Cryptocurrencies

[SharperDingaan]

There are Bitcoin mixers which can anonymize your Bitcoin, but you could be correct. I am not concerned about the short term price though. If it falls by half or more it won't be the first time nor the last. I plan to hold for a decade or more.

 

Mixers disguise who paid you, but you're still the recipient of the coin - & your public key is visible to all.

If it rises rapidly, & you sell (for security) - nothing prevents you buying it back later (at hopefully a lot less).

 

Interesting piece from Quartz attached. Note the links between Etherium and Bitcoin

https://qz.com/981814/the-strange-mix-of-reasons-why-bitcoin-has-soared-to-all-time-records/?utm_source=YPL&yptr=yahoo

 

SD

[Mark Jr.]

I don't think the WannaCry worm (which is what you're talking about) has anything to do with "spiking the BTC price" or anything like that, it's just a straight ahead ransomware attack with the added novelty of using a worm delivery system instead of spearphishing. Given that it attacks IIS servers and not workstations this makes sense. Bitcoin has always been the payment method in ransomware attacks, it's a huge business globally, and it's easy to move the BTC around and not get caught.

 

If you're looking for a rationale to dump any bitcoin you're holding, WannaCry isn't it.

[SharperDingaan]

We live and learn every day ...

 

http://www.ibtimes.com/wannacry-ransomware-attack-hackers-raised-50000-bitcoins-now-what-2539199

 

Yet by Monday morning, the London-based bitcoin tracking experts at Elliptic Enterprises Ltd. found only about $50,000 worth of bitcoin ransoms were paid, Bloomberg reported.

 

SD

 

[Jurgis]

We live and learn every day ...

 

http://www.ibtimes.com/wannacry-ransomware-attack-hackers-raised-50000-bitcoins-now-what-2539199

 

Yet by Monday morning, the London-based bitcoin tracking experts at Elliptic Enterprises Ltd. found only about $50,000 worth of bitcoin ransoms were paid, Bloomberg reported.

 

SD

 

Crime just doesn't pay... enough.  8)

[rkbabang]

We live and learn every day ...

 

http://www.ibtimes.com/wannacry-ransomware-attack-hackers-raised-50000-bitcoins-now-what-2539199

 

Yet by Monday morning, the London-based bitcoin tracking experts at Elliptic Enterprises Ltd. found only about $50,000 worth of bitcoin ransoms were paid, Bloomberg reported.

 

SD

 

Crime just doesn't pay... enough.  8)

 

Even if they somehow get ahold of their $50k they caused an enormous amount of damage for very little reward.  It's like a mugger who kills someone for $5 in their wallet.  Luckily a 22 year old who still lives with his parents accidentally stopped the attack.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-22-year-old-stopped-global-cyberattack-ransomware-registering-domain-2017-5

 

[Jurgis]

22 year olds who live with their parents are the backbone of our society.  8)

[Spekulatius]

Aren't these cryptocurrencies inflationary? As I understand that it, mining these cryptocurrencies does not create any real value, so basically, a fan cryptocurrency  has a value, this means that the value of the currency we currently own is devalued. Right now, the total value of the crypto currency creates an s probably still too small to matter, but if it becomes significant, there should be an inflationary impact on the economies.

 

I also think that the government eventually will crack down on this for above reason and the ease to use it for money laundry. Sure, the government mayn't be able to control who owns it or who uses it, but if they make the use of he cryptocurrency unlawful, then the cryptocurrency would become a Mafia currency of some sort and be worth far less for most of us.

 

I think it is just a matter of time when this get regulated to some extend. This is now like the "Wild West", but eventually, the Wild West was ruled by law as well.

[SnarkyPuppy]

Aren't these cryptocurrencies inflationary? As I understand that it, mining these cryptocurrencies does not create any real value, so basically, a fan cryptocurrency  has a value, this means that the value of the currency we currently own is devalued. Right now, the total value of the crypto currency creates an s probably still too small to matter, but if it becomes significant, there should be an inflationary impact on the economies.

