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Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

How to buy, profit and invest in crypto currencies or NFTs

Do you own any cryptocurrency? If yes, what proportion of your assets is it worth?

Yes - less than 1%
17
12%
Yes - more than 1% but less than 5%
6
4%
Yes - more than 5% but less than 10%
3
2%
Yes - more than 10% but less than 20%
1
1%
Yes - more than 20% but less than 50%
0
No votes
Yes - more than 50%
2
1%
No
110
79%
 
Total votes: 139

absolutezero
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#412177

Postby absolutezero » May 15th, 2021, 2:48 pm

1nvest wrote:I allocated a virtual £1M to virtual currency back in the early days and now I'm virtually the worlds richest, and have the cash to prove it

Image

I have one of those in a picture frame on the wall next to my desk. Alongside it is the $1 note from a year earlier.

seekingbalance
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#419139

Postby seekingbalance » June 12th, 2021, 11:12 pm

NotSure wrote:
seekingbalance wrote:It’s a lot more work, but I think I’ll do my own version - £500 in each of their 20 “mid caps” via Binance at 0.1% fee, then rebalance quarterly or 6 monthly, and only to approximate roundup levels. I estimate the fees on that would be closer to 0.3% for the entire year, saving £1070 in fees.


Did you ever get around to creating your DIY 'mid cap' token ETF?


Not scientifically - i now own about 9 alt coins below ETH and ADA. Following the recent carnage I bought two additional projects, so I am basically half way there. But I'm kind of out of money to literally create this as a DIY tracker. I'll work out a proper system and do it at the end of this current run (if this is not already the end of the run, which I don't think it is, but you never know for sure!)

justfisk
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#419800

Postby justfisk » June 15th, 2021, 8:40 pm

anon155742 wrote:
justfisk wrote: In the case of Bitcoin there is a Tradeoff between transactions per second and the guarantee or finality of settlement. Not just that but Bitcoin also sacrifices number of transactions per second for overall Network security and for its "unconfiscatabality".
JF


Bitcoin (and other cryptos) is the digitisation of scarcity and is increasing in value not due to increasing confidence in the technology, but from decreasing confidence in fiat currency as a store of value. If it wasnt for the excess money printing then bitcoin would probably only be worth a few thousand dollars (but still valuable).


The money printing is a huge driver in Bitcoins increase in value as a scarce asset.
I am however quite critical of other "cryptos" (or corporate blockchains :lol: ) many of which are certainly NOT scarce, not secure, and lack the underlying technological features of Bitcoin (such as its decentralized structure) that make it attractive to people.
Some of the popular ones are not even similar in anyway to Bitcoin as they are application platforms and not scarce Digital Gold. These application platforms would do better to run on ordinary databases by central authorities.

The fact that Blockchain technology does NOT scale, means that many of these other cryptos or tokens are get rich quick schemes with pre-mined coins and others have technological tradeoffs that sacrifice decentralization, security and immutability. Which are the central Pillars on which the Mighty Bitcoin lies.
This unscalability makes Blockchain technology only useful for the Problem Satoshi's original invention solves solves - Trust.
Any change to the technology that makes it more scalable ends up with less decentralization with the outcome of having to trust central 3rd party entities.
For example, the increase in the Blocksize to Bitcoin created other forms of Bitcoin which meant more cost in running Nodes that validate the Blockchain. This in turn leads to less nodes validating transactions and a centralization of nodes. It also makes Elon Musk look silly when he says he is looking to "improve transaction efficiency" in one of the cryptos . Basically expanding Blocksize or increasing Block speed compromises the Network as nodes around the world need some time to sync when validating transactions. It ends up being less secure, ironically less efficient and certainly more centralized. (Read more details here)
Which begs the question why we would even want to abandon the environmentally unfriendly Petrodollar for these other "cryptos" which are just as centralized. The only difference being substituting the government as the central authority with a private individual or individuals with sketchy pasts. With such a choice, I might actually prefer the current fiat system. :-)

Bitcoin thus far stands alone as a digital store of value. Scalability is not solved on-chain, but rather moved to other layers which is in line with Software development best practices.
Of course the technological superiority of Bitcoin for the problem it solves, does not stop other "cryptos" from pumping in value due to speculation. I admit that when the Bitcoin Behemoth rises, it raises the tide for the boats around it and gambling in some of these "cryptos" other than Bitcoin may earn you a buck if timed right. I would not want to be caught holding the bag when the music stops though.

