard to evaluate? because of unknown data? because of inability to analyse data? because of human biases that favour the status quo over the new and different?

if i offered you some piece of paper for all your life savings and told you its either 0 or 5000% on top without any odds which one would you pick ?

think answer is neither.

new technology is good like fully automated cars, but technology that essentially creates nothing and is used purely for speculation to boost financial gains of fiat one already has isn't currency either.with 1000s of cryptos now its more like some digital game,where you put in x amount and wait to get more without going bust,since usability while its in place is barely there, and then most people wouldn't be drawn to something which makes existing system that works, to switch to actually even more complicated/unstable one.

Blacktie.

Zascar wrote: »

Lads does anyone use Coinbase or can you suggest better alternatives? I'm about to put in some money but the fees are quite high. However I do like the site for its simplicity. Is it worth using a different site? Any suggestions?

If you're using an exchange be sure to pull whatever you buy to your own personal wallet once you get them. Don't keep crypto on an exchange.

cnocbui

Zascar wrote: »

Lads does anyone use Coinbase or can you suggest better alternatives? I'm about to put in some money but the fees are quite high. However I do like the site for its simplicity. Is it worth using a different site? Any suggestions?

You could do worse than to take a look at Belgacoin if you aren't trying to time purcahses with great precision. 1% fees.

bbari

Blacktie. wrote: »

If you're using an exchange be sure to pull whatever you buy to your own personal wallet once you get them. Don't keep crypto on an exchange.

Sorry for the ignorance / asking stupid questions, I only start looking in to this last week. Do you put in the personal wallet to secure your currency ? is the investment sitting in an exchange not secure enough ? How do you set-up a wallet? are there any recommendations ?

Blacktie.

bbari wrote: »

Sorry for the ignorance / asking stupid questions, I only start looking in to this last week. Do you put in the personal wallet to secure your currency ? is the investment sitting in an exchange not secure enough ? How do you set-up a wallet? are there any recommendations ?

No they're not. If you leave it on the exchange they essentially have your private keys. Google what happened with Mt. Gox.

Depends what coins you're getting. For ethereum I use my ethereum wallet. For bitcoin I used Mycelium. I don't have too much invested yet but when it gets to a decent size I plan on getting a hard wallet and then a paper wallet if it gets sizeable above that again.

bbari

Blacktie. wrote: »

Depends what coins you're getting. For ethereum I use my ethereum wallet. For bitcoin I used Mycelium. I don't have too much invested yet but when it gets to a decent size I plan on getting a hard wallet and then a paper wallet if it gets sizeable above that again.

Why two different wallets ? is it because you have two difference currencies ? Can you put all of the currencies in one wallet ? How do you go by setting up a wallet - is it same as setting up an online account with an exchange ?

Zascar

I keep hearing people say take it offline - and yes I know there have been a few instances of exchanges being hacked, but honestly I'd say there is a greater chance of me losing my offline wallet than there is an exchange getting hacked and my coins getting stolen. There are loads of stories about people losing bitcoins from hard drives dying or going in the bin.

So I think I'd rather use a reputable exchange that has decent security. Or am I nuts?

Supercell

Another blooming ETH wallet hack today , do i ever have buyers remorse after buying in the dip last week, lots of other coins with nice gains. Long term probably fine, but short term, its painful viewing, hodl and all that.

bbari

Zascar wrote: »

I keep hearing people say take it offline - and yes I know there have been a few instances of exchanges being hacked, but honestly I'd say there is a greater chance of me losing my offline wallet than there is an exchange getting hacked and my coins getting stolen. There are loads of stories about people losing bitcoins from hard drives dying or going in the bin.

So I think I'd rather use a reputable exchange that has decent security. Or am I nuts?

I tend to agree with you. I don't know the mechanism behind the wallets but if they are off line in your laptop / phone, I'd be more afraid of my laptop being stolen from home / phone snatched away then I'd be of the exchange getting hacked. I am using CoinBase and I see they have 42% market share of the BitCoin which clearly means its a reputable exchange. I could be completely wrong though as I'm just a learner at this point!

