Cryptocurrency

[Smokin Joe]

Whats the best app for buying crypto? Has anyone ever actually sold any and withdrawn the money?

I use Kraken now. I used to use Binance, but their banking channels have been shut down.
I'm in the North and it's actually difficult enough to get money into crypto nowadays as banks make it so difficult to send money to the Exchanges.  They cite "customer safety" as the reason and payments continually get put on hold.
The UK government has definitely stigmatised buying crypto, but at the same time they want Capital Gains Tax if you make a profit on the holding of your assets 

I have never withdrawn any money back out of the exchanges. 

[Armagh18]

Whats the best app for buying crypto? Has anyone ever actually sold any and withdrawn the money?

I use Kraken now. I used to use Binance, but their banking channels have been shut down.
I'm in the North and it's actually difficult enough to get money into crypto nowadays as banks make it so difficult to send money to the Exchanges.  They cite "customer safety" as the reason and payments continually get put on hold.
The UK government has definitely stigmatised buying crypto, but at the same time they want Capital Gains Tax if you make a profit on the holding of your assets 

I have never withdrawn any money back out of the exchanges.

I've bought a few quids worth through revolut, nothing worth talking about really but any return is better than the money lying there. Revolut maybe an option for you to buy through if your bank is being awkward?

[Smokin Joe]

And after the news last week that a Pension fund was starting to invest as well as Bitcoin ETFs being offered, today we have news that Mastercard is now allowing their retailers to integrate crypto into their offerings (https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/2021/october/mastercard-and-bakkt-partner-to-offer-innovative-crypto-and-loyalty-solutions/).

This is not a bubble.  Yes, the human nature of greed and FOMO will still happen and, as I said on Friday, most likely next year the price will overshoot and we will see a sizeable correction.  But the pattern of where the price is going is clear and the rate of acceptance and adoption is rapidly increasing. 
If I didn't know better I would say that we are at the early stage of an S adoption curve for Bitcoin 

[toby47]

I used the Binance app, it allows me to deposit funds to it from my bank of Ireland account but I don't think it allows me to deposit from my Santander account.

By all accounts Crypto is on track for a major hike over the next few months.

[Main Street]

With the euro, its transactional value is backed by the ECB reserves and the wealth resources of the euro zone.
Who or what backs the value of the bitcoin?  Is its value based on a similarity to the value of   Picasso doodle  or a rare postage stamps,  is the value notional?

[screenexile]

With the euro, its transactional value is backed by the ECB reserves and the wealth resources of the euro zone.
Who or what backs the value of the bitcoin?  Is its value based on a similarity to the value of   Picasso doodle  or a rare postage stamps,  is the value notional?

Essentially yes. There will be x number of Bitcoin produced so it will become something that people will place value in having, but realistically and technically it has no worth other than what people buying it are giving.

[Never Give Up]

With the euro, its transactional value is backed by the ECB reserves and the wealth resources of the euro zone.
Who or what backs the value of the bitcoin?  Is its value based on a similarity to the value of   Picasso doodle  or a rare postage stamps,  is the value notional?

Essentially yes. There will be x number of Bitcoin produced so it will become something that people will place value in having, but realistically and technically it has no worth other than what people buying it are giving.

Just like a bricks in a certain location. Availability is limited and it's value is based on how much people want it and the confidence that people will pay even more for it in future

[Mikhail Prokhorov]

Whats the best app for buying crypto? Has anyone ever actually sold any and withdrawn the money?

I use Kraken now. I used to use Binance, but their banking channels have been shut down.
I'm in the North and it's actually difficult enough to get money into crypto nowadays as banks make it so difficult to send money to the Exchanges.  They cite "customer safety" as the reason and payments continually get put on hold.
The UK government has definitely stigmatised buying crypto, but at the same time they want Capital Gains Tax if you make a profit on the holding of your assets 

I have never withdrawn any money back out of the exchanges.

