[Finance] The cryptocurrency (Bitcoin etc) thread

pb21 said:

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peterward said:

Yes. Bitcoin so far has been the preserve of high risk investors using unregulated exchanges. A wild west market.

In UK, FCA has regulated some exchanges and providers of crypto derivative products to real world companies, so they are fully regulated under the FCA. Market traders love volatility, though they don't love and won't use unregulated exchanges or products.

Bitcoins real future value, was not so much in its finite supply, but in getting large institutional city investors to use it as an additional nvestment instrument. There's trillions of £$ that could be potentially invested that never would in the previous wild west with regulation.

ETFs, and share based 1:1 products, in a regulated environment will see an explosion of real world capital moving into these products from pension and hedge funds and further adoption.

Forget the THPP rants, it's going to happen.

There will be a flood of money coming into these new ETFs and as overall market capitalisation increases they will be excellent long term investments (always volatile in short term)

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Tom Hark Preston Park said:

That's easy for you to say

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peterward said:

I don't want to sound arrogant, but I genuinely believe i understand it, the fundamentals of supply demand and institutional direction of travel. But even all that aside as nobody knows if mankind will even be here in 10 years.

I do my own SIPP (none of this is investment advice et al) and less than 5 years ago, before the FCA stupidly banned retail investors from further buying of Crypto based derivatives.(because idiots were doing 100x leverage casino trades and losing every time) I had bought and still hold share based derivatives of both BTC and ETH, the BTC was equivalent to about 2 BTC at time of purchase and that £16k is now £67k, my ETH cost just over £4k and is now £32k, 700%. There's no other holdings that come close (except the 2 bitcoin mining companies Riot and Marathon which have trebled) and if major industry insiders are correct and BTC may get anywhere near 7 figures or even half way there, those reasonable sized risk assessed purchases may be the best financial decisions I've ever made?

I may still lose that 20k, but which naysayer genuinely wouldn't swap a devaluing 20k cash in their pension for 100k of BTC/ETH derivatives?

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pb21 said:

My post was a bit facetious, but not really. You say BTC isn't back by anything, but it is, it's backed by known and non corruptable math.

You might think that's one and the same, but many people see the merit and value in that

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Tom Hark Preston Park said:

Seriously? Can you hear yourself?

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pb21 said:

I ma not sure what's so funny about that?

Anyway, you're not going to change your views and ideas, certainly not based on anything I say! Only time will tell if its a worthless tulip Ponzi scam, or something that does have genuine value and merit...

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Tom Hark Preston Park said:

Keep believing in your magic beans mate, backed by the square root of f*ck all apart from the outrageous scam in clear view that is the magic money printer Tether. Soon as that scam gets taken down, the whole shitty house of cards collapses

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peterward said:

Is that really the basis of your hypothesis? Do you also "bla bla bla not listening" to leading investment bankers and analysts!

Of course Tether is flawed and suspect, but to use that to suggest a hole house of cards, is just fantastical nonsense.

It's like saying, look a Boeing had a door blown out, it's just a matter of time until the whole aviation market and all planes crash.

If tether collapses, which is still unlikely it will have an effect on short term price, a pretty severe one, but it won't cause everything to crash to zero as you fantasise. Bitcoin is not Tether and the long term price projections of leading analysts is likely. Short term it will always be a wild and risky investment for pros only due volatility.

Conversely, you do realise that the note in your wallet says "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of......pounds."

And if everyone with numbers on a computer actually wanted to cash in those digital numbers to real £s, the whole house of cards would collapse! as the actual money doesn't exist except on computers and those computer numbers are based on the square root of f*** all!! Thus Northern Rock and queus of people trying to get £s out of ATM is a sample of wider realities of their fake leveraged £s. It's a massive "managed" blown up balloon with a little bit of rubber and a whole lot of thin air.

I hope you read up in what is already happening mate, with on chain money and bank adoption under FCA regulation in this country. Fully de regulated wild west crypto space is already in decline and will be replaced with fully regulated space, just like conventional banking. Its already happening and real world money from institutional investors will flow into ETFs and future products.

As an example, the days of you wanting to send money to someone in Australia and having to use wise or western union will end, the same as DVDs did with streaming, your future account, will instantly convert your GBP into GBPx (digital £) and with blockchain tech, they will appear vice versa instantly in aussie account at spot rates, with virtually no forex fee, conversely so will bitcoin transactions, sent with cash from your hybrid bank account. I've already got that account, and I can tell you with certainty that currencyX stablecoins (onchain money) will be pegged to the £ and issued 1:1 by the BOE not some anonymous scrote in Hong Kong.