Play that game at your own peril. Good luck


thanks,
JF

NotSure
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#419972

Postby NotSure » June 16th, 2021, 2:14 pm

justfisk wrote:
.....Bitcoin (and other cryptos) is the digitisation of scarcity and is increasing in value not due to increasing confidence in the technology, but from decreasing confidence in fiat currency as a store of value. If it wasnt for the excess money printing then bitcoin would probably only be worth a few thousand dollars (but still valuable).

The money printing is a huge driver in Bitcoins increase in value as a scarce asset.

I am however quite critical of other "cryptos" (or corporate blockchains :lol: ) many of which are certainly NOT scarce, not secure, and lack the underlying technological features of Bitcoin (such as its decentralized structure) that make it attractive to people......


I don't pretend to really understand all this, but a group that seem to have some pedigree state they have solved the 'trilemma' you highlight (the founder is a cryptologist who holds a Turing award).

.....One of the main challenges during the blockchain’s first decade was to solve the so-called “blockchain trilemma” in which the three key objectives – security, scalability, and decentralization – couldn’t be fully achieved without sacrificing at least one of them.

Algorand has managed to find an approach that solves the blockchain trilemma without any compromise. The solution was invented by MIT Professor and Algorand founder Silvio Micali, who has tremendous experience in cryptography and computer science.....


https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/silvio-micali-lex-fridman-algorand-and-the-blockchain-trilemma

It is clear there is demand for crypto assets - the new 'gold-buggery' - but would be nice if it could be achieved less wastefully, IMO (Algorand is carbon neutral - they run a few wind turbines - and aims to be carbon negative. Disclosure, I hold £30's worth ;)

justfisk
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#420078

Postby justfisk » June 16th, 2021, 11:35 pm

I don't pretend to really understand all this, but a group that seem to have some pedigree state they have solved the 'trilemma' you highlight (the founder is a cryptologist who holds a Turing award).


"A Group" marketing with credentialism is nothing new (Long Term Capital anyone?!) In this space, it is not uncommon to pay for associations to market tokens.
Its governed by a Foundation (That's very decentralized of them , please excuse my cynicism saying that)
Bitcoin has no such central authority. Hence its a Caffuffle just to agree on minor upgrades :lol: . (By the way, this is a feature not a bug )

The crypto you mentioned is a staking crypto running on Proof of Stake.
Proof of Stake is what we have at the moment where we trust our handful of benevolent crony Central bankers. The end result being that the larger holders of the Token get to manipulate the network.
No matter the bells and whistles that "The Group" uses to state otherwise, Proof of Stake is NOT decentralized. It is also very insecure and easier to attack. The current financial system is also based on proof of Stake in essence. Might as well stick with the current system of Central bankers and fiat money.

Sound Money is Hard money.
Gold is Hard money because its hard to mine. It costs energy to get.
Shells or sand is easy money. It costs nothing to get. There is a reason Gold is worth more than sand.
If Gold was easy to get, would it be worth as much?
Bitcoin is based on Proof of Work. That is hard. Work has to be done. It costs real world energy to mine and secure.

Why does the blockchain example you reference actually need a utility token? It is a blockchain application allowing development of apps....so why is a token even needed? Surely it can accomplish that without creating a token. Appears to me to be a money printing or security scam (SEC please look into this!)

The utility tokens can compete against themselves anyway.
None of them are competing against Bitcoin.
That said, investors are making money with all sorts of things in this crazy season, from GME to joke cryptocurrencies.
Good Luck!

JF

Itsallaguess
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#422047

Postby Itsallaguess » June 24th, 2021, 9:22 pm

From the news today -

$3.6 Billion in Bitcoin Disappears with Africrypt Founders -

Ameer and Raees Cajee, two brothers behind the Africrypt platform, have disappeared along with $3.6 billion in BTC bought with investors’ funds.

Two South African brothers, Ameer and Raees Cajee, have reportedly disappeared, taking $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin with them. The incident would make it one of South Africa’s biggest ever incidents related to crypto. The total amount that’s been recorded as stolen is 69,000 BTC.