Blacktie.

bbari wrote:

I am using CoinBase and I see they have 42% market share of the BitCoin which clearly means its a reputable exchange. I could be completely wrong though as I'm just a learner at this point!

People would have said the same thing about Mt. Gox. You don't have to store it on your phone or laptop. You could literally just memorise 12 words and your wallet is safe in your mind. Or you could download your private key, print it and store it safe somewhere.

Ethereum is a different blockchain than bitcoin so it needs a different type of wallet.

Dohnjoe

Zascar wrote: »

I keep hearing people say take it offline - and yes I know there have been a few instances of exchanges being hacked, but honestly I'd say there is a greater chance of me losing my offline wallet than there is an exchange getting hacked and my coins getting stolen. There are loads of stories about people losing bitcoins from hard drives dying or going in the bin.

So I think I'd rather use a reputable exchange that has decent security. Or am I nuts?

Can spread the risk

Hold on multiple exchanges, Nano S, usb

Coinbase has a big footprint and is apparently insured against theft/hacks (not personal) - but there are no independent regulators or auditors who can verify this as far as I know

Gemini.com looks to be the way forward, but it's US only for now?

cnocbui

Zascar wrote: »

I keep hearing people say take it offline - and yes I know there have been a few instances of exchanges being hacked, but honestly I'd say there is a greater chance of me losing my offline wallet than there is an exchange getting hacked and my coins getting stolen. There are loads of stories about people losing bitcoins from hard drives dying or going in the bin.

So I think I'd rather use a reputable exchange that has decent security. Or am I nuts?

Sure, but those stories date from a time when bitcoin was a game and interesting intellectual exercise when they were worth next to nothing. SSDs have something like a 1,500,000 hrs before failure rating. If I loose my SSD, I have a HD backup drive. If I lose both, I have a piece of paper stashed safely that has the 12 word seed of my wallet written on it.

MT Gox was hacked, causing sever losses, The Etherium blockchain was split because of a massive hack and theft in order to try and deprive the thief of the value, hence Etherium Classic. Keeping your own wallet is by far the safest and most prudent course of action.

Dohnjoe

cnocbui wrote: »

Keeping your own wallet is by far the safest and most prudent course of action.

I fully agree, if done perfectly, its very secure.

But one mistake at any point - there's little or no recourse. it's time-consuming. It requires a decent amount of technical knowledge and understanding (anyone who has tried to explain it to family/friends knows this) It's a step backwards to the days of safes and safety deposit boxes .. except these are in virtual digital form.

A once-off purchase, with one coin, one wallet, going into cold storage - not so bad

Many purchases, different coins, unrated exchanges, multiple wallets/passwords, scanning constantly for malware, checking every address, going in and out of cold storage - not so much fun

Shiny

Dohnjoe wrote: »

I fully agree, if done perfectly, its very secure.

But one mistake at any point - there's little or no recourse. it's time-consuming. It requires a decent amount of technical knowledge and understanding (anyone who has tried to explain it to family/friends knows this) It's a step backwards to the days of safes and safety deposit boxes .. except these are in virtual digital form.

A once-off purchase, with one coin, one wallet, going into cold storage - not so bad

Many purchases, different coins, unrated exchanges, multiple wallets/passwords, scanning constantly for malware, checking every address, going in and out of cold storage - not so much fun

+ 1

I would regard myself as fairly technical but I'm just not arsed and I am fairly confident that the security measures in coinbase are far superior to anything I am employing on my own machines. In saying that I don't really have that much money at stake, if I had 25K+ then I reckon I would have a different attitude.

Zascar

Anyone use Bitpanda? Looks pretty good, more like Coinbase - very user friendly

crowseye

Zascar wrote: »

Anyone use Bitpanda? Looks pretty good, more like Coinbase - very user friendly

Ya BitPanda is fine, fees are a bit more expensive though than Coinbase from what I remember.