I've bought a few quids worth through revolut, nothing worth talking about really but any return is better than the money lying there. Revolut maybe an option for you to buy through if your bank is being awkward?

On revolut you're not buying crypto, you are only buying the price of it

any serious purchase should be done on an exchange and transferred to a hard wallet

[Never Give Up]

Whats the best app for buying crypto? Has anyone ever actually sold any and withdrawn the money?

I use Kraken now. I used to use Binance, but their banking channels have been shut down.
I'm in the North and it's actually difficult enough to get money into crypto nowadays as banks make it so difficult to send money to the Exchanges.  They cite "customer safety" as the reason and payments continually get put on hold.
The UK government has definitely stigmatised buying crypto, but at the same time they want Capital Gains Tax if you make a profit on the holding of your assets 

I have never withdrawn any money back out of the exchanges.

I've bought a few quids worth through revolut, nothing worth talking about really but any return is better than the money lying there. Revolut maybe an option for you to buy through if your bank is being awkward?

On revolut you're not buying crypto, you are only buying the price of it

Explain pls?

[Armagh18]

Whats the best app for buying crypto? Has anyone ever actually sold any and withdrawn the money?

I use Kraken now. I used to use Binance, but their banking channels have been shut down.
I'm in the North and it's actually difficult enough to get money into crypto nowadays as banks make it so difficult to send money to the Exchanges.  They cite "customer safety" as the reason and payments continually get put on hold.
The UK government has definitely stigmatised buying crypto, but at the same time they want Capital Gains Tax if you make a profit on the holding of your assets 

I have never withdrawn any money back out of the exchanges.

I've bought a few quids worth through revolut, nothing worth talking about really but any return is better than the money lying there. Revolut maybe an option for you to buy through if your bank is being awkward?

On revolut you're not buying crypto, you are only buying the price of it

any serious purchase should be done on an exchange and transferred to a hard wallet

I know it isnt the best app and don't think i've went over £100 on it.

[seafoid]

With the euro, its transactional value is backed by the ECB reserves and the wealth resources of the euro zone.
Who or what backs the value of the bitcoin?  Is its value based on a similarity to the value of   Picasso doodle  or a rare postage stamps,  is the value notional?

Essentially yes. There will be x number of Bitcoin produced so it will become something that people will place value in having, but realistically and technically it has no worth other than what people buying it are giving.

Crypto.is not a currency
It is more.like a commodity
https://www.ft.com/content/aee87c1d-b00f-4c22-ab97-97bb2b042342

Research has shown that an international currency must meet at least four basic conditions: it must have a long-term stable value; there must be sufficient volume to meet the needs of international trade in goods, services and financial assets; transaction costs must be low, with small differences between bid and ask prices, and high liquidity; and there must be a stable issuer who guarantees the currency.

[Smokin Joe]

With the euro, its transactional value is backed by the ECB reserves and the wealth resources of the euro zone.
Who or what backs the value of the bitcoin?  Is its value based on a similarity to the value of   Picasso doodle  or a rare postage stamps,  is the value notional?

It isn't backed by anything.  It's just the same way that gold used to be money, gold wasn't backed up by anything because gold was the money.  Over the last 50 years we have got used to fiat money being backed up, to some extent by gold, but the reason that it was backed up was so important was because it was, and is, so easy to print more money to create more "wealth".  But all that is doing is diluting the wealth that already exists through inflation and devaluing the currency.

Why were people, and I guess you would also, be happy to know that they are using gold as "money"?  It's because it is a hard asset where the supply is almost static as there has never been more than a 2% increase in the gold supply in any given year, ie it is the hardest asset that we had known previously.
But Bitcoin changes that, here we have an asset where the supply is fixed at 21m units, no more than that can ever be produced as the nodes will reject a block that proposes more than 21m units.  It is this scarcity and finite resource qualities that gives Bitcoin its value, in just the same way as humans used gold for thousands of years.
But Bitcoin is better than gold as Bitcoin can be used as everyday money as there are 100m units ("sats") in a Bitcoin, so it is spendable for all transactions.  Gold couldn't be spent physically and that is why paper money as we know it came about.  There used to be just the amount of paper money that countries held in vaults, so this meant that people could accept paper money for every day transactions as they knew they could redeem the paper money for physical gold at any time.
But because it was so easy and tempting for the Central Banks to print more money when things got tight (such as fight in WW2) they did, and eventually gold couldn't be redeeemed by paper money as there simply wasn't enough gold to cover all the fiat money that had been printed.

