alright I'm having a look at crypto currency I know you can buy through coinspot which is the Aussie trading site....
yeah there are bitcoins which are worth 2500 now up from 100 two years ago but I'm looking at ethereum (300)and som of the young up and comers from 10cents to 2 bucks....

i have been been on some forums and read comments like Ponzi scheme Dutch tulips and false economy right through to this is the new internet and decentralised banking etc etc etc... I have read several hours of research and think I will commit 1 grand max to this whole new trading idea..
please any comments are welcome particularly from those who are in on it have won from it or lost....
1000 dollars is still a lot of money but there are claims of 10000 per cent growth in next 3-5 years which if I select wisely may return 100000 yes it is risky but so were Facebook shares and television company shares etc etc..
imnot putting every cent I have it's more like an accepted risk vs reward..

any comments???

Like my rich uncle said to me, if you want to punt on shares or other financial instruments, only use money you can afford to lose.

I bought $10 US of bitcoin the other night just for the exercise of creating a wallet, etc. Went ok although I haven't figured out how to move them from the exchange to my wallet yet.

I used paypal to pay as I wasn't really comfortable sending a photo of my visa card and a photo of my ID to a random exchange site. It cost more that way as it's structured as a loan using paypal.

I made a wallet with Jaxx app on android phone, includes bitcoin, Etherium, and about 10 others you can choose, Doge etc.

I think if I get comfortable with the whole thing I'll just buy $10 bc, $10 E, maybe $10 of another random each week and see how they go. It's winter so I can lay off the beer and save on a carton.

Cheers dave im still awaiting the registration verification. They reckon 24-48 hours and i can buy a few coins.
The whole wallet thing is another challange for me at the moment. And the same as you I will only be buying little bits and pieces, I find all the info available pretty fascinating.
I dont really know how secure it all is

Hey hey! I'm exactly the same boat!

I too am looking at $1k's worth and just sitting on it for a decade or more. I can afford to lose that. Maybe cash out 10% at set profit targets.

I too am confused about the whole wallet thing. I've made a wallet. Then in my bttrade account I add that wallet, give it a nickname, and I guess accept btc into it.

But here's where I'm confused. Do I move the money out of that wallet to... somewhere? What's to stop anyone I give the wallet address to adding it to their account?

I'm buying through here, but it's a bit of a dead end so far. They don't accept bank transfers for the first two transactions (?) leaving only credit card as a payment option. And then their Payment Gateway doesn't accept MasterCard nor AMEX, which is all I have : \

btrade.io/site

I'm still waiting to hear back from them. Two days now. Think I'll try another company.

bitcoin.com.au accepts bank deposits I see.
______

As for the whole blockchain economy itself there certainly is some value to it. Instant international transfer of btc for instance. No banks required. It's a real, working, digital currency system and that in and of itself, and nothing more, is its value.

Here you go Razz; too much information:



www.apress.com/gp/book/9781484225349

I'm a bit... confused as to which exchange to use.

from the list at bitcoin.org:

bitcoin.com.au
www.coinjar.com/
www.coinloft.com.au
www.cointree.com.au

and then from a reddit thread:
www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/40eyf3/which_is_the_best_site_for_buying_bitcoin_in/?st=j3dwopej&sh=488010ff
btradeaustralia.com (note they are not a .com.au)

At a glance CoinJar looks by far the most impressive. They have their own app. A flat 1% buy and sell fee. Can hedge against different currencies. They even have a debit card that works with EFTPOS!

But I can't help this nagging feeling I am missing something technical; that I'm going to make a mistake and get ripped off. CoinJar reads like an online wallet and there have been instances of exchanges like that being completely wiped out/robbed.

What do you reckon people in this thread? We're all trying to explore the same murky waters at once.

Edit: This CoinJar blog post explains a lot:
blog.coinjar.com/2014/01/14/bitcoin-101-lesson-1-wallets/

The irony is not lost on me that when storing large amounts of btc the recommended method is a piece of paper in a bank vault. With the password written on it.