You still have your head in 2018. The landscape has massively changed and is changing, it was always inevitable that the space would never truly succeed without regulation and regulatory control, nor would institutional money ever flow in withour proper regulation. Dog coins, shit coins, wild west part will come under control or be banned/blocked/die. Blockchain tech is already in use and Bitcoin, as an immutible, finite store of value or regulated product investment vehicle is definitely here to stay.

Enjoy the DVDs

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Berty23 said:

Well in the last 24 hours most coins have gone up more than a very very good savings account in a bank. Even more risky funds only do a little more in 365 days than this has in 1.

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giveusfalmerplease said:

im a strong crypto investor but that comments is bloody pointless and certainly adds nothing to the conversation. i could equally say that between the end of October and Christmas day my holding went up 150%, equivalent to 600% APR but since then theyve dropped back about 40% in one month. Your fixed interest savings will never do that (in actual coin value), of course we know they lose buying power because inflation outstrips the 2% max apr of a flexible savings account.

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giveusfalmerplease said:

CAPITAL GAINS TAX QUESTION. I'm in the HAPPY position of having to declare capital gains this tax year of my crypto holdings. Yes i genuinely dont mind paying some taxes because that means i made a profit for the first time

The issue i now find is that i thought all i would need to do is list all my deposits, minus my withdrawals and my running GBP balance to calculate the gross profit on my crypto. But it seems its a A LOT harder than that. You cant include your current balance for a start because these are unrealised profits or losses i.e. can only include them on sale.

Secondly i am supposed to be keeping track of the P/L of each trade but thats damn hard when ive held some for 3 years and running a big loss still. Others ive sold a few to buy USDT and then used the USDT for day trading on leverage. However by doing the spot sell im meant to calculate the profit/loss on that sale based on the average price at time of sale but how the hell do you do that when youve made maybe 50 deposits, dumped the lot during a crash, bought them back again etc?

All in all a pigs ear to sort out especially as ive done at least 4000 trades this tax year and probably treble that in 2021-2022. I also have money on 4 different exchanges And finally , i sent some (too much to admit) crypto to a casino site and withdrew winnings occassionally back to my crypto site. so some profits this year and losses last year are attributable to gambling with crypto coins rather than profits or losses due to price movement ! (still with me ??)

So, all that waffle for me to ask is does anyone have such an issue and how you deal with it? I dont have enough hours in the day to do it manually and to make it worse many of the crypto sites cant provide more than 6 months history - an issue which no doubt contributes to the exchanges not getting a UK license since they cant audit even a single tax year.

Any ideas, suggestions, contacts? For clarity the sites i use(d) Kraken (2022-now), Binance (2021/2), Bybit (2022-23) and Bitget (2023-now). I also faced major losses with Luna which would be a tax write off, held in an old Metamask wallet i cant now access! .i wasn't bothered previously since the 5k+ is now worth about 10 bucks but that 5k of losses i could offset against this years profits!

Help!!

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beorhthelm said:

..
moves between exchanges, other cypto apps can be linked manually. gambling gains and losses are technically not declarable.

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Berty23 said:

Can anyone who follows more closely than I do explain why Bitcoin is going up quite a lot again? It has more than doubled in value in the last 6 months. Today it has gone up 5%. I assume there will be a correction but I hope people on here have made a few quid.

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Berty23 said:

Can anyone who follows more closely than I do explain why Bitcoin is going up quite a lot again? It has more than doubled in value in the last 6 months. Today it has gone up 5%. I assume there will be a correction but I hope people on here have made a few quid.

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chickens said:

It’s interesting isn’t it?

The “coins” (they aren’t coins) have no utility, you’re not investing in a company that creates something or provides services, and they burn through incredible amounts of energy to “mine”.

The transaction throughput rate is too slow for them to form the basis of a payments system, and their entire value is based on their supposed scarcity, and that’s it. Relying entirely on greater fool theory, there being someone willing to pay you more than you paid for them.

You can’t invest in something with these properties, you can only speculate/gamble that “number goes up”.

I’ve no ill will toward those cheerleading for this stuff, there are plenty of real world companies selling snake oil, and as always it’s buyer beware. I’d just say treat as a bet, not an investment, and only commit an amount you can afford to lose.

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pb21 said:

My post was a bit facetious, but not really. You say BTC isn't back by anything, but it is, it's backed by known and non corruptable math.

You might think that's one and the same, but many people see the merit and value in that

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