nathan wrote:Does anybody on here have experience in how to get started in this area?
For the benefit of anyone reading this thread and wondering about the answer to this question, here's my experience of that:
In March 2010 I bought 10 bitcoins when they were at about parity with the US dollar. I did this by setting up a bank transfer to a holding account in Eastern Europe, and from that account to a "bitcoin exchange" called Mt. Gox (there were I think few if any viable alternative systems at the time for UK residents). This gave me a web-based "online wallet" which had an "address" with which I could transfer coins to/from other wallets, or exchange for fiat currency, all from the comfort of my sofa. I recall that fees involving fiat currency exchange and transfer were quite high though - perhaps as much as 10% in all. But I did not intend to sell any time soon.
In February 2014 I received an email from Mt. Gox saying that my bitcoins were missing presumed stolen, and that they were shutting down the service. I had made the mistake of keeping all my coins in a "hot wallet" - that is, online and therefore vulnerable to hacking. Still, a colleague of mine had done the same after buying 100 at the same time as I did. So I wasn't quite as annoyed as him about that.
Between October 2015 and January 2017 I started buying fractions of bitcoin each month (also buying a few Litecoins and Ether along the way). I did this by using the Coinbase exchange with my credit card to buy the fractions. Coinbase at the time had a credit card purchase limit of £200 I think. And I had 0.1% cashback on all my credit card purchases too, which was nice.
This time however, I put my coins into a "cold wallet", thereby taking them offline and out of harm's way. A cold wallet can take various forms (
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage), including printing onto paper, a process with which I experimented with my Litecoins. Today, my coins are stored in a Ledger Nano hardware wallet with a "recovery key" (which can be used to resurrect the contents of the device in the event of it being destroyed) stored offsite. In order to transfer currency, I have to connect the device to a computer and from there transfer some or all of it to an online wallet (eg on the Coinbase exchange, but you can also use desktop software for this). In order to convert it into fiat currency, I have to do the same but use Coinbase (or another exchange) to which I have my bank account connected. And from there I can simply do a BACS transfer of the proceeds. There are both fixed and percentage fees associated with this though.
During a relatively mild upswing in the price a few years ago, I decided to try selling a faction to test the process and to recover my investment outlay. So if it all goes to zero least I've got my money back.
FWIW, I have found the management of crypto currency both difficult to understand (I have skated over some important details above) and frankly rather stressful at times. It's difficult to be Dorisian while while events occur that mean you could eventually lose access to your coins if you don't take the proper action in time. It also doesn't help that there is nobody to turn to in the event of you making a fatal mistake while doing things like performing the transfer of several thousands of pounds worth of coins from Coinbase to a cold wallet, or converting them from one blockchain to another as part of an only partially-understood technical update.
But so far, my only real regret is not selling my Bitcoin Cash, which I received for free as a result of a fork a couple of years ago. There was at the time much speculation about whether BCH would overtake BTC, and at one point BCH was worth about £800. But it's now £260 and drifting down. At the time of writing my holdings are worth almost £9,000. I tell myself I will sell once they are enough to buy a decent new car. I was not tempted to sell my bitcoin at £13,000 in 2017 though, so we shall see. And there is of course no shortage of lunatic "gurus" predicting prices of millions in the next 10 years.
But what is life if not to be dissipated in such comically meaningless endeavours? Life is a butterfly's dream from which none of us survive.
G