Cheers people I have done some more research as well,there is a similar to a usb plug in and remove wallet that stops a lot of the security concern.

am still waiting for account validation

Pretty good article on using bitcoin as an investment:

blog.coinjar.com/2015/06/24/a-guide-to-investing-in-bitcoin/

Huh; Ethereum market cap is now $20b. Bitcoin market cap is $40b, but was $20b only 2 months ago.

Both have doubled in value the last month or so.

What does this actually mean? Why have the prices shot up so rapidly recently?

Ethereum is still around the $200 mark, about 10% value of Bitcoin. Seems to still be in the "early adopter" phase.

I don't understand Ethereum at all. Damn; even more investigation. : \

Feels like a pyramid scheme to me.

ethereum.org

^ read this page.

Jesus fu...

I (think I) "get" this. It's taking blockchain technology and using it for more, much more than currency. It's now become a sort of Minecraft. You can make anything you can think of, including your own currency, will, contracts, voting systems... whatever. It has its own programming language based on (yuck!) JavaScript.

i.e. blockchain is much more than just a ledger for currency.

BTW in its essence blockchain is a ledger. A much better one than we use in banks and such for the last few hundreds of years.

"Ethereum" is a great name for it because it's truly, truly abstract stuff, waaaaay up in the aether of our collective minds.

Best video I've seen on what a blockchain actually is. Got my first "aha!" moment from watching it. 20 minutes of cerebral stuff, but not that hard.



I need a beer to come back to the real world.

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DARTH said..
Feels like a pyramid scheme to me.

You know what darth same mate......

but it that's what I thought about Facebook shares and some of the other tech start ups that my mates bought into and doubled there coin...
aate about a year ago was chirping on about bit coin for months at 100 a piece we all hacked on him hard

he put in about 5 grand and has pulled 100k out and has about 50 left in there.............

bought a a new car cash and went round the world with change and now is also 6 months ahead on his mortgage.......
hectic but true,,,,, if it is a pyramid scheme at least hopefully I have half of half the luck he had and I'll be happy........

dont put in what you can't afford to lose is the motto
as is who dares wins....

my my account is now verified, I am in for 500 buckaroos and that's it till next month

Who'd you end up going through?

Have you considered cold storage for your hopefully growing investment? I'm looking at using bitkey.io but I actually don't have a machine I can boot off this USB with. Intel based Apples (i.e all of them now) can't do it, and my work laptop has its BIOS locked down. Just my luck : \

Until I get that sorted I'll just keep a moderate amount in an online wallet.

I think definitely use cold storage once/if your balance gets to any sizeable value.

If you are making shed-load of money from your $1,000 investment, surely someone else will have to pay for your extraordinary amount of profit? That someone is possibly a bunch of people like yourself who is out to make shed-load of money, fast.

Then the question is...What drives this investment? Is there a factory somewhere which "actually" pumps out some products someone like me wanted to pay for it? If not, what? Could it be a honeypot of black market activities like dodgy transactions done on an island with only post office boxes? What about the recent Internet ransom by nasty and unscrupulous bastards and bitches? Could it be another Ponzi ?

Mind you, when those assholes specifically asked to be paid in Bitcoins, then I suggest that Bitcoins is becoming the "facilitator" of illegal activities. Now would you like to be part of such a scam?

I thought shares are bad enough as it has become a bit of a legalized gambling house. This Bitcoin thing really triggered my "Bull-crap Meter" and sent it way past its normal range.

As I said at the beginning, someone else must have to pay for your profits. So potentially, you may one day pay for someone else profits. Remember the "Dot.com" ?

^^ it's a result of QE 3..the funny money they are printing has to go somewhere..say to W Street..or to Silly-con Valley.. both joints coincidentally are run by the ashkenazies ..same as the money printing machine.
You are right it looks like dot.com part two..
Just look at some Valley's companies like Amazon, Netflix etc struggling to make a profit and worth of bullions$$$..by logic the companies making some profit should be worth trillions$$$$..
Are they farken kidding ?

Yeah im in started with 500 now its 576.......

