To ask if anyone dabbles with bitcoin?

[MollyWantsACracker]

Disclaimer: I am totally clueless

I bought a few euro worth today, just for fun really

Anyone else?

I was thinking about the people in Cyprus where the government just helped themselves to the people's money, also the bailing out of the banks.

Oh I see.

I want to buy £100 ether or lite coin.
Where did you all buy York from? Shall I just start on coinbase? Where else would anyone recommend?
I'm concerned about reviews of coinbase with users saying they can't withdraw?
What other apps do I need if any?
Sorry for so many questions I'm a complete novice, want to invest my Christmas bonus and hold rather than trade.

People are making money because people are buying it for a higher price than they did. If I buy a house for £100k and sell it years later for £300k because that's the market value, those people haven't lost £200k - they still have an asset that's worth what they've paid for it.

That's a fair point. I was implicitly assuming that eventually bitcoins will be worth £0, but that's not an assumption that everyone shares.

(There are differences between bitcoin and property/shares that cause the latter to have the kind of value I respect, but that's a secondary issue. I wouldn't buy gold for the same reason I wouldn't buy bitcoin, and gold has managed to hold its value for thousands of years, despite my lack of approval.)

(Having made the analogy between bitcoin and gold, I think I should also point out a difference. New metals aren't being discovered/invented on a weekly basis. Apparently there are now over 1000 crypocurrencies. If the Bank of England were to issue asset-back cryptocurrencies that could be exchanged for pounds or gold, would people still want to transact in Bitcoin? I think not. I think it's only a matter of time before an asset-backed currency from a respectable issuer comes into existence. As soon as there is a currency with more credibility than bitcoin, bitcoin will be worthless. Not just more credibility: a BOE-issued cryptopound would also be more stable in value, so actually primarily useful as a currency rather than for gambling/speculation.)

My nephew who is 27 does he started off with a few hundred pounds now had over £60,000

He is a mathematician though so I think that helps, he has just branches out into something else like bitcoin but I can’t remember what he called it

Today's been one of those crazy Bitcoin days - up over £1,000 from yesterday. I've finally bought (a very small) amount of Litecoin (wish I'd done so a few weeks ago though...) and now feel comfortable with my Bitcoin/Ethereum/Ripple/Litecoin mix but if I ever get my head round the exchanges that deal with it, might add a (very small) amount of Iota before I put it all onto a Nano Ledger (or similar) and wait and see what happens watch as it descends into nothingness

MNOverinvestor I moved the last chunk of my Bitcoins over to my Nano Ledger today, and guess what DH called them? He called them OUR Bitcoins. I have told him to keep his grubby paws off my Bitcoins!

Oh bless, would this be the same DH who was horrified when you bought them and was aghast when you didn't sell them before 2013/2014 slump.

Exactly! How DARE he!

Mind you Noofly, in the future, might your DH's change of heart be seen as the very point at which cryptocurrency (in general) and Bitcoin (in particular) became mainstream?

I still can't get my head round mining! So mathematical problems are solved by powerful computers and this adds a block onto the block chain which results in the release in bitcoin to whoever solved the problems as an incentive to mine in the first place. Who is setting these mathematical problems?! Why does it have to be done in this way to add a block? Why are they getting more and more difficult resulting in the few at the top getting very very rich?

Totally haven't got a clue about tech and it is becoming a less tangible concept all the time. I've seen diagrams of the block chain, bit where does this physical diagram actually exist? Mind. Blown. Honestly.

This is the best clear explanation of mining that I have seen, if you don’t mind a slightly longish read

www.investopedia.com/tech/how-does-bitcoin-mining-work/

Same here I'm. I'm reasonably bright and educated but I've read the wikis etc and I don't understand why the maths problem takes lots of computers to solve or indeed who sets it and why there's finite solutions.

I do t really understand at a basic level what it actually is!? Is it a giant computer game/programme in effect?

Thank you for the link it was an informative read.

The explanation that the mathematical problems solved when mining is actually a verification process of transactions made was interesting and made me think how this thread alone has fueled mining 😁 helped me understand how it solves the double spending problem.

But then it went on to explain the verification process as guessing a hash and I lost what any of that had to do with the transaction and how it was verifying anything since it was random guesswork that didn't need to get the correct answer. Will read again.

I really don't get mining! I asked DH this morning how solving mathmatical problems results in a virtual coin that's worth £15k - he rambled on for 10 minutes and I said "oh, ok" ... still none the wiser 😂

Anyway we tallied up our "profits this morning. DH has made £3400 since the beginning of November. I've made £1000. Not bad for the sake of a couple of hours a day playing on our phones.

Wow. I wish i had cash to spare to play! We're low income so would boost our income tons!!!

I think part of the problem with understanding cryptocurrencies is that words don’t always mean what they ought to - e.g. problem solving isn’t exactly problem solving. People also talk about holding their coins in a wallet but your coins never leave the block chain- your wallet holds your key to accessing your coins but people still call it holding coins in a wallet. Even with Ethereum, Ethereum is the platform and Ether is the corn but people say they own Ethereum!

English but not as we know it.

Sanshin which website do you use to buy and sell your bitcoin/lite coin? I’ve read lost of bad reviews about Coinbase and am very wary!

I use CEX app. I'm not very technical so haven't moved from that once I learnt how to use it but DH is more adventurous than me and fiddles on the computer as well as his phone.

But basically I put £600 into CEX mid November. Since then I've just bought when the price drops and sold when it rises again - this can be 3 or 4 times a day. In the beginning I was making around £5 each time but as the balance grows, the profits from each transaction grows with it. So now my balance is standing at £1540 and each trade gets me around £15-20. If you can pull it off 5 times in a day you can make £100 a day but today for example has been shit. The buy price is almost as much as the selling price so the trades are worth peanuts. I've traded 3 times today and made a grand total of £7.

Example of a good trade is buying for instance at £14900 and selling at £15400. I did that yesterday and made £60 from it.

A crap trade was today - bought at £15750 and sold at £15850. Made £3. Really not worth the stress at those prices!!

I've used gdax which is simple enough. You can transfer instantly for free from Coinbase and do a limit order, basically setting a price to buy or sell. This is also free.

Quite interesting today. Coinbase added Bitcoin Cash to their exchange which promptly led to a slump in Bitcoin (though the filing bankruptcy of a South Korean attempted hacked exchange didn’t help either) and a near doubling of the Bitcoin Cash price!

Am sitting on my hands to stop myself from buying Bitcoin Cash.

I got my Bitcoin cash free, when they forked it.

Now if that hit $20,000 ... then I could look at retiring !

I got mine as Bitcoin so just a % of the Bitcoin that I held. I’m starting to think I would have preferred the Bitcoin Cash!

Have heard rumblings about Ethereum Fog so perhaps will luck out with that in 2018 or 2019 or maybe 2020....

Lots of sales art push cash at the moment.