Bluefoam

I'm new to this... Am considering investing a few quid in bitcoin, intended term is about 2/3 years... Looking at coinbase.com as a starting point. Will my standard current account support SEPA to allow transfers, or do I need another type of account? I'm currently living abroad, so banking in Ireland is limited and coinbase doesn't operate where I live...

bbari

Bluefoam wrote: »

I'm new to this... Am considering investing a few quid in bitcoin, intended term is about 2/3 years... Looking at coinbase.com as a starting point. Will my standard current account support SEPA to allow transfers, or do I need another type of account? I'm currently living abroad, so banking in Ireland is limited and coinbase doesn't operate where I live...

Yes, you can do a SEPA transfer. You can also use your credit card but there's a limit of 325/week/card.

makeorbrake

makeorbrake wrote: »

Hopefully the fix works (even if it is for the short term)!

Well, this was short lived! I never had the expectation that this would last for long but I thought it would solve the problem for a few months at least.

Enter 'Bitcoin Cash' - which aims to break away by way of a User Activated Hard Fork on 1 August. Surely this is similar to the segwit deal? i.e. it's in the miners interest to increase block size but not in everyone elses - so most likely, it won't reach a critical mass of support generally (even if it has the support of the big players in the mining world)?

wannabecraig

Anybody know here I can buy Potcoin with an Irish credit card/bank xfer?

Anybody look into Potcoin and if so what do you think?

Blacktie.

wannabecraig wrote:

Anybody look into Potcoin and if so what do you think?

Just took a glance but what does this offer that bitcoin itself doesn't? Except somehow trying to claim it's only for the legal weed industry...

wannabecraig

Blacktie. wrote: »

Just took a glance but what does this offer that bitcoin itself doesn't? Except somehow trying to claim it's only for the legal weed industry...

Well the weed industry is growing rapidly. It's very cheap so easy to put up a few coins without massive investment. Tech wise, no, probably nothing though.

Blacktie.

wannabecraig wrote: »

Well the weed industry is growing rapidly. It's very cheap so easy to put up a few coins without massive investment. Tech wise, no, probably nothing though.

Yeah I'd avoid this. It offers no new functionality other than trying to jump on the weed hype train.

KilOit

wannabecraig wrote: »

Anybody know here I can buy Potcoin with an Irish credit card/bank xfer?

Anybody look into Potcoin and if so what do you think?

Complete garbage scamcoin. Don't be fooled by this crap claiming to be anything worthwhile, these scammers copy a working coin like Bitcoin and label it something fancy to hook in the uninformed.
Monero, dash and zcash are real products to buy online illegal stuff
Maybe even pivx and verge because they're real cheap

Blacktie.

KilOit wrote:

Monero, dash and zcash are real products to buy online illegal stuff Maybe even pivx and verge because they're real cheap

Are you calling these scam coins too???

KilOit

Blacktie. wrote: »

Are you calling these scam coins too???

pivx and verge are a little new and underdeveloped, can't say i know much about them

Monero and Dash are around a long time and are tried and tested

Zascar

Bluefoam yeah Coinbase is good I just got set up and bought a few different coins. Sepa transfers works very well, there the next day.

Does anyone know a site where you can input your transactions and track progress? Coinbase does not do it unless you run reports. I've also bought an alt coin so would be great to track everything in on place...

discombobulate

Zascar wrote: »

Bluefoam yeah Coinbase is good I just got set up and bought a few different coins. Sepa transfers works very well, there the next day.

Does anyone know a site where you can input your transactions and track progress? Coinbase does not do it unless you run reports. I've also bought an alt coin so would be great to track everything in on place...

Blockfolio is a great app

jester77

discombobulate wrote: »

Blockfolio is a great app

Yip, my fave as well. Great for tracking prices

Zascar

Excellent thanks. I want to start investing in a few Altcoins. Just small money maybe on some ico's but they can be extremely volatile.

A mate of mine has been fully into all this for a year - he's made serious money already and is now starting mining. He recons Veritaseum has the best potentioal based on the technology and the value it brings. Anyone else got any altcoins? There are hundreds - most of which will be dead in a few years however.