 

I also think that the government eventually will crack down on this for above reason and the ease to use it for money laundry. Sure, the government mayn't be able to control who owns it or who uses it, but if they make the use of he cryptocurrency unlawful, then the cryptocurrency would become a Mafia currency of some sort and be worth far less for most of us.

 

I think it is just a matter of time when this get regulated to some extend. This is now like the "Wild West", but eventually, the Wild West was ruled by law as well.

 

You could argue that governments providing some layer of regulation could be a catalyst for increase in layman use. 

[SharperDingaan]

Aren't these cryptocurrencies inflationary? As I understand that it, mining these cryptocurrencies does not create any real value, so basically, a fan cryptocurrency  has a value, this means that the value of the currency we currently own is devalued. Right now, the total value of the crypto currency creates an s probably still too small to matter, but if it becomes significant, there should be an inflationary impact on the economies.

 

I also think that the government eventually will crack down on this for above reason and the ease to use it for money laundry. Sure, the government mayn't be able to control who owns it or who uses it, but if they make the use of he cryptocurrency unlawful, then the cryptocurrency would become a Mafia currency of some sort and be worth far less for most of us.

 

I think it is just a matter of time when this get regulated to some extend. This is now like the "Wild West", but eventually, the Wild West was ruled by law as well.

 

The experience to date suggests that cryptocurrency is not inflationary. Given that very little cryptocurrency is actually accepted for payment purposes, & those that are (ie: Bitcoin) don’t transact very much – that’s not unreasonable.

 

The broader problem is the inflation metric itself – quantity of money/goods available, usually measured as an ‘M’ number, divided by GDP. Where’s everything (flight, hotel, meals, etc.) you bought using loyalty points?  (ie Visa, Aeroplan, Airmiles, Car Rentals, Travelocity, Uber, airBnB, etc.) – all of which is just another type of cryptocurrency. If the ‘M’ isn’t capturing it, the official inflation rate may well be understating by a good 25-35bp. 

 

Central banks are heavily involved in cryptocurrency, and it will ultimately be regulated by central banks – with everything linked to the internet of things (IoT). Anything not on the IoT essentially being unusable for most purposes - because it doesn’t have a blockchain history.

 

SD

 

[Desert_Rat]

"If you bought $100 of bitcoin 7 years ago, you'd be sitting on $72.9 million now after new record high"

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bought-100-bitcoin-7-years-081422112.html

 

I found this particularly depressing because I sought to do that but had such a hard time acquiring them I passed. But if I had bought my target amount ($1000) I may still be holding them as I do krugerrands bought 20~ years ago.

 

$729,000,000!

 

[rkbabang]

"If you bought $100 of bitcoin 7 years ago, you'd be sitting on $72.9 million now after new record high"

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bought-100-bitcoin-7-years-081422112.html

 

I found this particularly depressing because I sought to do that but had such a hard time acquiring them I passed. But if I had bought my target amount ($1000) I may still be holding them as I do krugerrands bought 20~ years ago.

 

$729,000,000!

 

 

 

Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day.

 

That is pretty depressing.  I was following bitcoin since it was far less than $1.  I remember the excitement on the discussion boards when it achieved "dollar parity". 

 

The only way to aquire it was either through mining (which I never looked very closely into) or MtGox which was difficult to setup an account, they only took wire transfers or something, so I too never bought any.  I watched it soar to over $1K and then back down.  I finally started acquiring some at around $200-$300 per bitcoin.  I also choose not to participate in the ETH ICO and didn't start acquiring it until it was between $4-$8.

 

Oh well, such is life.  At least I didn't acquire 10K bitcoins (~$22M today) and trade them for a pizza.

 

[Desert_Rat]

Yep, I now recall that it was the wire transfer that had me pass. It had me question the legitimacy of it all.

