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Post by belfastshrew on Dec 22, 2020 18:45:45 GMT 1
When it comes to virtual currencies...ignorance is bliss!
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Post by PeterBroadbent on Dec 22, 2020 19:09:36 GMT 1
When it comes to virtual currencies...ignorance is bliss! I guess! But it's all quite simple! As BarryNic says, it's quite a ride! Becoming more mainstream with PayPal and big institutional investment companies getting on board.. But it could be the Dutch tulip thing, who knows? |
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Post by PeterBroadbent on Dec 22, 2020 19:16:01 GMT 1
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Post by lenny on Dec 22, 2020 20:00:23 GMT 1
Tried hard to understand the concept but was over my head. I will stick to normal stocks and shares. Stocks and shares? I should be so lucky..... cash and plastic is the full extent of my financial expertise🤣🤣 Appreciate you're being frivolous but my advice to anyone is to open a Stocks and Shares ISA with Vanguard - cheap as chips and very simple. When you're getting nowt on cash, a passive global equity fund (i.e. basically owning a bit of every public company in the world) is a great starting point. |
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Post by armchairfan on Dec 22, 2020 20:21:25 GMT 1
Stocks and shares? I should be so lucky..... cash and plastic is the full extent of my financial expertise🤣🤣 Appreciate you're being frivolous but my advice to anyone is to open a Stocks and Shares ISA with Vanguard - cheap as chips and very simple. When you're getting nowt on cash, a passive global equity fund (i.e. basically owning a bit of every public company in the world) is a great starting point. Thanks for the info.... I think my sense of humour gets lost on here sometimes! |
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Post by PeterBroadbent on Dec 22, 2020 21:31:53 GMT 1
Stocks and shares? I should be so lucky..... cash and plastic is the full extent of my financial expertise🤣🤣 Appreciate you're being frivolous but my advice to anyone is to open a Stocks and Shares ISA with Vanguard - cheap as chips and very simple. When you're getting nowt on cash, a passive global equity fund (i.e. basically owning a bit of every public company in the world) is a great starting point. Yep, diversify! Rule no. 1. But include a cheeky bit of crypto! |
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Post by SeanBroseley on Dec 22, 2020 23:58:48 GMT 1
No.
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Post by PeterBroadbent on Dec 23, 2020 1:14:02 GMT 1
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Post by frankwellshrews on Dec 23, 2020 9:42:16 GMT 1
Say it does get to $300k, then what?
That gives bitcoin a "market cap" of $6.3tn, more thsn double the size of the UK economy and more than the total cash that's estimsted to exist (about $5tn). Unless it actually becomes useful for something other than "hodling" it'll still just be a very expensive spreadsheet cell or random word salad you've memorised somewhere.
Meanwhile the guys that run the exchanges or were savy enough to actually cash out their gains before it has one of its periodic crashes as "whales" steal all the genuine liwuidity in the market are spending your real money on "lambos".
Couple of genuine questions;
- has anybody actually managed to cash out a non trivial amount in bitcoin or are you all just hodling forever?
- does the correlation between the creation of the obviously fraudulent "stablecoin" Tether and the rise in value of bitcoin this year not give anybody pause for thought?
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Post by martinshrew on Dec 23, 2020 10:38:19 GMT 1
I invested heavy on Ripple a long time ago. I put about ÂŁ1,200 in I'd estimate. When it recently hit $0.78 I took about ÂŁ600 worth which after the last couple of weeks looks a good decision. Just bought back the amount I sold but for around ÂŁ200, so I'm still ÂŁ800 in but I've cashed at a handy time and decreased my overall investment cost. I think Ripple are being sued by SEC, causing this major drop the last few days. To answer Frankwell, if Bitcoin gets $50k they'll be a sell off, and it'll continue to rise/fall and try for another ATH. |
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lynch
Midland League Division Two
Posts: 211
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Post by lynch on Dec 23, 2020 10:43:00 GMT 1
Coinbase has some short online courses where you can learn about different coins. Often they pay a small amount (£10) for doing them and then you can invite others and get referral fees. Can then hold or transfer to another coin. It’s a way to learn if that’s your objective.
Most inter coin transfers can be done for free (on same platform) but you’ll have to pay a fee to transfer to fiat. There are also card options where you can have a fiat (£/$€) account with crypto coins. E.g. Wirex. Can then spend your crypto (by exchanging to fiat on the app) in the shops. Also saves having your ££ investment in a wallet on your pc!
There is a network called Compound where you can earn interest on you crypto. There are allot of DeFi projects using blockchain that issue coins for differing purposes that are very interesting prospects but not necessarily as investments.