You are all right but i suggest you look at ethereum all the big banks are in and all of your super funds .........j&p morgan Siemens bloomberg etc etc etc.......

Bill gates and mark zuckerberg are also in....

There is a usb stick thing for cold storage i dont know which one to buy as there are different models, that is this weeks research...

The pool was 60 billion a month or so ago and now its 92 billion as of today.
There are teports of it hitting 300 billion by the end of year and seceral trillio this time next year,,,, there are also reports of it halving to 30 billion which means my 500 will be 250..........or 50000.........

Dont put in what you cant lose......

I dont know i could be mad but hey,, its gone well past just darknet uses, transfer money no fees and also software coding ico start ups and faster data all sorts of stuff...
A lot of these coins are already at maximum print so if a big bank or super fund buys 20 or 30% it will rise significantly..

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dmitri said..
Just look at some Valley's companies like Amazon, Netflix etc struggling to make a profit...

Amazon makes about $1b profit per quarter now.
Netflix about $170m.

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Razzonater said..
Yeah im in started with 500 now its 576.......

You are all right but i suggest you look at ethereum all the big banks are in and all of your super funds .........j&p morgan Siemens bloomberg etc etc etc.......

Bill gates and mark zuckerberg are also in....

There is a usb stick thing for cold storage i dont know which one to buy as there are different models, that is this weeks research...

The pool was 60 billion a month or so ago and now its 92 billion as of today.
There are teports of it hitting 300 billion by the end of year and seceral trillio this time next year,,,, there are also reports of it halving to 30 billion which means my 500 will be 250..........or 50000.........

Dont put in what you cant lose......

I dont know i could be mad but hey,, its gone well past just darknet uses, transfer money no fees and also software coding ico start ups and faster data all sorts of stuff...
A lot of these coins are already at maximum print so if a big bank or super fund buys 20 or 30% it will rise significantly..

I'm in about $1k for starters. Probably add to that each week until I get a nice number. Then cold storage it.

But... I'm really intrigued by and will be trying out CoinJar's EFTPOS card. I think I'll try using it as money to exchange daily with a wallet that has a hundred or so bucks into it at a time. Buy groceries and beer and stuff. Zero transaction fees. See how that goes.

I have to say that transferring BTC (magic internet money) to anyone is damn easy. It's instant. None of this "overnight" stuff. Wow. It's lightning fluid.

BTC is no different, in essence, than any modern currency. Note that the $AUD is not tied to anything either. It's been floating for a few decades now (thanks Keating). It's not pegged against gold or what have you. It is, in reality, just a bunch of numbers that the Reserve Bank puts into a database whenever they "release money". Your bank account is a bunch of numbers in a database too. It's no different, really.

What is the $AUD's value to you? Probably, more than anything, that it is accepted by anyone in Australia. It is stable. It is exchangeable. It is "backed by" Australia.

The value of the $AUD is out of the government's hands (unlike China). We, the people drive the price. It's supply and demand.

How then, is it any different to BTC? BTC is backed by everyone using it; the (currently small set of the) entire world. If BTC keeps gaining traction like this it might well become the next $US.

All currency has value in its "system", and the usability of and confidence in that "system". There is no doubt that the blockchain is a far superior ledger, which is why banks are scrambling to implement it in all sorts of ways. And BTC is the blockchain currency.

Also: Australia is far ahead of most countries when it comes to banking. The U.S. for example has nothing like BPAY. Cheques are still popular. It will be even more popular in techno backwaters like that.

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evlPanda said..

dmitri said..
Just look at some Valley's companies like Amazon, Netflix etc struggling to make a profit...

Amazon makes about $1b profit per quarter now.
Netflix about $170m.

Wow..at last ?..Very impressive ! I stand corrected
The Hell with them anyway..the (@nts won't get a cent from me

I had a quick look at Ethereum & now have a mild headache.

Building a DAG so you can mine for Ether, WTF & why?

Mind blowing stuff.

Man i am so far off the mining or minting or anything,,,, clearly some have made good money from it.