[Jurgis]

Didn't MtGox go under and everyone who held bitcoin in it get shafted? (Yeah, I know you coulda moved bitcoin out of its wallets, but still).

[rkbabang]

Didn't MtGox go under and everyone who held bitcoin in it get shafted? (Yeah, I know you coulda moved bitcoin out of its wallets, but still).

 

Yes.  They were hacked (some people think it was an inside job).  Holding a balance on an exchange for longer than it takes to make your trades is a bad idea even today.  Transfer in, make your trade, and transfer back out. Today this can be done in minutes.  Back then with the wire transfers to get $US in/out it was a longer process, but your bitcoin could still be transferred in or out quickly.

 

[Mark Jr.]

Didn't MtGox go under and everyone who held bitcoin in it get shafted? (Yeah, I know you coulda moved bitcoin out of its wallets, but still).

 

MtGox was flashing bright red warning lights for months before it went bust, anybody who was paying attention had their BTC out before it happened. In this respect it is very similar to any other failure, i.e. the people in Greece or Cyprus lining up at ATMs and banks when they were far too late to get their money out.

[Mark Jr.]

Aren't these cryptocurrencies inflationary? As I understand that it, mining these cryptocurrencies does not create any real value, so basically, a fan cryptocurrency  has a value, this means that the value of the currency we currently own is devalued. Right now, the total value of the crypto currency creates an s probably still too small to matter, but if it becomes significant, there should be an inflationary impact on the economies.

 

Bitcoin is inelastic in that it cannot be "minted on demand" or by fiat and there is a hard cap on how many bitcoins will ever be mined (21 million). In that sense Bitcoin is a deflationary currency, it has a constraint similar to physical gold, only bitcoin's constraint is mathematical.

 

I also think that the government eventually will crack down on this for above reason and the ease to use it for money laundry. Sure, the government mayn't be able to control who owns it or who uses it, but if they make the use of he cryptocurrency unlawful, then the cryptocurrency would become a Mafia currency of some sort and be worth far less for most of us.

 

I think it is just a matter of time when this get regulated to some extend. This is now like the "Wild West", but eventually, the Wild West was ruled by law as well.

 

This is why I think the eventual winner will be ethereum. With Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan behind ethereum the government will leave it alone, or regulate it in whatever manner the Vampyre Squid and the other banksters steer them.

 

[Liberty]

New piece by Ben Thompson about cryptocurrencies and shared myths and tulips:

 

https://stratechery.com/2017/tulips-myths-and-cryptocurrencies/

[CONeal]

For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.

 

What is the best exchange to buy ETH?

 

Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)? 

 

Is there an up-to-date guide on how all this works?  I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.

 

Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)? 

[rkbabang]

For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.

 

What is the best exchange to buy ETH?

 

Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)? 

 

Is there an up-to-date guide on how all this works?  I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.

 

Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)? 

 

If you want dead-simple.  Open up an account with coinbase.  It is a US based company and follows all US laws, reports to the IRS, etc.  You can open an account, link your bank account and buy bitcoin, ether, or litecoin.  You can use their mobile app as a mobile wallet to do all of this and to send/receive any of the currencies.

 

If you want to stay more private I'd recommend downloading the Jaxx mobile wallet (or chrome extension on your PCs chrome browser).  You can then obtain bitcoin, eth, or a whole host of others, and have it transferred directly into your wallet.  The problem is how?  If you have a bitcoin ATM near you (there are a few near me in NH) then you can put cash in and have it deposit bitcoin into your Jaxx wallet. Or you could find someone locally willing to sell you some for cash (sometimes these people advertise on craigslist, but be careful this sounds risky to me).  Once you have bitcoin one way or the other you can use Shapeshift which is built right into the Jaxx wallet to convert bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies. EDIT: Here is a site which lists locations of bitcoin ATMs.  I'm not sure how accurate or complete it is, but a few of the ATMs I know about are listed there correctly:

https://coinatmradar.com/country/226/bitcoin-atm-united-states/

 

 

There are other wallets and exchanges, but those are the two methods I'd recommend.

