Cryptocurrency

[imtommygunn]

Bitcoin about to go past 30k USD.

Bitcoin at 52k. Was 5k about a year ago. Crazy. And completely unsustainable, but when?

Even if you bought in when it went first went past its previous ATH in December you'd still have nearly tripled your money by now.

Do you mean when will it level out, or even crash?

What's your current position on it. It's been quite popular topic on recent podcasts. Listened to a few, David McWilliams, and an episode on the The Stand with Dunphy.  You get conflicting views on it's long term viability.

I'm of the "missed the boat" mindset now regarding investing.

I mean the rate of the growth of it. I think it'll keep appreciating but there'll be many more dips and crashes before it settles down and is a reliable store of value.

Long term hold (5+ years) is how I'm playing it, with sums of money I'm comfortable losing outright, as its a pure gamble at this stage, but looks to be something there in the long term

I'm up 66% in the last 6 weeks

Bitcoin, Ethereum and Crypto.com coin - 2 of the more conventional and an alt

Hard not to feel like missed opportunities the last few years to get ahead of it but no point worrying about that, or chasing it too hard

Its highly volatile and sometimes I catch myself thinking 66% why not 300% ffs! Which is a ridiculous thought process driven by greed.

This is basically me. Although I was only using Revolut now moving into Coinbase so definitely will have the house on it any day now.

I'm just using money I am comfortable losing like you said. It's a complete and utter punt. But if I am not a multi millionaire this time next week I will be very disappointed.

Same here - it is a punt with "affordable" money though it disappoints me when it's not up by 10 times every time I look lol.

[armaghniac]

And the whole “mining” thing consuming more electricity than some entire nations each year??

This reflects that it is hard to make Bitcoin, otherwise it would be worth nothing at all.

[trailer]

One piece of advice....stay clear of OneCoin and Dr. Ruja Ignatova

[Main Street]

And the whole “mining” thing consuming more electricity than some entire nations each year??

This reflects that it is hard to make Bitcoin, otherwise it would be worth nothing at all.

Annually, the mining  uses  4 times more electricity than what Ireland would consume and its mostly from dirty coal environment polluting generating stations,
so being hard to make (solving the computing task) ends up being  a huge minus.
It costs the universe a huge slice of its lifespan and resources to create a bitcoin and after all that consumption of power, nothing of value is returned to the universe
At least in Ireland something good is achieved with electricity

[J70]

And the whole “mining” thing consuming more electricity than some entire nations each year??

This reflects that it is hard to make Bitcoin, otherwise it would be worth nothing at all.

But what are they “mining”?

Why is it hard to make?

[gallsman]

Bitcoin's code limits the total number that can be produced to 21m. The idea of this originally was to prevent it being influenced by any monetary policy like QE - you can't simply "print" new ones. I think there's currently about 900 a day mined and the final one is expected in 2140 or something like the.

The coins are produced as rewards for those providing the computational power that secures the blockchain and validates the transactions. The cryptographic algorithm ensures that this is sequentially more complex each time, so the amount of computational power (i.e. ultimately electricity) required is exponentially larger than what it was in the early days when anyone with a laptop could grab themselves a few coins.

[Capt Pat]

What ye reckon lads, still a good time to buy crypto? Any recommendations on what currency?

Whatever you go for tattoo your password on the missus's back some night. This poor bastard 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55645408

We've all been there - brain fog makes us forget our password and after eight frantic attempts, we have just two left.

That's the situation for programmer Stefan Thomas but the stakes are higher than most - the forgotten password will let him unlock a hard drive containing $240m (£175m) worth of Bitcoin.

I wouldn't go near bitcoin if this is the way things work. If you lose your password go f**k yourself. There is no way of getting your money back. What happens to that money? It is 240 million we are talking about not a few quid. If the bank told me a few quid I had in an account was gone forever because I forgot a password I wouldn't accept that at all.

The other thing is what is driving the price increase that made 7000 bit coin worth a few dollars each worth 240 million dollars in a few years. Is it just more people piling money in? It looks like a bubble ready to pop.

[J70]

Bitcoin's code limits the total number that can be produced to 21m. The idea of this originally was to prevent it being influenced by any monetary policy like QE - you can't simply "print" new ones. I think there's currently about 900 a day mined and the final one is expected in 2140 or something like the.

The coins are produced as rewards for those providing the computational power that secures the blockchain and validates the transactions. The cryptographic algorithm ensures that this is sequentially more complex each time, so the amount of computational power (i.e. ultimately electricity) required is exponentially larger than what it was in the early days when anyone with a laptop could grab themselves a few coins.

That is WAY over my head!

It’s like abstract art; I just don’t get it.

Thanks for trying though!

[gallsman]

What ye reckon lads, still a good time to buy crypto? Any recommendations on what currency?

Whatever you go for tattoo your password on the missus's back some night. This poor bastard 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55645408

We've all been there - brain fog makes us forget our password and after eight frantic attempts, we have just two left.

That's the situation for programmer Stefan Thomas but the stakes are higher than most - the forgotten password will let him unlock a hard drive containing $240m (£175m) worth of Bitcoin.

I wouldn't go near bitcoin if this is the way things work. If you lose your password go f**k yourself. There is no way of getting your money back. What happens to that money? It is 240 million we are talking about not a few quid. If the bank told me a few quid I had in an account was gone forever because I forgot a password I wouldn't accept that at all.

The other thing is what is driving the price increase that made 7000 bit coin worth a few dollars each worth 240 million dollars in a few years. Is it just more people piling money in? It looks like a bubble ready to pop.

Ridiculous analogy. There is no bank in bitcoin. You are responsible.

[JPGJOHNNYG]

Lads just like any ponzi scheme just make sure you get out at the right time

[RedHand88]

Lads just like any ponzi scheme just make sure you get out at the right time

It's not a ponzo scheme, it's an asset that goes up and down in value but the general trend has been increase.

Not a cryptocurrency but $KMPH is a stock worth buying.

[imtommygunn]

The last 24 hours or so haven't been so good for bitcoin or XRP

[thejuice]

It was due a correction after going up so hard. If you look at the charts I think BTC has hit it’s bottom at around $44,900. It’s working it’s way back up again now. I bought some more this morning. In my opinion, give it a few days it’ll back over $50,000. It’s not the first correction in the last 12 months.

Despite dropping quite a bit in the last few days if you’re invested in this longer term you’re probably still up massively. Party isn’t over yet. Most of the coins I’ve invested in are still worth about more than double what I paid for them, in some cases 10 times. If you ever get fearful just  zoom out and look at the big picture.

[imtommygunn]

Cheers juice. Yes up 7% today so moving back a bit.

For anyone looking at investing I just did it quickly through revolut and the fees are a bit high with them so I would recommend the approaches other people are taking here to avoid as much in fees... Also tbh it is quite unclear up front what their fees are which is a bit annoying.

[gallsman]

Binance/Kraken much better/cheaper options.