Bitcoin / Bitcoins / Crypto Currency

Argh indeed, sounds a bit shit. Hope you figure it out. As an added bonus to all this bitcoin trickery I've finally gotten around to sorting out my passwords with KeePass2, cloud storing the database, app on phone etc. Feel like a tech wiz!

I thought I'd need to be on my toes or the internet would kill me or something.

Just to qualify that.

There's obviously no guarantee that some cataclysmic Black Swan event won't happen and make all BTC near worthless.

Unless you have a physical wallet they can probably be stolen. If you do use a physical wallet you can probably loose it.

The people on reddit who take the long term view seem to reason that; 1) there is too much momentum so unlikely to fail, 2) in the medium to longer term it will be a digital gold equivalent rather than a regular currency, but with the limited amount combined with wide spread adoption means its current value is miniscule.

I'm not sure, but then I don't know much about it. My concern is the very convincing arguments I've heard in relation to the enormous global power consumption even at current levels.

Like any investment or gambling only invest/bet what you can afford to lose.

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@GoatandTricycle

You could also argue that now is not a good time to buy... unless of course it starts climbing again..
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XBT&to=GBP&view=1M

Id like to buy some other currencies what is everyone looking at now. I wish I had more that the little amount of bitcoin I have but hey ho thats how life works.

I bought a litecoin based on this (caveat emptor - I don't know shit about crypto currencies!)

https://investorplace.com/2017/11/cryptocurrencies-to-buy-if-you-missed-the-boat-on-bitcoin/

What is the logic for buying a "cheaper" coin?

BTC has pretty much outperformed all alt-coins once your remove the ICO pump'n dumps. Most of them are correlated to a greater or lessor degree.

I would be really, really wary of anything advertised on the basis "if you missed BTC buy this!"

If there is a specific coin that has a strong use case and a good team then go for it.

I can't really see a case for LTC increasing at the exponential rate BTC has/will. It does seem to have a good use case as a currency /method of payment.

I have a bit of Crown and NEM. I like the idea of Ripple but the actual coins aren't related to their product.

Dash has been a stand out good performer for me. Great team too.

Catching up is quite a roller coaster.

@hippy

So I should try and get a refund on my £10k of bitcoins?

Hope you didn't ;)

What is the logic for buying a "cheaper" coin?

No logic.

Litecoin provides a psychologically easier path to public integration

It just sounds more affordable. I have one. May buy another one.

I lost some of them...

What is the logic for buying a "cheaper" coin?

they're often more volatile so there's more money to be made. Bitcoin at this stage is a longer investment, sink your money in now and wait until they're a million dollars each. Alt coins can jump from being $2 each to $20 each very quickly so you can cash out with a 10x profit.

Yeah. it's basically like buying penny stocks.

And the volatility is driven by manipulation...rather like penny stocks, I'd wager.

A lot of the time, yes

Bitcoin at this stage is a longer investment, sink your money in now and wait until they're a million dollars each

Interested as to why this argument is justified - surely only demand pushes price up, so why would they keep creeping up?

https://www.ft.com/content/43d69af8-d6b0-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9

I'm not convinced that you're likely to know about an alt until the pump has started, but that was my logic for buying some. I used some "profits" from some BTC I bought at £350 and sold around $2k. None have risen x5.

That said I did sell my ETH at $15!

I guess my main gripe is people looking at BTC as being too expensive an entry. If you buy at $10k and it doubles, you've doubled your money. The same if you bought at $1k. Plus BTC has significant advantages in terms of liquidity and adoption.

On the subject of alts, if people haven't seen this it's quite interesting ; http://blog.mclain.ca/31-crypto-currencies-week-1/

There's a reddit thread as well.

There's a limited supply and we probably haven't even touched demand potential. I'm not so sure about $1m as I think if mass adoption happens you'll have better price discovery, so we'll end up with swings measured in bsp% rather than tens of %.

There's a good info graphic that shows BTC compared to other markets. I'll see if I can find it.

The current Bitcoin price doesn't seem sustainable at the current levels of mining compared to usage.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/bitcoins-insane-energy-consumption-explained/

Mining is using roughly the same energy as Denmark.

Each Bitcoin transaction currently requires $50+ worth of fees to accompany it, otherwise the transaction isn't worth being picked up by the miners and included in a block.

Maybe I'm repeating an unsubstantiated claim, but isn't most mining done in China via "free" hydro power?

The energy cost is something I've worried about.

On the plus side, the majority of the larger bitcoin mines use hydro power from the 3 gorges dam.

Where do you get that $50 figure from? I regularly send transactions with only a dollar or two and it gets picked up in next block. Way too expensive even then. Change is needed. See segwit, BCH etc etc.

Fees are based on a calculation using size of transaction in kB and size of mempool at that time. As of the last 24 hours, most transactions were sent and confirmed with 150 Satoshi's per byte which by my calculation is about $8 for the average transaction.

Given that the average transaction value for today was about $75k, $8 doesn't seem so bad.

Ah, the page I was looking at quoted a much higher transaction cost of 150 Satoshi/byte.

Still, being propped up on "free" energy in China. What's Mandarin for Ponzi?

I so agree, proof of work mining cannot be the future of blockchain. I'm working on a project that is attempting to offer a viable alternative. Long way from being ready though.

15k today