Cryptocurrencies - bitcoins, ether and the rest; let's ripple out...

[Auntpodder]

Further to the AIBU discussion on other people's finances, is there mileage on a discussion about the different cryptocurrencies? I've dabbled a bit and find them fascinating even though I'm very much a novice and pretty innumerate. I bought a fraction of a bitcoin a couple of years ago which has done well, thought about ether earlier this year but only got round to it recently and there was lots of talk about ripple so bought a few last weekend.

I know that (rightly) no financial advisor would ever suggest investing in them, but as a bit of fun, I'm finding them just that - but would like to hear other people's experiences.

We’re clearly the only crazies on Mumsnet. I see bitcoin briefly broke $10,000 this morning. I’ll be back at $20k.

So, see you here same time next week? (Oh god, I can't believe I've indulged in a cryptocurrency joke.)

The nice people at Bread have told me how to extract the BCH element, so that's this weekend's project as I start to rationalise wallets (and do something about the £2500 that still on my phone Bread wallet, which strikes me as quite unwise). A Nano Ledger/Trezor is on my order list. I THINK I can be trusted not to lose the thing.

And I'm assuming that there will be some sort of correction at some point. Surely? However another IRL Bitcoin fan I know maintains that prices will continue to go up in December because a bit of Bitcoin will be this year's must-have present.

ps. You do know that buying at £10 a bitcoin makes you Bitcoin aristocracy, don't you?

The beauty of the Nano Ledger (and I’m assuming it’s similar for the Trezor) is that it doesn’t matter if you lose it, you just need to not lose your recovery seed and to not lose that you can make multiple hard copies and hide them in various places.

My current bet is that the price will continue to rise through the New Year and then we’ll have a massive correction (40-50%) sometime Q1 2018 made worse that it needed to be, because all the people who have bought a bit recently so as to not miss out, panic and sell. Then it’ll rise rapidly and keep going until the end of 2018. I change my views on this on an almost daily basis, though.

Well, not exactly $20k yet but still (at time of posting) on an upward trajectory that is giving me vertigo. Any thoughts on what increasing regulation might do to prices/stability? I generally like rules and regulations but my IRL Bitcoin friend comes from the libertarian end of things. He's enormously law-abiding (now...) but for him, I suspect part of the appeal is the lack of accountability.

I found a Bitcoin thread over in AIBU and there’s actually people posting in it!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3013943-To-ask-if-anyone-dabbles-with-bitcoin

It’s going crazy, isn’t it. I’m at the point where I’m finding it quite frightening and think we’re in for an awful crash - hopefully it’ll crash starting at some point much higher than now so that the bottom is still quite high!

I like the idea of regulation mostly because I think there’s a limit as to how much can be regulated. With more and more people jumping in, I certainly support things like mandatory ID checks etc before purchase if only to slow people down and hopefully think a bit more about what they are buying.

What’s happening with the price is just batshit crazy.

Waves at noofly (we'd been having a thread-for-two on Bitcoin over on the Money section). Ether's holding on there I think, it's my Ripple that have flatlined since the day I bought them back in the summer.

With regard to mining's energy costs, I hope that a way is found to mitigate that, but it's totally out of my area of expertise, which largely involves listening to a friend in 2014/15 when he told me that cryptocurrency was an interesting thing to explore and put a very small sum on (if I could afford to lose it). I now have equal (very small) amounts of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ether and it's still extraordinarily interesting to me. There is a big dividing line between BCash believers and the Bitcoin legaceers. The former think Bitcoin Cash is massively undervalued. Me, I have no idea but am very happy to HODL.

FFS - posted on the wrong thread.

I have Litecoin, Ethereum and Iota. All doing very well have held for a few months, Iota has gained over 400% in that time, might be worth a look.
All stored on my Nano Ledgder S aside from the Iota which is not Blockchain hence my interest in it!

I have no Bitcoin bloody wish I did having seen it skyrocket from the sidelines. I think Crypto will go crazy over the Christmas period with people talking and sharing their knowledge etc.

Having taken a quick glance, Iota looks interesting. I have a soft spot for things with clever names, so being able to say, 'I have an Iota' is appealing (under this criteria, Ether is a great name, Ripple is ok and Bitcoin is rubbish). Anything where the technology is called a 'tangle' works for me too. And that the technology gets faster the more people use it, is too as well.

I like Iota because it's technology will utilise the 'Internet of things' data. In just my house my TV, my phone, my laptop and my Alexa are all part of the 'Internet of things' and this will only grow over time. You can buy iota on bitfinex with Ethereum or Bitcoin.

One of my best friends spent £5k on Bitcoins when they were about 50p each years ago. We all thought he was mad but he was very insistent that we should all invest at that point. Sadly I didn't as I was broke, wish I'd lisstened to him now!

He sold a few here and there over the years but still had the vast majority of them until a few months ago. He's sold the lot now and would never have to work again if he didn't want to (he was verging on wealthy anyway but is now doing very well!). He didn't expand much on why he's finally sold up but I get the impression he didn't see the bubble expanding for much longer and decided to get out now. He also warns a lot about online scams.

Oh to have been clued in enough (and have 5k to sing for!) in the day when bitcoin were 50p!!