I recall reading something earlier today where it had fallen almost 7500...

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
Delqlyn, how in the world do I go about buying bitcoin or litecoin?

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Originally posted by Deqlyn:
theres quite a few ways but coinbase is probably the easiest.

I've mentioned this earlier, but the safest way to purchase Bitcoin is from Goldmoney which has been in business long before Coinbase or Bitcoin. (Goldmoney patented electronic gold so long ago that their patents have probably expired.) But Goldmoney is for investment, not trading, as they get something like a 2.5% commission on buys / sells. My warnings about using Goldmoney are that they use a "know your customer" policy, meaning they require a copy of your driver's license or passport to be on file. Being based in Jersey, Channel Islands, UK, and now Canada, US taxpayers must inform the IRS if their account value is $10,000 or more, and of course you must report any capital gains to the IRS. Goldmoney is great place to park a couple of grand in Bitcoin and see what happens! It looks like they are working on supporting Ethereum, but Bitcoin is only currently implemented (along with precious metals and currencies).

quote:

Originally posted by Deqlyn:
Crazy Bitcoin already surpassed Tulip Mania bubble! I guess maybe thats global scale vs semi regional?

Bitcoin is very global. Central bankers with their ZIRP and NIRP and capital controls have caused people to invest in solutions of cryptographic puzzles. Hmm. The people who will get hurt are the ones who don’t realize that they are participating in a financial mania.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
I recall reading something earlier today where it had fallen almost 7500...

Bitcoin is now down only $3,500 from the highs.

Here is a logarithmically adjusted chart of Bitcoin's performance in 2017.

Bitcoin "investors" are getting very sassy now. "Gold was only up 13% in 2017. Bitcoin was up 1,500%!" I learned today on Twitter. Ethereum's founder has noticed this too.

"Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin says cryptocurrency investors who are flaunting their crypto wealth online are missing the point of how the technology can change the society.

He said on Twitter that it is immature for them to behave this way. Thus, the community should move away from the shows.

“If all that we accomplish is Lambo memes and immature puns about ‘sharting’. I WILL leave”. He posted in a Twitter rant on Wednesday.

He said he still hoped that the community could move in the right direction.

Buterin tweeted, “*All* crypto communities, Ethereum included, should heed these words of warning. Need to differentiate between getting hundreds of billions of dollars of digital paper wealth sloshing around and achieving something meaningful for society”.

He also said that he envisioned cryptocurrency being something better than just a new avenue for more wealth and power.

However, it is unusual nowadays to read about individuals buying this and that cryptocurrency. The nature of cryptocurrency is that any moves by people holding large amounts of a specific cryptocurrency do influence prices and the general direction of projects."

Crypto investors need to grow up and stop flaunting, says Ethereum founder

Prices for some of the most popular cryptocurrencies dropped sharply Monday. One apparent reason: an adjustment from a popular website on its digital-currency price quotes.

A website called coinmarketcap.com on Monday removed data from some South Korean exchanges from its price quotes for a range of virtual currencies including bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple’s XRP. The move followed a South Korean government crackdown on cryptocurrencies.

The move by coinmarketcap caused some amount of chaos when prices across the board suddenly plunged. In mid-Monday trading, XRP had fallen 26% over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin Cash was down 18%, and litecoin was down 12%. Of the top 40 cryptocurrencies, 31 were down, including bitcoin and Ethereum.

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A representative of the website confirmed the moves in an email to The Wall Street Journal, citing “extreme price discrepancy” among South Korean exchanges. The company added in a tweet Monday afternoon that it “excluded some Korean exchanges in price calculations due to the extreme divergence in prices from the rest of the world and limited arbitrage opportunity.”

Coinmarketcap has become one of the most popular destinations for price quotes as the sector surged last year. According to Amazon’s web-ranking service, coinmarketcap is currently the 154th most popular website in the world, in the same ballpark as Chinese retail giant Alibaba.com .

The website’s rejiggered prices led to a flip in market-value rankings on the site. Ethereum, with a $109 billion total market valuation, moved into second place, the spot previously occupied by XRP, which fell to third place with a $97 billion market value. Bitcoin remained number one, with a $255 billion market value.

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More than $100 billion of the sector’s total market value was erased over the last 24 hours, according to the site. On Sunday, it stood at $835 billion. On Monday, it fell to as low as $683 billion, and lately was at $722 billion.