Coin prices fluctuate so obviously profit to be made trading. Prices also fluctuate quite widely so bigger gains/losses to be made. But many of the bigger investment houses are now offering crypto investments which is bringing more interest which has benefit of spreading the ownership and less small number of people with large holdings that can impact price. Something that will be mainstream in 5-10 years in my view.
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Post by martinshrew on Dec 23, 2020 10:49:20 GMT 1
Coinbase has some short online courses where you can learn about different coins. Often they pay a small amount (£10) for doing them and then you can invite others and get referral fees. Can then hold or transfer to another coin. It’s a way to learn if that’s your objective. Most inter coin transfers can be done for free (on same platform) but you’ll have to pay a fee to transfer to fiat. There are also card options where you can have a fiat (£/$€) account with crypto coins. E.g. Wirex. Can then spend your crypto (by exchanging to fiat on the app) in the shops. Also saves having your ££ investment in a wallet on your pc! There is a network called Compound where you can earn interest on you crypto. There are allot of DeFi projects using blockchain that issue coins for differing purposes that are very interesting prospects but not necessarily as investments. Coin prices fluctuate so obviously profit to be made trading. Prices also fluctuate quite widely so bigger gains/losses to be made. But many of the bigger investment houses are now offering crypto investments which is bringing more interest which has benefit of spreading the ownership and less small number of people with large holdings that can impact price. Something that will be mainstream in 5-10 years in my view. Great post. I hate people dismissing it as a scam, tell that to the many banks starting to use Ripple, or PayPal using crypto. There's lots of real life examples. I'd rather be £1000 in with a chance than miss out, put it that way. |
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Post by PeterBroadbent on Dec 23, 2020 10:50:42 GMT 1
- has anybody actually managed to cash out a non trivial amount in bitcoin or are you all just hodling forever?
Yes, indeed ... bought big in December 2015 and sold some Xmas 2017. You do the math :-)
Hodling atm!
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Post by frankwellshrews on Dec 23, 2020 10:51:07 GMT 1
I invested heavy on Ripple a long time ago. I put about ÂŁ1,200 in I'd estimate. When it recently hit $0.78 I took about ÂŁ600 worth which after the last couple of weeks looks a good decision. Just bought back the amount I sold but for around ÂŁ200, so I'm still ÂŁ800 in but I've cashed at a handy time and decreased my overall investment cost. I think Ripple are being sued by SEC, causing this major drop the last few days. To answer Frankwell, if Bitcoin gets $50k they'll be a sell off, and it'll continue to rise/fall and try for another ATH. So basically the cycle repeats; at some pre ordained signal the insiders quickly sell off in bulk, simultaneously crashing the market price and hoovering up all the real ÂŁ/$ in the exchanges and leaving all the mugs to try to swap their worthless btc/tethers for real money. Cue lots of "hacks" (Mt Gox, Quadriga the most famous in recent times) and then all the sob stories; "I invested our life savings in bitcoin, now my wife is divorcing me", then everyone forgets about it for a year and the pump and dump starts again. I mean, it's fine as long as you understand you're gambling and aren't risking more than you can afford. It's the people who get drawn into the whole "be your own bank" nonsense I feel sorry for. |
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Post by martinshrew on Dec 23, 2020 10:53:23 GMT 1
I invested heavy on Ripple a long time ago. I put about ÂŁ1,200 in I'd estimate. When it recently hit $0.78 I took about ÂŁ600 worth which after the last couple of weeks looks a good decision. Just bought back the amount I sold but for around ÂŁ200, so I'm still ÂŁ800 in but I've cashed at a handy time and decreased my overall investment cost. I think Ripple are being sued by SEC, causing this major drop the last few days. To answer Frankwell, if Bitcoin gets $50k they'll be a sell off, and it'll continue to rise/fall and try for another ATH. So basically the cycle repeats; at some pre ordained signal the insiders quickly sell off in bulk, simultaneously crashing the market price and hoovering up all the real ÂŁ/$ in the exchanges and leaving all the mugs to try to swap their worthless btc/tethers for real money. Cue lots of "hacks" (Mt Gox, Quadriga the most famous in recent times) and then all the sob stories; "I invested our life savings in bitcoin, now my wife is divorcing me", then everyone forgets about it for a year and the pump and dump starts again. I mean, it's fine as long as you understand you're gambling and aren't risking more than you can afford. It's the people who get drawn into the whole "be your own bank" nonsense I feel sorry for. I think you dismiss it's real life use a little easily. It might be worth you signing up for Coinbase? As well as an hour of education on there, you get about ÂŁ40 in alt coins free whilst answering questions / watching videos. |