 

 

[rkbabang]

For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.

 

What is the best exchange to buy ETH?

 

Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)? 

 

If you use coinbase it works like Gemini you have an account and need to trust coinbase.  You could however use coinbase (or Gemini) to acquire your cryptocurrency and then send it to a wallet which you control the private keys, such as Jaxx (or another I've used is Bread Wallet, but I like Jaxx better now from a usability standpoint and the fact that it supports other currencies besides bitcoin and has Shapeshift integration. Bread Wallet is bitcoin only).  coinbase and Gemini will report your transactions to the IRS, so if you use this method you should keep track of all of your buys and sells for capital gains purposes (you are legally obligated to do this in the US even if you acquire your bitcoins using cash at an ATM or from a private party). 

 

Is there an up-to-date guide on how all this works?  I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.

 

Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)? 

 

Here's a guide I found, but have not read through it, so YMMV.  http://www.coindesk.com/information/

I did read "Mastering Bitcoin" by Andreas Antonopoulos which I'd recommend if you want a deeper understanding of how it all works. Not necessary to use it though.

My best advice would be to open an account with coinbase or Gemini and make some small transactions to see how it works. Buy some bitcoin and ether, transfer it to your Jaxx mobile wallet, use shapeshift to convert some to Dash or something else.  Get a feel for it.  And yes, it might be just a bubble and you can lose money.

 

[CONeal]

For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.

 

What is the best exchange to buy ETH?

 

Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)? 

 

If you use coinbase it works like Gemini you have an account and need to trust coinbase.  You could however use coinbase (or Gemini) to acquire your cryptocurrency and then send it to a wallet which you control the private keys, such as Jaxx (or another I've used is Bread Wallet, but I like Jaxx better now from a usability standpoint and the fact that it supports other currencies besides bitcoin and has Shapeshift integration. Bread Wallet is bitcoin only).  coinbase and Gemini will report your transactions to the IRS, so if you use this method you should keep track of all of your buys and sells for capital gains purposes (you are legally obligated to do this in the US even if you acquire your bitcoins using cash at an ATM or from a private party). 

 

Is there an up-to-date guide on how all this works?  I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.

 

Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)? 

 

Here's a guide I found, but have not read through it, so YMMV.  http://www.coindesk.com/information/

I did read "Mastering Bitcoin" by Andreas Antonopoulos which I'd recommend if you want a deeper understanding of how it all works. Not necessary to use it though.

My best advice would be to open an account with coinbase or Gemini and make some small transactions to see how it works. Buy some bitcoin and ether, transfer it to your Jaxx mobile wallet, use shapeshift to convert some to Dash or something else.  Get a feel for it.  And yes, it might be just a bubble and you can lose money.

 

Thank you very much.  If I download it into a wallet and stored it on my PC do I need to have a fear of someone hacking my computer and stealing the wallet?  If my hard drive crashed am I just screwed out of the bitcoins?

[rkbabang]

For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.

 

What is the best exchange to buy ETH?

 

Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)? 

 

If you use coinbase it works like Gemini you have an account and need to trust coinbase.  You could however use coinbase (or Gemini) to acquire your cryptocurrency and then send it to a wallet which you control the private keys, such as Jaxx (or another I've used is Bread Wallet, but I like Jaxx better now from a usability standpoint and the fact that it supports other currencies besides bitcoin and has Shapeshift integration. Bread Wallet is bitcoin only).  coinbase and Gemini will report your transactions to the IRS, so if you use this method you should keep track of all of your buys and sells for capital gains purposes (you are legally obligated to do this in the US even if you acquire your bitcoins using cash at an ATM or from a private party). 

 

Is there an up-to-date guide on how all this works?  I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.

 

Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)? 