The Cajee brothers launched Africrypt in 2019, promising investors good returns for their money. This is not the first such incident to take place in South Africa, with another company involved in a $1.2 billion scam in 2020. One governmental group in South Africa has called for regulation of exchanges.


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-6-billion-bitcoin-disappears-060549648.html

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

NotSure
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#422376

Postby NotSure » June 25th, 2021, 6:10 pm

justfisk wrote:Why does the blockchain example you reference actually need a utility token?


I agree. The tokens are a distraction IMO. They do incentivise people to provide the necessary hardware and bandwidth, but beyond that they are just tokens IMO. I'm far more interested in the apps. A means to carry out various activities in a completely decentralised way, like we have long obtained information 24/7 from a huge multiplicity of sources via the Internet instead of having to go to a library between 9 and 5 and make do with whatever they happen to stock. Why not financial services, validation of educational achievement etc?

NotSure
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#424915

Postby NotSure » July 5th, 2021, 11:02 am

A more academic paper on the pros, cons and challenges of DeFi (nothing to do with trying to get rich quick by betting on tokens). DeFi is till tiny in the scale of things ('only' $100B or so), but growing at quite a rate. I do not know if it will succeed in becoming mainstream, but I also do not believe it can be written off just because all the news is about punting on tokens.

https://wifpr.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/DeFi-Beyond-the-Hype.pdf

katejones23
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#429083

Postby katejones23 » July 20th, 2021, 3:37 pm

No, but I'm planning to—I guess at this point I'm just not ready— besides, I believe that the crypto market is overheated. But I do believe that crypto currencies could be used as a payment, payout and a donation tools — so if businesses accept Tron, Doge, Shib, Ripple, Harmony, etc, it's all good and it makes the communitiy better

Itsallaguess
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#429112

Postby Itsallaguess » July 20th, 2021, 4:36 pm

katejones23 wrote:
But I do believe that crypto currencies could be used as a payment, payout and a donation tools — so if businesses accept Tron, Doge, Shib, Ripple, Harmony, etc, it's all good and it makes the community better


How the heck can businesses realistically and consistently price goods or services against such volatile Cryptocurrency valuations as we've seen in recent months and years?

If valuations fly all over the place in short spaces of time - which they clearly do - then how do you know if the thing you're going to 'buy' in two weeks is still going to be the price it is now?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

1nvest
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#431075

Postby 1nvest » July 29th, 2021, 1:02 am

Itsallaguess wrote:
katejones23 wrote:
But I do believe that crypto currencies could be used as a payment, payout and a donation tools — so if businesses accept Tron, Doge, Shib, Ripple, Harmony, etc, it's all good and it makes the community better

How the heck can businesses realistically and consistently price goods or services against such volatile Cryptocurrency valuations as we've seen in recent months and years?

If valuations fly all over the place in short spaces of time - which they clearly do - then how do you know if the thing you're going to 'buy' in two weeks is still going to be the price it is now?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Businesses could hedge each transaction into whatever base currency they preferred/reported in at the time of the transaction. For the customers it would just mean the price of stuff in bit coins would be volatile from second to second and massively variable over time, as such customers might do better holding a more stable currency and only converting that to bit coins at the time of making a purchase in bit coins. All pretty much pointless, except for those that would rather hide their transactions a.k.a. money laundering. Some may however like to hold a range of currencies, gold, Euro, US$, £, bitcoins ... and either pay directly in one of those currencies or covert to a preferred single currency choice at the time of making the purchase, according to whichever had its purchase power being the most up at the time. If the seller presents multiple currencies payment options that are relatively fixed then that could benefit the customer. If the seller continually revises the cost of the product/service in different currencies then the customer loses any potential benefits and more likely just sees higher costs through multiple currencies conversions/storage etc. costs. The more likely of those is for the latter, just another added layer of costs/fees.

I could see it leading to a situation where items such as clothing were labelled with 'guide prices' in a range of currency choices, but where the actual price in any one currency was only set at the checkout. And where the prices were perhaps 10% higher in reflection of currency fluctuations/conversions/administration costs i.e. opportunities for businesses to make more via 'efficiencies' of managing that.