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Post by zenfootball2 on Dec 23, 2020 10:58:48 GMT 1
So basically the cycle repeats; at some pre ordained signal the insiders quickly sell off in bulk, simultaneously crashing the market price and hoovering up all the real ÂŁ/$ in the exchanges and leaving all the mugs to try to swap their worthless btc/tethers for real money. Cue lots of "hacks" (Mt Gox, Quadriga the most famous in recent times) and then all the sob stories; "I invested our life savings in bitcoin, now my wife is divorcing me", then everyone forgets about it for a year and the pump and dump starts again. I mean, it's fine as long as you understand you're gambling and aren't risking more than you can afford. It's the people who get drawn into the whole "be your own bank" nonsense I feel sorry for. I think you dismiss it's real life use a little easily. It might be worth you signing up for Coinbase? As well as an hour of education on there, you get about ÂŁ40 in alt coins free whilst answering questions / watching videos. just out of curiosity as i know nothing about bit coin, if you use coinbase do you then have to pay tax in the us or just uk when you sell ? |
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Post by martinshrew on Dec 23, 2020 11:10:09 GMT 1
I think you dismiss it's real life use a little easily. It might be worth you signing up for Coinbase? As well as an hour of education on there, you get about ÂŁ40 in alt coins free whilst answering questions / watching videos. just out of curiosity as i know nothing about bit coin, if you use coinbase do you then have to pay tax in the us or just uk when you sell ? There are tax implications yes, though the onus is on the individual to pay the tax, not Coinbase or another other exchange to enforce it I believe. |
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Post by frankwellshrews on Dec 23, 2020 11:12:19 GMT 1
So basically the cycle repeats; at some pre ordained signal the insiders quickly sell off in bulk, simultaneously crashing the market price and hoovering up all the real ÂŁ/$ in the exchanges and leaving all the mugs to try to swap their worthless btc/tethers for real money. Cue lots of "hacks" (Mt Gox, Quadriga the most famous in recent times) and then all the sob stories; "I invested our life savings in bitcoin, now my wife is divorcing me", then everyone forgets about it for a year and the pump and dump starts again. I mean, it's fine as long as you understand you're gambling and aren't risking more than you can afford. It's the people who get drawn into the whole "be your own bank" nonsense I feel sorry for. I think you dismiss it's real life use a little easily. It might be worth you signing up for Coinbase? As well as an hour of education on there, you get about ÂŁ40 in alt coins free whilst answering questions / watching videos. I love it; an hour's worth of indoctrination plus they give you a load of worthless spreadsheet cells to gamble with to try to get you hooked. Please do tell me about these real life uses of bitcoin though. Successful currencies are generally stable, denominated in easy to understand units, widely accepted, easy to use and have some sort of regulatory/governmental backing that gives users confidence in the transaction and protection from fraud or error. Bitcoin fulfills precisely none of those criteria; "I just bought this for 0.00000000000163456789 btc, down from 0.00000000000287654332 btc last week. Transaction only took a week to clear with a ÂŁ25 fee plus.....  , typed a digit wrong in the address, now I've lost that money forever." Interestingly, I think this is what XRP aimed, with some success to get around; easy to understand units and genuinely easy to transfer but it's only aimed at, and useful for, transacting between financial institutions which makes it a slightly better but still weird choice to gamble on given the point of it us basically that it will stabilise and become a meaningful unit of exchange rather than fluctuate wildly at the whims of whichever crooks are manipularing the market. |
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Post by frankwellshrews on Dec 23, 2020 11:14:17 GMT 1
- has anybody actually managed to cash out a non trivial amount in bitcoin or are you all just hodling forever? Yes, indeed ... bought big in December 2015 and sold some Xmas 2017. You do the math :-) Hodling atm! Well done; out of interest, what are you calling "non trivial"? (If you don't mind my asking) |
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Post by martinshrew on Dec 23, 2020 11:15:10 GMT 1