 

Here's a guide I found, but have not read through it, so YMMV.  http://www.coindesk.com/information/

I did read "Mastering Bitcoin" by Andreas Antonopoulos which I'd recommend if you want a deeper understanding of how it all works. Not necessary to use it though.

My best advice would be to open an account with coinbase or Gemini and make some small transactions to see how it works. Buy some bitcoin and ether, transfer it to your Jaxx mobile wallet, use shapeshift to convert some to Dash or something else.  Get a feel for it.  And yes, it might be just a bubble and you can lose money.

 

Thank you very much.  If I download it into a wallet and stored it on my PC do I need to have a fear of someone hacking my computer and stealing the wallet?  If my hard drive crashed am I just screwed out of the bitcoins?

 

Using Jaxx you don't need to worry about losing your wallet if your harddrive fails or your phone dies if you write down your backup phrase.  It is a 12 word code that will restore your wallet to any device.  So you can have the same wallet on your PC and your phone.  Create it in one place and use the 12 world phrase to load it onto the other device.  Any transactions you make with one device will be seen by the other because it is on the blockchain.  In fact you can download Jaxx now at https://jaxx.io/ and create your wallet (it will have a zero balance for all coins) and see your backup phrase to see what I am talking about.  Write that down and put it someplace safe, like a safe, a lock box, or even a safety deposit box.  If someone finds it they can get full access to your wallet.

 

As far as if someone hacks your computer or phone, you can create a pin code to open Jaxx so they would at least have to crack that, but yes some people keep only small amounts on their phone or computer and keep larger amounts on paper wallets or hardware wallets such as TREZOR or Nano Ledger. 

 

The great thing about these currencies is that using tiny amounts is exactly the same as large amounts.  You can buy $10 worth of bitcoin in coinbase, send $5 to Jaxx, use shapshift to convert $1 to ETH and $1 to DASH.  Create a paper wallet and put $0.50 in it, use a block explorer to verify that your paper wallet has the value, then take $0.25 cents back out.  In this way you can experiment with all these things, get comfortable with them, and not risk any real money.

 

[Jurgis]

Do I understand it correctly that ATM takes 20.5% to convert cash to bitcoin?  ???

 

Some take 7%... but still.

[SnarkyPuppy]

rkbabang - thanks for your insight, definitely learning a lot observing your posts. 

 

Have you looked into ZCash?  JPmorgan just did a deal with the founders (http://www.coindesk.com/jpmorgan-partners-zcash-team-add-enterprise-security/).  Also, Naval Ravikant (https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Naval-Ravikant-TKP.pdf) has publicly talked about having a position in ZCash. 

 

Curious if you have any thoughts/if you own?

[rkbabang]

rkbabang - thanks for your insight, definitely learning a lot observing your posts. 

 

Have you looked into ZCash?  JPmorgan just did a deal with the founders (http://www.coindesk.com/jpmorgan-partners-zcash-team-add-enterprise-security/).  Also, Naval Ravikant (https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Naval-Ravikant-TKP.pdf) has publicly talked about having a position in ZCash. 

 

Curious if you have any thoughts/if you own?

 

Zcash has been on my list to look further into, but so far I haven't.  There are so many interesting projects out there that there isn't enough time to look into them all.  Bytecoin is another one and I just heard about EOS recently which looks interesting too https://steemit.com/@eosio

I really like the article Liberty posted above: https://stratechery.com/2017/tulips-myths-and-cryptocurrencies/

I think that if this is a bubble it is more analogous to the late 90s internet bubble.  A lot of development, a lot of money poured into a lot of different ideas, but most of them will fail.  It is probably too early to know which ones will be the Amazon.com's or the Ebay's and which ones are the pets.com or the Netscape's. 

 

I only own Ethereum(ETH), bitcoin(BTC), Monero(XMR), & Dash(DASH).  And that is the order from my largest holding to my smallest at today's prices.