Its all well beyond my realm

I am the old fashion small time investor. I invested in properties and shares. Properties in WA sux right now. But I did start on a low base. So no immediate financial pain. Shares are beginning to sux as the government is only too keen to talk down on banks, the big four. Still, I have a pile of brick and a roof if everything sux all at once. Shares can take a big hit as I am not depending on it to live on.

Sure, people think property investors are just a bunch of greedy leeches. However, if you are to look at the overall gain in my investment, it is only between 7 and 8%. But that is fine as I believe I actually contributed to the society in terms of housing. By not overcharging my tenants, I can live with my conscience.

As with the get-rich fast scheme like the Bitcoins, it is mysterious and shadowy. No one seems to be in charge. No one is going to be accountable when fan meets crap. Surely someone, a single or a cohort of puppeteers, are pulling the strings. Can it be manipulated? I bet it can. So they will trump up the profits to lure you in, and how you are being paid is questionable. Could it be possible that new comers are paying for the existing members? If so, isn't that a Ponzi ?

Then I like to look at a very unsavoury angle. Could Bitcoins be used in illegal activities as I mentioned in my previous post ? Could drug deals be done in Bitcoins so that money trials go fuzzy and near impossible to trace? The ransoms we paid recently for having our computers unlocked were paid in Bitcoins. Is Bitcoins facilitating criminal activities?

I suppose when you can turn $1,000 into $1,100 overnight, you are less incline to want to know how the profit comes about. Being an old fashion investor, I do care, and I don't want anything to do with it.

Drug dealers would often argue that: "If I don't do it, someone else will." I guess that settles it then.

^

I have property investments too. It's traditionally a slow, safe way to grow your money. It's also an investment that you can highly gear; most of the money is usually borrowed. Traditionally it's 5:1. Not bad at all.

What was your out-of-pocket investment to make that 7-8%? Looking at it that was is it still 7-8%?

___

No-one is in charge of bitcoin. I'll see if I can't explain how I understand it, both to the layman and myself (correct me where wrong):

It all runs on a blockchain. There's a video above that explains what a blockchain is very nicely, but basically it is a ledger of transactions that is nigh on impossible to alter. The step required to generate a valid hash for a chunk of transactions (I think it must happen in chunks) is very processing intensive nowadays, as the blockchain grows and grows. This is called mining.

The mining is what is actually running the entire system. It is distributed across every machine in the world that is mining. As a reward for mining the miners have a chance of solving the hash and getting a bitcoin for their efforts. I think there's a small something given to those that contribute but don't solve or something too, not sure.

So there's your incentive for setting up a bitcoin mining operation and providing the processing power required to run al this, completely openly and decentralised.

Note that you can download the entire bitcoin blockchain yourself. It's well over 100GB now. Waaaaay past anyone mining at home with a single PC.

Now, because you can download the chain yourself... can you edit yourself. Yes, you can. You can change any transaction in the ledger to whatever you want. But it won't generate a correct hash. And generating that hash would take... a very, very long time, by which you version will be out-of-date. And even if you could corrupt the ledger and generate a hash instantly your version will not match all the other versions out there. That's bitcoin's inherent security and why banks are using blockchains too now (see: ripple).

And that's... pretty much it. As a currency system its advantages are clear. As for its value I must admit I am a little confused as to how the value first started. What kicked it off? Once more and more people start accepting it as currency, which is obviously happening, it goes up in value.

Supply and demand. By the way the number of bitcoins is limited by design. And they get harder and harder to mine. I think it's capped at 21 million. Artificial scarcity, exactly the same way diamonds are artificially priced.

As for accepting bitcoin as currency I will happily accept it @ 1CCvT3FTUAoQ3RCKwYAcoJfZ6AVyiNsbki
I'll accept diamonds too.

Ease of use. I suspect a lot of the trade recently is people getting money out of China, or Russia. Used to be $US. Has to be some currency. But using bitcoin you can transfer money, pretty much anonymously, to anyone in the world like that [snaps fingers].