I think you dismiss it's real life use a little easily. It might be worth you signing up for Coinbase? As well as an hour of education on there, you get about ÂŁ40 in alt coins free whilst answering questions / watching videos. I love it; an hour's worth of indoctrination plus they give you a load of worthless spreadsheet cells to gamble with to try to get you hooked. Please do tell me about these real life uses of bitcoin though. Successful currencies are generally stable, denominated in easy to understand units, widely accepted, easy to use and have some sort of regulatory/governmental backing that gives users confidence in the transaction and protection from fraud or error. Bitcoin fulfills precisely none of those criteria; "I just bought this for 0.00000000000163456789 btc, down from 0.00000000000287654332 btc last week. Transaction only took a week to clear with a ÂŁ25 fee plus..... , typed a digit wrong in the address, now I've lost that money forever." Interestingly, I think this is what XRP aimed, with some success to get around; easy to understand units and genuinely easy to transfer but it's only aimed at, and useful for, transacting between financial institutions which makes it a slightly better but still weird choice to gamble on given the point of it us basically that it will stabilise and become a meaningful unit of exchange rather than fluctuate wildly at the whims of whichever crooks are manipularing the market. There's a certain amount of XRP though, it's not unlimited. If the demand from institution requires XRP and many more follow suit it will be demand and supply. There's loads of real life use, but your tone is so dismissive I'll not waste too much time sending you loads of links, I'll let you do your own searching if you can bothered. |
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Post by frankwellshrews on Dec 23, 2020 11:24:40 GMT 1
I love it; an hour's worth of indoctrination plus they give you a load of worthless spreadsheet cells to gamble with to try to get you hooked. Please do tell me about these real life uses of bitcoin though. Successful currencies are generally stable, denominated in easy to understand units, widely accepted, easy to use and have some sort of regulatory/governmental backing that gives users confidence in the transaction and protection from fraud or error. Bitcoin fulfills precisely none of those criteria; "I just bought this for 0.00000000000163456789 btc, down from 0.00000000000287654332 btc last week. Transaction only took a week to clear with a ÂŁ25 fee plus..... , typed a digit wrong in the address, now I've lost that money forever." Interestingly, I think this is what XRP aimed, with some success to get around; easy to understand units and genuinely easy to transfer but it's only aimed at, and useful for, transacting between financial institutions which makes it a slightly better but still weird choice to gamble on given the point of it us basically that it will stabilise and become a meaningful unit of exchange rather than fluctuate wildly at the whims of whichever crooks are manipularing the market. There's a certain amount of XRP though, it's not unlimited. If the demand from institution requires XRP and many more follow suit it will be demand and supply. There's loads of real life use, but your tone is so dismissive I'll not waste too much time sending you loads of links, I'll let you do your own searching if you can bothered. Sorry - cranky this morning as the kids woke me up at 6 30 after a few Christmas tipples with the wife to celebrate another Town win. Good luck to you and snyone investing in these and I would be genuinely interested to hear some more examples of real life use. Also would really be interested to get a view from bitcoin hodlers on tether as this is pretty much the number one thing (apart from all the scams) that puts me off. |
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Post by PeterBroadbent on Dec 23, 2020 11:38:48 GMT 1
- has anybody actually managed to cash out a non trivial amount in bitcoin or are you all just hodling forever? Yes, indeed ... bought big in December 2015 and sold some Xmas 2017. You do the math :-) Hodling atm! Well done; out of interest, what are you calling "non trivial"? (If you don't mind my asking) The price went up astonishingly... check the historical bitcoin prices :-) I wouldn't store coin on any exchange though, nor use coin to earn interest which is a facility offered on many exchanges, as you're not in control of your holdings should a hack occur! |
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lynch
Midland League Division Two
Posts: 211
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Post by lynch on Dec 23, 2020 11:42:06 GMT 1
There is little practical use for Bitcoin other than a wealth store. I.e. you’re unlikely to be buying a pizza with it anymore.
There are other networks, e.g. in the payment sector, that addressed this by having unlimited coins to mine and therefore keeping the liquidity to keep the price stable. As many pointed out no point trying to spend a currency when your trying to calculate if it’ll be worth more or less in a couple of weeks. Stellar is a good example. I’ve used many times and the fees are negligible.
Fees are an issue - like they have been on fiat exchanges but are now reducing with the many competitors driving competition.
Taxes are jurisdiction specific. HRMC has a paper on it if U.K. based and obviously it’s your responsibility to pay any relevant taxes. It’s rare to have US tax obligations as an oversees resident but possible.
