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 don't know the ins and outs of the energy needed to mine Bitcoin (I keep meaning to investigate further) but DoublyTroubly, anyone who wants to avoid using a form of money that is used to to fund ISIS/drug cartels/human trafficking should first of all avoid using fiat cash. While cryptocurrencies have undoubtably been used for such things, at the moment, fiat cash, in the shape of dollars, euros (and yes, even in these Brexit days pounds) is far more popular. Most £20 notes in circulation have traces of cocaine on them news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/464200.stm although I assume the new plastic ones are less porous. I do agree with your other points though.

DSS gave DH and I 0.001 of a BitCoin each for Christmas. We eagerly await our fortune!

So boring. So so boring. Up, down but mostly sideways. I know it’s what we need right now, but my God it’s boring. I think I might buy DD some Dogecoin to lighten things up a bit. She loves dogs. Would be a bit of fun.

It's very frustrating at the minute. DH convinced me last week to buy at £14k as ""the price is going to sky rocket!! Quick!! Do it now!!" So I did it ... and the fucker dropped down instantly to £11k

So now I have £1066 worth of bitcoin that I can't get rid of as the price is nowhere near that now - so I have no choice but to hodl it.

I had around £460 left in the account in pounds in which to trade so I've been doing that and have managed to turn that into almost £600 but numerous small trades.

I'm bored of it now though, eagerly awaiting the price hikes!

Go Ripple Go! For me, its giddy ascent to $1.81 is making up for Bitcoin's yawnsville status at the moment. Not that Ripple (or XRP if we're being all crypto about it) is likely to be as dramatic as Bitcoin but I'd like to see it get to $10 in 2018. Am I the only Rippler on Mumsnet though? I'd like to have someone to share the excitement with - IRL, everyone I know glazes over when I start talking crypto.

My £100 bought on the 2nd Dec is now worth £123, the highest it's gone is £163. If it get to £200, I may take it out, I'll see though. Big spender here!

*I'm Bitcoin btw.

I've been reading about this for ages. Had 2.5k last year to play with and wanted to invest but didn't know anyone who knew anything about it and felt that I didn't know enough- now gutted!
Which is the best site to go on to buy bitcoins? I have £150 to spare, so would be willing to split across other currencies. But I guess I'm asking for advice on where and what currencies would be best?
Thanks in advance for any help!

MN, I have some Ripple! Not a lot but enough to keep me checking every day.

By nature, I'm not a risk-taker so I like having a spread - at the moment, I've got Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, Ripple (waves at Whitecovers) and Litecoin. All but Ripple I bought on Bittylicious. It's not the cheapest exchange and I possibly chose it because I thought the name was very sweet, but in its favour, it's British and when I messed up my earliest purchases, they were patient with me. I don't trade, I'm just hodling (as it's called - holding on for dear life).

If you can afford to lose £150, and want to explore cryptocurrencies that way, I'd go for it. I've found it an absorbing hobby and it's beginning to impress some teenagers of my acquaintance (which is a bonus).

Where do you buy ripple from you can't buy it on coinbase.
I m going to buy about 40 dollars worth and hope the same happens to it as bitcoin but where to buy from?
It's actually think bitcoin itself has had its day.

I bought my Ripple on Kraken but it was a palaver and I had to (expensively) transfer money into Euros (proportionally a large transaction charge since I was only buying around £50 of XRP). I'd hope there are probably other, cheaper places now. The irony that cryptocurrencies should do away/minimise with all these pointless transaction charges was not lost on me at the time.

I don't think bitcoin is the future of money, but currency based on the Blockchain is. My fear is that central banks will use it and devalue it to encourage the continuation of the consumer economy. My dream is for a global, decentralised Blockchain currency that is mineable for all, making it far more democratic than fiat currency.

Go Ripple! Did you see it just overtook Ethereum? I’m tempted to buy but it’s heart over head- not sure I want to buy a privately owned crypto as it goes against why I bought Bitcoin in the first place, but with my stock market head on, it would add to my diversification. I started to look into buying shares in the company itself but you need to be an accredited investor (US) and am not sure how complicated the process is to become approved/proving assets etc - might look into it a bit more.

Think I will buy some Dogecoin, though. It will be funny and someday DD will appreciate the joke.

I can't argue with that; Ripple is so centralised. The consensus also seems to be that the price of Ripple is unlikely ever to reach anything like the recent Bitcoin price, partly because there are so many of them - 100m, all held by the developers and slowly being sold - rather than Bitcoin's mining option and 21m cap (a moment's thought for all the lost Bitcoin in landfill across the world, or lost as part of a now-forgotten school computing project in 2010...). Doge is doing really well. I see. At this point, I feel I could be putting each-way bets on half the field at the 3.20 at Kelso.

It does seem on the way down at the moment. Personally I think it will crash very soon even in the next few days. And if it isn't regulated how do people even know that the rates given aren't being manipulated behind the scenes. Or even completely fake.

I’m holding

It will be a rocky ride IMHO. I think it's clinging on by a thread. Haven't got any but worry for folk that do. Or perhaps they'll be the lucky ones.

When has it not been a rocky ride?

Re manipulation, if you are into conspiracies, there is a suspicion that the network is being spammed by Cash holders just now (though since fees are being paid, there’s also an argument that you can’t call it spam). To put it in really simple terms, the transaction times are slow and the fees are high because the mempool is being spammed with multiple transactions all to the same source, and then repeated all over the place but basically loads of initiators, few receivers (hence the suspicion that it’s Cash holders driving it).

This is a real problem, regardless of the source and something called the Schnorr Signature is being worked on which will enable the multiple sources to be blocked together as one transaction, thereby reducing the ability to spam the network, and generally increasing transaction speed.

You don’t need to worry about all of us, honestly. Some of us really don’t need your concern.

Sorry, slow speeds etc, in part because of network spam, not soleyly because of it.

Solely!

I'm a natural worrier. And this has just given me something else to worry about. Is it true that Bitcoins can be stolen out of wallets. And in America some exchanges have been shut down. And what comeback is there if it's unregulated. These aren't really questions but just concerns for me to worry about.

Bitcoins can be stolen from exchanges which is why even the exchanges will recommend that you only leave what you want to quickly sell or trade on them. Only a fool leaves more than they want to lose anywhere other than a paper or hardware wallet. These can’t be hacked, but you do need to keep certain codes/passphrases in a safe place.

I’m unaware of any exchanges being shut down in the US. There was a flurry of news about Chinese exchanges a while back but I’ve not heard similar about the US. There was the suspension of trading of the Crpyto Co because of false information and quite rightly it looks like there will be more clamping down on companies that decide to stick “blockchain” into their name just because they can That’s nothing to do with exchanges, though, so would need more info on which exchanges have been shut down.

Ignoring the get rich quick fools, the lack of regulation is one of the big things that appeals to many of us. I don’t mind enough regulation to act as a deterrent for the get rich quick crowd, but that’s about it.

Vivian why are you so psychologically invested in bitcoin? You seem to be very active on every bitcoin thread which is a little bit obsessive as you say you don't have any...

Rates can't be "fake" as all they are is what bitcoin are selling for at any given moment. You offer them for sale, and someone buys them - what they pay is the rate. How can that be "fake" ?

I agree re. Vivian - you seem dead set on rubbishing bitcoin to anyone that will listen, bit odd for some who doesn't use it to care so much?

Anyway I've taken a £215 loss today to get rid of the bitcoin I bought at high prices. This will leave me with £1800 in there. Once I get it back upto £2k I'm going to withdraw my £600 initial deposit which will set me back to £1400. That way I can relax and know I'll never lose more than I actually put in.