Securely too. Take my wallet address above there; if you get one of the characters wrong the chances are you have a completely invalid wallet address, and the transaction won't work. Overwhelmingly so. Unlike a bank transfer where you get a number wrong. And nobody can pretend to be you to take your wallet; Identity Theft. If you make a "cold storage wallet" correctly then only you know the address' corresponding pass phrase.

___

So that's my understanding of it. It's all explained further (/much further) here: bitcoin.org/en/

It's not impossible that something better will come along (but I don't think Etherium (it's not even supposed to be money))

___

Here's what I said (I hope) in a snappy, very short video:

I guess, and even though my investment is speculative, people envision bitcoin becoming the first digital, world currency.

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evlPanda said..
I guess, and even though my investment is speculative, people envision bitcoin becoming the first digital, world currency.

I don't want to be a knocker just because I am not brave enough to join in the fun and game. The main reasons I believe Bitcoin and the like are
(1). The shadowy ways it operates
(2). No one is actually in charge of it
(3). Fast and spectacular profits to be made
(4). Who is actually accountable when it turns to crap

(1). It works in a digital world where money is pushed around very quickly and seamlessly. Now that may be the wet dream come true for people who wanted everything to move as quickly as possible. But isn't that also a wet dream for criminals to move their ill-gained wealth quickly and hide it? I keep referring to the recent Ransomware saga.

(2). So who is the chief honcho looking after your coins? No one or everyone? Can these people one day decided that enough is enough, take your coins and go for an early retirement with your money?

(3). The amount of profits one can make is a source for envy. So how does this spectacular profit made? Surely you can't make cars or vacuum cleaners fast enough to reap so much profit so quickly. There will need to be enough people who wanted to buy your cars or vacuum cleaners. Can you make money out of just trading money? I suppose the share market is doing just that. But share markets are highly regulated, and have records to keep track of movements.

It conjures up an image of a magic pudding which keeps on giving. Is that possible? Or am I just being too ignorant to understand it true beauty of it all ?

(4). When and if it does collapse, who do you go after ? At least Bernie Madolf coped a life sentence for his Ponzi scam. With Bitcoins, you don't even know if there is anyone real or fictional behind it all.

I will take my 7% profit and be happy with it.

I only have limited knowledge but you may find the following point interesting to explain the recent surge.

Bit coin are issued by mining which is using a computer to resolve very complex mathematical problems. The amount of bit coin that can be issued is limited over a time period which should eventually increase the rarity and therefore the value of the bitcoins in the long term.

As the currency was created, the miners quickly discovered that the best way to mine was to use a computer graphic card or GPU to resolve the problems and earn bitcoins.
Obviously, it is an absolute necessity that the cost associated with mining (parts and electricity) be offset by the bitcoin produced and their value.

Although it was the case originally, the profit margin for mining steadily declined over time as the mathematical problems are increased in difficulty based on the overall amount of problems resolved and therefore it takes longer and a higher cost to produce one bitcoin.

The issue is that miners did eventually work out that they could produce more bitcoins than with a graphic card by using ASIC bitcoin mining hardware.

This in a way defeated the original goal of having individual mining on their computers and bitcoin mining became a semi professional activity done with specific hardware designed for that purpose. Unfortunately, it also made bitcoin mining on a standard pc with a graphic card no longer profitable.

However some of the bitcoins currencies (such as etherum) implemented new specific mathematical problems designed to make the ASIC hardware non competitive and give back the power to people using their graphic cards.
This has created a sudden surge in activity and associated value of the currency recently.

It is also having a large impact on the hardware market as certain graphic card such as the rx 480,500,570 and 580 series from AMD are becoming impossible to purchase due to their low power draw while high capacity to resolve the problems.
Those cards are now selling in excess of their recommended retail price on ebay!!!!

I am personal too chicken to invest in the currency but I find trying to keep up to date with this new emerging market fascinating.
Please feel free to do your own research as all the information above was gained from internet research and I may even have misunderstood some of the concepts and their implications.