So Bitcoin has a value in the same way that gold had a value, only iy does it better.  It is a "hard" asset because there is finite supply and the rate of inflation in the supply of the asset is very low, thus you can save in that currency and know that the value of your money is going to be the same when you spend it as it was when you earned it.
That's the reason gold is valuable, not because it makes pretty jewellery.

[Smokin Joe]

Crypto.is not a currency
It is more.like a commodity
https://www.ft.com/content/aee87c1d-b00f-4c22-ab97-97bb2b042342

Research has shown that an international currency must meet at least four basic conditions: it must have a long-term stable value; there must be sufficient volume to meet the needs of international trade in goods, services and financial assets; transaction costs must be low, with small differences between bid and ask prices, and high liquidity; and there must be a stable issuer who guarantees the currency.

I've previously said that Bitcoin will become steadier in price as it gets to a critical mass.  We are just at the really early stage where we have a new "thing" that has the potential to be the "money" for all of the world and what we are seeing is increasing market capitalisation being give to that asset class as it starts on its journey from being worthless in 2009 to ultimately having enormous value.

Imagine when gold started to be used instead of beads or stones (or whatever the previous form of money was).  At that time beads could buy all the value of the assets in a country, then gold came along and this new thing, which used to be worthless, could now buy lots of assets in the country.  The price appreciation of gold in those early days, when viewed through the lens of the old currency / money, is what we are going through now.  It won't always be like this.  I believe that, at some stage, Bitcoin will be like the Dollar in terms of it is just money.  But we have to go from 0 to 100 to get there.

There is sufficient volume to buy everything.  The 21m Bitcoin (with the 8 decimal places) will see that happen.

Transaction costs are low.  You can send money / spend on the Lightning Network for fractions of a penny; this is good for buying things up to probably a few hundred USD now, and this network is growing by something like 4% per week.
And if you want to do a transaction on the base layer, the blockchain.  That typically costs something like $10 and for that value you can transfer however many Bitcoin you want.  So fees isn't even really a problem today.

Why do you need a stable issuer who guarantees the currency?  The only reason that is needed is because today we can't trust Central Banks not to print more money than they have scarce resources to back it up.  In Bitcoin this is not needed because the holders of it know for a fact that they are directly holding and spending the scarce, finite asset.
When gold was the money that was used, who guaranteed gold?  No one, no guarantee was needed.

[Smokin Joe]

And after the news last week that a Pension fund was starting to invest as well as Bitcoin ETFs being offered, today we have news that Mastercard is now allowing their retailers to integrate crypto into their offerings (https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/2021/october/mastercard-and-bakkt-partner-to-offer-innovative-crypto-and-loyalty-solutions/).

This is not a bubble.  Yes, the human nature of greed and FOMO will still happen and, as I said on Friday, most likely next year the price will overshoot and we will see a sizeable correction.  But the pattern of where the price is going is clear and the rate of acceptance and adoption is rapidly increasing. 
If I didn't know better I would say that we are at the early stage of an S adoption curve for Bitcoin 

Just the two pieces of news so far today:
1 - Sequoia Capital (who control companies valued at $3.3 trillion) have changed their structure which, among other things, allows them to "further increase our investments in emerging asset classes such as cryptocurrencies and seed investing programs."

2 -  U.S. Banking regulators looking into how banks can custody Bitcoin, use it for collateral and balance sheet holdings.

[Look-Up!]

Good explanation Joe but if you could dig hundreds of metals out of the ground exactly the same as gold it mightn't be so precious.