[felixflyer]

As the title, is anyone here invested in Crypto?

If so, what are you hodling?

[Morten]

Mostly XRP

[Paultheparaglider]

I just bought 22 million Bitcoins that were going cheap.

[Charles Hunt]

Since abandoning the Gold Standard aren't all currencies fairly hypothetical anyway?

[rats404]

IMO, "investing" is a bit of a stretch. Gambling is closer I think. YMMV of course, but I (painfully) remember well the dotcom bubble of 1999/2000.

[Morten]

For sure. I think in this instance, timing in and out of the market are, at least in the medium term, more important than time in the market...
Having said that, the returns so far are spectacular - and I do believe that there is a real case to be made for the existence of (stable) cryptocurrencies in general, albeit not for their explosive nominal growth recently ...
Which should make them (a small) part of any diversified investment (sic) portfolio, but not something you'd want to bet the house on.
Although if you had, you could now probably buy a Learjet.

[felixflyer]

As with the dot-com bubble it is important to invest in coins that actually have a good product behind them. If there is a large correction then it will be the ones based mostly on speculation that will be wiped out. There are some good ideas out there though that could become very big indeed. The next Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg will likely come from this world.

Imagine getting into Apple at IPO stage for pennies! That is the stage we are at now with Crypto's.

Morten, are you planning on holding on to XRP long term?

[Morten]

Not sure.
I am speculating (which I think is a better word...) based on the old 'kiss a few frogs and some may be princes' principle. I.e. I have a small amount on half a dozen or so 'penny' coins, and based on scanning/reading articles about the various coins I then sometimes gather more on one than the other, hoping that once in a while I hit a big one, offsetting the dud ones. Recently, Ripple has been on a bit of a roll and based on my limited understanding it has more of an underlying USP than the 'me too' coins out there.
Litecoin and Ethereum have also been good, but nothing has really beaten Bitcoin itself yet. Dogecoin gets some press. I seem to have missed out on WAX...

Just like in Klondike, it is not the miners who make money but the people who sell them their pickaxes and who assay the ore... In this instance, the exchanges, wallets etc. are the real money makers. With the large fluctuation, it is tempting to try to trade very frequently, but the fees are stonkingly high, so in addition to the trading risk you'd need to be very good to offset the frictional costs. I'm trying to pick week to month-long coins, and then take the bounces as they occur... so I'm still with the Ripple I should have sold last week...

I am not at all a sophisticated player. The temptation is to spend more time and try to do this properly. Apart from the normal charts, I have a suspicion that a tool to accurately measure/track mentions in the media and other 'trending' indicators - irrespective of the context it is used in - could serve as a useful guide. I do think that many of the actors are, like me, rather simple and the herd instinct 'I saw' and 'a mate told me about' is strong...

But I have a real job as well - which still pays me more (but is rather more boring!)...

In the meantime, I heartily recommend everyone to plow into cryptocurrencies and push up the value of my holdings as much as possible. That advice is worth as much as you paid for it. Never gamble/speculate/invest more than you can afford to lose etc.

If anyone has any *real* ideas/thoughts...

Morten

[Charles Hunt]

Remodel the world so that is the miners that make the money in return for their efforts rather than the assayers and marketeers.

[matthew_w100]

Many friends and colleagues have a few of various of these currencies. They are easy enough to buy. But so far not one has demonstrated how to *sell* them. My brief investigations reveal a seeming need to meet a dodgy bloke in a car park somewhere to do this.

Have any forumites managed to turn them back into pound notes? What was the process/mechanism/degree of trust needed?

[Morten]

Yes, very good point. The liquidity of the entire system seems flaky at best and sometimes, for no apparent reason, the exchanges go down and/or stop trading a particular coin. E.g. yesterday Changelly was not trading Ethereum, over new year the trade in Ripple was crippled (sorry...).
So in case of a major event, whether you would be able to trade as you wanted and/or whether you could get your fiat currency back is anyone’s guess.
But yes, I did initially go through a EUR –> BTC - > ETH - > EUR process to make sure i understood and that it worked. At a frictional cost around 25% (on a small amount)...
You do need to trust someone with your bank details, as well as proof of identity and residence for the transactions to/from fiat, so the potential for identity theft is not negligible...
Morten

[felixflyer]

I use a broker, I may pay a bit more to buy and get a bit less but with the fluctuations as they are it doesn't really matter. I use one guy in the UK, we have exchanged id's etc. and transfer between bank accounts. He is part of a larger network of verified and trusted brokers. My advice is to use these which you can find on localbitcoins.com.

Regarding exchanges etc. it is all a bit like the wild west at the moment. This is the reason there is so much growth and potential for gains. If you can be secure and not fall for any phishing scams then you should be ok but it is the early days of crypto and they do have a habit of being 'in maintenance' when there is big news in the market. There are a few projects, such as Ethos that are set to change this and make the whole process more secure and user friendly. These are the ones worth investing in that will be the future giants. All my opinion of course.

Dogecoin is a joke based around a cartoon dog that even the developers cannot believe has grown so much. They haven't updated it for something like 2 years. There is a lot of rubbish that are just there to be pumped & dumped by John Mcafee etc.

Ripple is the bank controlled coin so a lot of crypto people are dead against it in principle. It made some huge gains over xmas though.

It's a bit of a bloodbath today on the exchanges. Bad news or bargain hunting time, depending how you look at it.

[Tall_Guy_In_a_PA28]

I tried to buy 20 bitcoins a couple of years ago when they trading at about $200. This was after the first spike to $1000.

My bank refused the payment. When I called to query I was told that if they detected any attempt to fund bitcoins from my account, however indirectly, they would close my account immediately. Things are a bit different now.

IF the transaction had gone through and IF I had kept the coins invested and IF no-one had stolen them then I could have paid off the mortgage and bought an RV8 with the proceeds.

[felixflyer]

I have set aside a separate small amount to hold long term which is my RV-7 engine fund for when I get to that stage.

[matthew_w100]

Just to be clear - there are trustable brokers out there who will deposit sterling in a UK bank,given a sort code and account number, in exchange for bitcoin?