AWOL
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#433806

Postby AWOL » August 10th, 2021, 7:14 pm

Until/unless it's a stable store of value, and until businesses can be comfortable that they are not involved in money laundering, or the transfer of terrorist funds, or funds from a state subject to sanctions, and risking potentially terminal consequencies, few corporates will risk accepting cryptocurrency payments. Most but not all of those companies that do have at best grey aspects to their businesses.

I suspect mainstream crypto (central bank crypto?) will fix this but at the point that it's fully traceable, stable, and has all the guarantees of goverment currency I am not sure I can see the point. After all we can digitally transact current currency, we just cannot easily carry large amounts of it across borders without significant chance of being caught by customs.

scrumpyjack
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#433807

Postby scrumpyjack » August 10th, 2021, 7:23 pm

I do wonder what the impact on inflation of crypto will be. After all about 2.5 TRILLION dollars has been 'created' without anything 'real' behind it, whatever that means. I mean that's a hell of lot of tulips!

Itsallaguess
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#434116

Postby Itsallaguess » August 11th, 2021, 4:17 pm

From the BBC -

Hackers steal $600m in major cryptocurrency heist (Aug 10th 2021) -

Hackers have stolen some $600m (£433m) in what appears to be one the largest cryptocurrency heists ever.

Blockchain site Poly Network said hackers had exploited a vulnerability in its system and taken thousands of digital tokens such as Ether.

In a letter posted on Twitter, it urged the thieves to "establish communication and return the hacked assets".

In scale, the hack is on par with huge recent breaches at exchanges such as Coincheck and Mt Gox.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58163917

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

GoSeigen
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#434242

Postby GoSeigen » August 12th, 2021, 4:52 am

Itsallaguess wrote:From the BBC -

Hackers steal $600m in major cryptocurrency heist (Aug 10th 2021) -

Hackers have stolen some $600m (£433m) in what appears to be one the largest cryptocurrency heists ever.

Blockchain site Poly Network said hackers had exploited a vulnerability in its system and taken thousands of digital tokens such as Ether.

In a letter posted on Twitter, it urged the thieves to "establish communication and return the hacked assets".

In scale, the hack is on par with huge recent breaches at exchanges such as Coincheck and Mt Gox.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58163917

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


Goodness the media reports a lot of nonsense about crypto (and I'm not shooting the messenger here). First, crypto identifies itself as a currency so it wasn't $600m that was stolen but a few thousand ethers or whatever other worthless token it was. Second, there have been far bigger losses than this, the ones involving Africrypt and Mt Gox being examples. And to describe them as some of the largest thefts in history is a joke, given the long span of actual human history vs the existence of these tokens for barely a decade.


GS

TheMotorcycleBoy
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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#434383

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » August 12th, 2021, 4:25 pm

So I bought a "crypto asset" recently. That is I bought a small number of shares in RIOT blockchain. I subsequently disposed of them at a slight loss, upon the realisation that they (RIOT shares) didn't really fit into any kind of framework where I stood a chance of valuing them. Their value, I believe is, not wishing to state the obvious linked to the current price and expectation of future price of BTC.

However, my opinion about whether or not I wish to hold RIOT shares, is completely disconnected to what I think of bitcoin. Regardless of the "energy consumption" debate which is pointlessly boring, and fact that there are frauds associated with BTC, and fact that BTCs price is quite volatile, BTC is here to stay. There is now far too much history and momentum behind the movement for BTC for this to vanish in a hurry!

I recently watched this, it's free on Amazon Prime

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cryptopia-Bitc ... B08HSKGQC5

its just over an hour and gives in my opinion a fairly objective description of money, trust, bitcoin, crypto and democracy. It's well worth watching, regardless of your currently held biases.

Matt

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Re: Do you own Cryptocurrency? A poll

#434386

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » August 12th, 2021, 4:32 pm

What I found interesting about the above film is how it compares the time taken to send an encrypted email overseas, with how long it takes for a financial transaction to clear. Why does it so long for my $$$ I receive from my US employer granted shares so long to be wired and converted to £££ for me as in an employee in UK (i.e. days) ? Considering that I do all my trades and finances electronically I should see the money within minutes. The impression I got from that film is that cryptocurrency threatens the current international cartel of banking. In my opinion that's a good thing!

Matt


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