I intend to hold on to them for the next few years and see what develops. The ethereum coin I hold is well thought of and solves a number of issues that bitcoin can't. The coin is up 4936% this year and whilst it can't continue at that rate there is a lot of thought that it still does have a lot of growth in it. I'm not qualified to give financial advice but I have bought some and I am going to see what happens. This is also partly due to FOMO or fear of missing out. If you'd have bought a single bit coin on 14 November this year it would have cost you £4472.45, it is now worth £12141.80, less than a month later!!!
Still don’t get how you buy stuff...ok Microsoft and I think Expedia can accept some as payment, but how do you value it? And how do you get change...is there a bit of a byte of Bitcoin?! H’pennybitcoid?!
It goes down to as many decimal place as it needs to. Obviously that decimal figure changes dependant upon the value of one whole bitcoin. Because it’s a digital currency, it doesn’t actually matter.
I remember Kaiser from RT going on about bitcoin a number of years back, telling everyone to get it, it going to be the next big thing. I might actually listen to him the next time. Love the principal of it.
so where do you get hold of a "cold wallet"? I just did a search on amazon and they look like USB sticks, but seem to be retailing for silly money (between £40 & £90 for a formatted USB stick?). also looked on youtube where people seem to make cold storage using things like myetherwallet.com . obviously going to have to do a wee bit more general research, but a few pointers welcomed. thanks, Pete
I have a Trezor wallet for my Bitcoin holding.They cost about £109 or thereabouts from amazon and are extremely secure.They look like a keyfob thing with a display on the front. Cryptocurrencies are no different to any other currencies,i,e,they rely on trust to be accepted. BUT: they cannot,(theoretically),be devalued by governments printing more of them,in the way that say,Quantitative easing has done. Nor can Governments find out who sold them,or who they were sold to...but when any portion of a Bicoin for example is traded,(for whatever reason),the system blockchain does multiple checks to prove that,(a) the coin exists,and (b) the person using it actually owns it,(well that it is in their wallet,not the actual person). Like all technologies,it takes time for them to be accepted and the methods/ramifications understood,but it will happen. A few comments reference earlier posts: Criminality has always existed,and the preferred currency used by criminals will be whatever they can get away with....cash has been used for years,it's pretty much untraceable,and yet no one has tried to ban the use of cash have they?. You can be robbed of your cash much more easily than a Cryptocurrency: it all depends on how careful you are. Banks and criminals sometimes steal using online banking hacks already. I bought into Bitcoin in a small way a couple of months ago.I also ,"invest",in a thing called Bitconnect,which claims it will return your "investment",after 299 days,(or less,depends on how much you put in),but pays out a daily earning,which you can take out of the system and turn back into normal currencies at any time.Probably a scam but what the hey,I've had 25% of my investment back in earnings already. And I've also put some money into Litecoin. None of the above investments will cause me to lose my house if they go horrible,I am an adult human being and I know that there is no such thing as a guarantee. I'm not a financial wizard,nor an expert in cryptocurrencies,nor would I recommend or advise anyone to do what I do . But I will say this,(it's 12.24hrs on12/12/17): Bitcoin has gone up 42.7% in a week Ethereum 16.16% Litecoin 201.55%...18.5% in the last hour... Bitconnect has paid out around 6% in the last week At any time these things could go down like a rocket,but I could sell them now and make a very tidy profit. I've been robbed all my working life for the pathetic amount my private pensions pay out: watching this lunacy might make me a few quid,but even better it's a barrel of laughs all the way. On a serious note,and to prove my faith in the technology,I now accept Bitcoin,Ethereum or Litecoin as payment for anything I put up for sale. If any of you want to get involved and think I might be able to give you more info,you are welcome to PM me and I'll do my best. And in the unlikely event I become a multi-millionaire from my pitiful investments,I'll still be here...
@Lightning_650 - thanks for the above, all very useful. I do get the bit about "I'm an adult and understand there may be pitfalls..." and was also looking to "dabble" enough to make me interested, but not enough to risk the house/car/bike or similar. I was hoping there would be a way of taking a bog standard USB memory stick and formatting it with a secure code, or similar, but it seems you need to buy a special cold store. I like your fresh thinking on accepting payment in these currencies, in Liverpool we have a digital currency that is growing quite strong and offers decent discounts when you go to cafes, restaurants, etc that accept the "Liverpool Pound" (the East London Pound is the same digital beast, not sure how the uptake is going down in E London). thanks again, and I may well take up your offer of a little more detailed guidance when I get the store and an account up and running. Cheers, Pete
About to become regulated. And so it should be. Money laundering controls have cost banks billions: why should this medium be different? Which means the death on crypto currency.
Theres a whole lot of difference between the banking system and cryptocurrencies. Governments and shareholders underwrite banks, they don’t underwrite cryptocurrencies. No one under writes crypto,the value,if any,is decided by those who wish to own them. No government issues crypto currencies,they are international and no official organisation is involved. Trading goes on between people using all types of commodities without regulation,(a famous singer played in the old Communist bloc and was paid in shiploads of vegetables,which were then sold for USD),the sale of which WAS subject to regulation. Crypto is a peer-to-peer trading system that is cheap to administer,safe,and free of government interference. Those of us who choose to get involved don’t need the heavy hand of regulation to save us from ourselves.
So you are happy that drug dealers and other criminals use to keep their businesses running? And large companies start to hide more revenues thru there to avoid tax? Btw how do you manage bitcoin revenue and withdraw to pay things like wages and tax? Genuine question, not snide dig.
Good point. BitCoin etc have proved very useful to those desiring to carry out transactions related to bribery, theft, smuggling, drugs, terrorism, blackmail, and tax evasion among other things. In addition many more are attracted by the "wild west" ambience to engage in speculation (often wrongly referred to in the media as "investment"). So these currencies will soon have to be regulated, or banned altogether, in the major jurisdictions. When that happens the music stops and those left holding the parcel will discover what BitCoins are really worth. One of the most difficult predictions to make in economics is when a bubble will burst. Sometimes they last far longer than any rational person might expect. So these cryptos will not necessarily collapse next week or next month - it might take a year or more. If anyone was able to predict when the zenith will be reached, they would sell just before then, but so would everybody else.
Drug dealers use other currencies too. Better to go after the dealers than stop everyone else using it. Anyway, it’s a peer to peer currency that cannot be stopped or turned off.