I am however tempted to put a few dollars in AMD shares as after being non competitive for 10 years, their new line of RYZEN CPU'S , the Threadripper upcoming server chip, the new RX vega GPu, laptop hardware and their long list of upcoming products may finally give intel and Nvidia once again some real competition. RX 500 cards are great for gaming yet cannot compete with an Nvidia GTX1080 ti but are outselling them due to crypto currency mining demand.

Cheers,

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Jupiter said..

(1). It works in a digital world where money is pushed around very quickly and seamlessly. Now that may be the wet dream come true for people who wanted everything to move as quickly as possible. But isn't that also a wet dream for criminals to move their ill-gained wealth quickly and hide it? I keep referring to the recent Ransomware saga.

Yes. It is.

The recent ransomware saga requesting payment in Bitcoin points to its ability to be seamlessly transferred to anyone, anywhere, instantly, more than anything else. Yes, there is an anonymity aspect to it as well, but people have been able to get around this problem all throughout history; bitcoin isn't cutting any new ground there.

(2). So who is the chief honcho looking after your coins? No one or everyone? Can these people one day decided that enough is enough, take your coins and go for an early retirement with your money?

Nobody is looking after them but yourself. You create your own, signed wallet to store your big bitcoins in. "These people" don't exist so no, they can't decide to take your coins.

That nobody is looking after them is one of its major features. It's completely decentralised. A pure, mathematical, free market currency.

(3). The amount of profits one can make is a source for envy. So how does this spectacular profit made? Surely you can't make cars or vacuum cleaners fast enough to reap so much profit so quickly. There will need to be enough people who wanted to buy your cars or vacuum cleaners. Can you make money out of just trading money? I suppose the share market is doing just that. But share markets are highly regulated, and have records to keep track of movements.

Bitcoins have gone up in value as trade in them increases. Simple supply and demand.

Bitcoin is regulated more than the stock market, which is still open to insider trading, corruption, false reporting and so on.

I think you are missing the core of bitcoin; the ledger. It is a ledger, a much, much better ledger, and nothing more. Seriously.

It conjures up an image of a magic pudding which keeps on giving. Is that possible? Or am I just being too ignorant to understand it true beauty of it all?

It will eventually stop inflating and stabilise. The recent climbs in value are due to the increasing volume of its use. If volume increases so will bitcoin's value.


(4). When and if it does collapse, who do you go after ? At least Bernie Madolf coped a life sentence for his Ponzi scam. With Bitcoins, you don't even know if there is anyone real or fictional behind it all.

Again there is nobody behind bitcoin. No-one. There is no centralised control of it.

______

I guess it's difficult to wrap one's head around it, but ignoring the hashing algorithm and underlying, technical structure of it all it's really quite simple and elegant. It's a shared ledger that can't be corrupted.

There is no government behind it. A cyclone can't affect its price (like the $AUD). It isn't tied to anything at all. It is a digital ledger of transactions. That's it.

Have a read on bitcoin.org where all your questions will be answered.

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sebol said..
However some of the bitcoins currencies (such as etherum) implemented new specific mathematical problems designed to make the ASIC hardware non competitive and give back the power to people using their graphic cards.
This has created a sudden surge in activity and associated value of the currency recently.

See I've been reading very different. The creator of ethereum said, for example, that the whole "Turing complete" thing is a red herring. I've also read that ethereum isn't really a currency, but more of a platform for contracts, and that it is supposed to work alongside bitcoin, not replace it.

Mining bitcoin is supposed to get harder and harder.

A pretty interesting 9 minute Vice story on a Chinese based bitcoin mining operation:

Like, the more people accept it as payment the more it will grow. The question is "will it snowball?"

For example now I've setup an account if I were selling some windsurf gear I would more than happily accept bitcoin as payment. No problem at all. In fact I'd prefer it over EFT or a cheque. Perhaps even prefer it over cash.

Context: in my account I can transfer between BTC, AUD, USD, Euros and GBP instantly.

How about you? Accept bitcoin for windsurf/kitesurf/SUP gear?