[Finance] The cryptocurrency (Bitcoin etc) thread

[Herr Tubthumper]

So I went on coinatmradar and there is an available atm to buy or sell at 'Skunk House' in Croydon. Sounds a delightful venue to conduct financial transactions.

https://coinatmradar.com/bitcoin_atm/924/bitcoin-atm-lamassu-croydon-skunk-house-croydon/

Thanks. I will buy some more. There's a number of cafes and restaurant near me where I can use Bitcoins.

 

[happypig]

I had a look at them a while back but I couldn't see the point in having them as anything but a (risky) investment. If I had any spare cash to gamble I'd buy a few shares (Actually I'd probably buy something with a v8 engine and four wheel drive),
Also don't you need a big chunk of free hard drive space to keep them ?

 

[Lower West Stander]

Absolute mug's game....

 

[Biscuit Barrel]

Thanks. I will buy some more. There's a number of cafes and restaurant near me where I can use Bitcoins.

Are you buying up Bitcoins because you believe that the Euro will tumble in value now that the British economy is going to stop propping up the Eurozone? (Tounge in cheek)

 

[beorhthelm]

Also don't you need a big chunk of free hard drive space to keep them ?

for the bitcoins themselves no, they are recorded as encryption keys and addresses which are bytes long. the store of the blockchain that hosts the history of all bitcoin transactions ever, needed to verify that the coming to you hasn't been spent before, is much bigger and a potential problem down the road.

 

[happypig]

for the bitcoins themselves no, they are recorded as encryption keys and addresses which are bytes long. the store of the blockchain that hosts the history of all bitcoin transactions ever, needed to verify that the coming to you hasn't been spent before, is much bigger and a potential problem down the road.

so you could keep the blockchain on a usb drive and only plug it in when making transactions ?

 

[Sirius76]

I had a look at them a while back but I couldn't see the point in having them as anything but a (risky) investment. If I had any spare cash to gamble I'd buy a few shares (Actually I'd probably buy something with a v8 engine and four wheel drive),
Also don't you need a big chunk of free hard drive space to keep them ?

You don't need any space for it if it receives the info from a server. I just checked and my Electrum portable app (you can store it on anything) uses just 60MB. You can obviously copy the program directory in multiple locations to prevent losing it and it is safe from any transactions when protected with a password (the amount of bitcoins and history stored in the program can be seen but none can be spent). You can regenerate the whole Electrum account with a 13 word seed in case you lose the wallet (it suggests writing them on paper but it should be possible to memorise them in order).

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Are you buying up Bitcoins because you believe that the Euro will tumble in value now that the British economy is going to stop propping up the Eurozone? (Tounge in cheek)

No. With a pocket full of high value Euros I can easily afford to be frivolous and buy these Bitcoin things. I got bored with gold bars.

 

[Sirius76]

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-continues-record-breaking-run-to-top-1500/

Regarding the other cryptocurrencies, don't they need to be bought and sold with bitcoin usually anyway? So they probably don't deter from its use.


This is an interesting chart for all the others: https://coinmarketcap.com/

 

[beorhthelm]

so you could keep the blockchain on a usb drive and only plug it in when making transactions ?

yeh, though it would be out of date and need some time to sync up. the blockchain went through 100GB earlier this year, its not so much a problem today as a problem down the road and for new adopters soaking up that data. as noted there are tools that bypass need for the whole blockchain, i used Multibit, but your stepping away from the core and relying on third parties. see MtGox.

 

[Sirius76]

http://www.coindesk.com/hedge-fund-founder-invests-10-net-worth-bitcoin-ether/ Hedge Fund Billionaire Invests 10% Net Worth into Bitcoin and Ether

'.....Novogratz said he has invested in both bitcoin and ether, the cryptocurrency that powers the ethereum blockchain, calling the moves the "best investment" of his life, the report said.'

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

http://www.coindesk.com/hedge-fund-founder-invests-10-net-worth-bitcoin-ether/ Hedge Fund Billionaire Invests 10% Net Worth into Bitcoin and Ether
'.....Novogratz said he has invested in both bitcoin and ether, the cryptocurrency that powers the ethereum blockchain, calling the moves the "best investment" of his life, the report said.'

Has he heard of Brewdog?

 

[Sirius76]

Just joined coinbase.com and it lets you buy and sell three currencies: Litecoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin. Bitcoin has gone up the least in the last month (36%) with Litecoin going up 167% and Ethereum 97%. So basically, it is an easy way to buy using your bank account etc and also I noticed Ethereum was $80 yesterday and about $90 today so it's almost certain to get to $100 just as a nice round figure so 10% profit should be easy?!

 

[Sirius76]

Well Bitcoin nearly got to $1600 but then plummeted by over $100 I think so at least it's not going too crazy.... by the way my total guess about Ethereum has some extra weight (I hadn't read any predictions about it before): http://www.coindesk.com/analysts-predict-100-price-ethereums-ether-token/

 

[Sirius76]

http://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-ether-100-price-historic-first/

I was right about the Ethereum price and it happened very fast overnight. It will probably go down a bit now while people take profits etc.

There are better options to bet on the prices going up and down...you can probably find reputable sites with binary options that work with bitcoins etc

 

[knocky1]

Well Bitcoin nearly got to $1600 but then plummeted by over $100 I think so at least it's not going too crazy.... by the way my total guess about Ethereum has some extra weight (I hadn't read any predictions about it before): http://www.coindesk.com/analysts-predict-100-price-ethereums-ether-token/

But I bought £10,000 worth on your advice.......

 

[Sirius76]

Eh what did you buy? I think buying into these bitcoins is a good idea... you can easily exchange them into different coins too. Bitcoin has gone up again a bit and it's been on a good run for over a week now (actually it's basically been over a month with no falls but when it falls it always seems to end up higher than before the next time, anyway).

 

[Sirius76]

Actually, I think any falls seem to recover almost straight away now as it's back up to $1600 again I think! It's not a good idea for it to go up too fast, really, as then it isn't very controlled and it can plummet more easily.

 

[Sirius76]

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4069254-paypal-buy-coinbase

This from yesterday recommends PayPal purchase CoinBase.com (which I mentioned yesterday)

 

[Sirius76]

For first time ever Bitcoin reaches $1billion 24hour volume: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/