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Post by frankwellshrews on Dec 23, 2020 11:50:28 GMT 1
Well done; out of interest, what are you calling "non trivial"? (If you don't mind my asking) The price went up astonishingly... check the historical bitcoin prices :-) I wouldn't store coin on any exchange though, nor use coin to earn interest which is a facility offered on many exchanges, as you're not in control of your holdings should a hack occur! Well aware of the price increase, just interested how much you won big. In my experience people tend to cash out a few hundred quid / few grand maybe but the big hodlers are always convinced it'll just keep going up forever. This is my big anti argument; you pretty much have to use an exchange to cash out and they seem to have a habit of welching on the bet. Did you get any grief over tax when you sold up? |
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lynch
Midland League Division Two
Posts: 211
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Post by lynch on Dec 23, 2020 11:54:50 GMT 1
Also would really be interested to get a view from bitcoin hodlers on tether as this is pretty much the number one thing (apart from all the scams) that puts me off. Tether tries to track US$. There are a few stable coins that are tied to Fiat currencies. Main benefit of these is stability in value. No good as an investment unless your thinking US$ is going to appreciate in value; and then may as well buy and hold US$. |
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Post by frankwellshrews on Dec 23, 2020 11:59:33 GMT 1
Tether tries to track US$. There are a few stable coins that are tied to Fiat currencies. Main benefit of these is stability in value. No good as an investment unless your thinking US$ is going to appreciate in value; and then may as well buy and hold US$. Again, missing the point / skirting round the issue; Tether has repeatedly failed to show that it's genuinely backed 1:1 by $ which defeats the entire object. It's my contention that tether is basically monopoly money; a clever way to perpetuate the pyramid scheme by creating it out of thin air, using to it buy bitcoin and drive up the price then cashing out once there's a sufficient amount of actual money drawn in by FOMO. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2020 12:04:46 GMT 1
There is little practical use for Bitcoin other than a wealth store. I.e. you’re unlikely to be buying a pizza with it anymore. There are other networks, e.g. in the payment sector, that addressed this by having unlimited coins to mine and therefore keeping the liquidity to keep the price stable. As many pointed out no point trying to spend a currency when your trying to calculate if it’ll be worth more or less in a couple of weeks. Stellar is a good example. I’ve used many times and the fees are negligible. Fees are an issue - like they have been on fiat exchanges but are now reducing with the many competitors driving competition. Taxes are jurisdiction specific. HRMC has a paper on it if U.K. based and obviously it’s your responsibility to pay any relevant taxes. It’s rare to have US tax obligations as an oversees resident but possible. Thanks for this. Can it be used for criminal activities in any way? I mean, beyond the obvious scams, things like drug and arms dealing? |
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Post by PeterBroadbent on Dec 23, 2020 12:07:16 GMT 1
The price went up astonishingly... check the historical bitcoin prices :-) I wouldn't store coin on any exchange though, nor use coin to earn interest which is a facility offered on many exchanges, as you're not in control of your holdings should a hack occur! Well aware of the price increase, just interested how much you won big. In my experience people tend to cash out a few hundred quid / few grand maybe but the big hodlers are always convinced it'll just keep going up forever. This is my big anti argument; you pretty much have to use an exchange to cash out and they seem to have a habit of welching on the bet. Did you get any grief over tax when you sold up? Paid my dues!! Noone should really take financial advice from a football messageboard.... but I'm buying! :-) |
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lynch
Midland League Division Two
Posts: 211
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Post by lynch on Dec 23, 2020 12:10:20 GMT 1
Again, missing the point / skirting round the issue; Tether has repeatedly failed to show that it's genuinely backed 1:1 by $ which defeats the entire object. It's my contention that tether is basically monopoly money; a clever way to perpetuate the pyramid scheme by creating it out of thin air, using to it buy bitcoin and drive up the price then cashing out once there's a sufficient amount of actual money drawn in by FOMO. It may be the developers intention to do what you describe. There is no market regulation. Lots of examples of large holders dumping which was one of the positives of the number of BTC addresses holding large values decreasing (from an investment perspective). In my view stablecoins have been developed to address a problem but if not adopted don’t survive. Lots of bright ideas but not all business ideas work. |
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lynch
Midland League Division Two
Posts: 211
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Post by lynch on Dec 23, 2020 12:16:11 GMT 1
There is little practical use for Bitcoin other than a wealth store. I.e. you’re unlikely to be buying a pizza with it anymore. There are other networks, e.g. in the payment sector, that addressed this by having unlimited coins to mine and therefore keeping the liquidity to keep the price stable. As many pointed out no point trying to spend a currency when your trying to calculate if it’ll be worth more or less in a couple of weeks. Stellar is a good example. I’ve used many times and the fees are negligible. Fees are an issue - like they have been on fiat exchanges but are now reducing with the many competitors driving competition. Taxes are jurisdiction specific. HRMC has a paper on it if U.K. based and obviously it’s your responsibility to pay any relevant taxes. It’s rare to have US tax obligations as an oversees resident but possible. Thanks for this. Can it be used for criminal activities in any way? I mean, beyond the obvious scams, things like drug and arms dealing? Yes. Security has been one of the big pluses if your in that line. But I wouldn’t use Bitcoin anymore as addresses are traceable. Zcash is big on privacy. Litecoin have a release next year planned with privacy enhancements that may drive adoption too. |
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