Before Monday, for example, prices for XRP on coinmarketcap were quoted as high as $3.84 on Jan. 4. About 25% of XRP’s trading volume came from the Seoul-based online exchange Bithumb, according to coinmarketcap.

On Monday, without the Korean-exchange data, the XRP price fell to about $2.50, and at one point on coinmarketcap.com, fell below $2.10. On Ripple’s website, the company quoted XRP at $2.41, with its source being a weighted average of prices on the U.K. exchange Bitstamp.

In 2017, South Korea and Japan became major markets for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, at the same time that China was clamping down on the sector. The flood of new money and enthusiasm in these countries led to price quotes that were higher, sometimes by hundreds of dollars, than on exchanges elsewhere. In Korea, this gap was nicknamed the “kimchi premium.”

In Japan, authorities embraced the sector, implementing rules for proper trading of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In South Korea, though, the government has been more concerned with the potential for criminal activity tied to cryptocurrencies, and even retail investor losses amid a global mania and what many fear is a bubble in the sector.

Link

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
Japanese cryptocurrency exchange loses more than 500 million to hackers

Money refunded

https://cointelegraph.com/news...by-community-support

What's the Deal and Scope of the Electricity Usage when Mining Bitcoins?

Seems like a potential resource waste for an esoteric commodity.

Its a lot.

http://www.businessinsider.com...ricity-usage-2017-11

Yeah, there used to be a day when just a dude and his videocard could mine a Bitcoin if he left the thing running for a few days.

That was actually part of the attraction - I'm not actually investing MONEY in it, just a few cycles on my CPU.

Now, not so much.

BTW, have I told you how awesome my Ethereum is doing? LOL.

quote:

Originally posted by furlough:
BTW, have I told you how awesome my Ethereum is doing? LOL.

It has been really resilient to the dip. Just been buying cheap. Ready for ICX to take off.

Just to add: I dipped my toe into the cryptocurrency markets, and have doubled my investment (it had tripled, then corrected). I'm watching it for another spike, at which time I'll take back my initial investment. At that point, I'll be playing with house money, and if it crashes, I'm out nothing.

quote:

Originally posted by Deqlyn:

quote:

Originally posted by furlough:
BTW, have I told you how awesome my Ethereum is doing? LOL.

It has been really resilient to the dip. Just been buying cheap. Ready for ICX to take off.

I know, just parroting the typical "investor".

And fpuhan yeah, I hear you.

It's like any other market now - when everyone else is selling, it must be time to buy!

As long as you are using play money, right?

Are you just mad you can't find a gpu?

So a Japanese broker was "hacked" and $500m in bit coin was taken, I thought this couldn't happen?

Not saying bitcoin might lead to the next genetation in money, god knows we need to get away from central banking, but I certainty wouldn't be betting my lifes saving on it.

I

quote:

Originally posted by dewhorse:
So a Japanese broker was "hacked" and $500m in bit coin was taken, I thought this couldn't happen?

Not saying bitcoin might lead to the next genetation in money, god knows we need to get away from central banking, but I certainty wouldn't be betting my lifes saving on it.

I

Bitcoin transactions are not very vulnerable to hacking.

If you hack a computer system that has a bunch of bitcoins and tell it to transfer them somewhere, that's something else.

quote:

Originally posted by dewhorse:
So a Japanese broker was "hacked" and $500m in bit coin was taken, I thought this couldn't happen?

Not saying bitcoin might lead to the next genetation in money, god knows we need to get away from central banking, but I certainty wouldn't be betting my lifes saving on it.

I

This is why it is unwise to keep your money on an exchange. THe exchanges hold millions of coins. If it gets hacked you could get screwed. This is why it is recommended you keep your funds in a cold storage wallet. Cold storage meaning offline, either paper or in the USB type devices.

This is all part of a decentralized world. You don't want banks to control stuff and shaft people? Now it is your responsibility to take care of your stuff. No different then any other property you own. Crypto coins are not currency, they are money/property. More akin to precious metals. If you own a gold bar, it is your job to keep that gold bar safe. No different in Cypto.

quote:

Originally posted by fpuhan:
Just to add: I dipped my toe into the cryptocurrency markets, and have doubled my investment (it had tripled, then corrected). I'm watching it for another spike, at which time I'll take back my initial investment. At that point, I'll be playing with house money, and if it crashes, I'm out nothing.

I started doing that and decided I would do no more than 5% of my retirement portfolio. Currently I am at about 3.5%. Any portfolio needs to have some amount of risk, I'd say 3.5% for me is appropriate. 100% ready to lose it all.