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It seems there are quite a few of us that are interested in what's happening in this space so I thought it was time to bring it to its own thread.

Personally, I am very interested but still learning. I have a small amount of my investment portfolio in Ethereum and a smaller amount in Bitcoin, both in Coinbase. I am probably up around 60% at the moment. As I learn more over the coming weeks, I will share it here.
 
It seems there are quite a few of us that are interested in what's happening in this space so I thought it was time to bring it to its own thread.

Personally, I am very interested but still learning. I have a small amount of my investment portfolio in Ethereum and a smaller amount in Bitcoin, both in Coinbase. I am probably up around 60% at the moment. As I learn more over the coming weeks, I will share it here.
Good on you. I don't understand it enough to invest in.
 
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I am interested, but not convinced.

Are cryptocurrencies here to stay?
Can they be safe? There have been reports of people losing their assets.
Won't the governments shut them down if they become too big, because they do not like to give up their influence on the currency.
Which currency to trade? Which marketplace?

Too many questions for me, too few answers.

Looking forward to more experienced and enlightened comments here.
 
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I bought into BTC a couple years ago. I sold last year before the most recent run-up (oops) for two reasons. BTC was being controlled by a small group (red flag) who started making dumb, self-interested decisions (second red flag). I have not kept close tabs on blockchain developments since then, but am tempted to dig deeper into ether. I left BTC for some of the same reasons others switched to ether, but sadly I just sold instead of switched. Or I probably would be retiring today ; )

Quora has a nice, easy to digest primer on why ether has become popular if anyone is just getting started. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Ethereum-skyrocketing-right-now

Like others here, I liked Coinbase quite a bit, although I was annoyed with their high transaction costs -- maybe they've improved in the past year though.
 
Investing in cryptocurrency seems like a weird idea to me. But I do have an ether miner running in my bedroom that's good for nearly 1/10th of 1 ether (around $30 in us currency at today's rates). My best guess is I'm into this 1/10th of 1 ether with more electricity than it's worth, but it's still be interesting and a good educational mechanism for me to start learning more.

Someday when I've mined an entire ether I'll probably wrap up the miner. The challenge I'm having with the cryptocurrency idea is that outside of exchanging ether into USD / marks / yen / ..., I have no idea what is available for direct purchase. The mining of an ether is my way of figuring this out for myself in a visceral way.
 
"what is making it an investment?" is the first question i would ask. i have a few bitcoins purchased for fun, but i don't have like a thesis for expecting it to go up in value, except simply that's a deflationary currency.

ethereum has an interesting conundrum -- i like the problem they're trying to approach of making smart contracts, but code is so, so hard to verifiably make bug-free. for instance: Someone Just Stole $50 Million from the Biggest Crowdfunded Project Ever. (Humans Can't Be Trusted)

so, it's fun to have a few bucks stashed away in some to keep interest alive, and i want to believe in cryptocurrencies, but i don't currently have strong reasons to do so except that they're going up.
 
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Are cryptocurrencies here to stay?
Inventions don't really go away, so yes they are here to stay. They may be replaced by something better, so far we don't know if it is possible to make something much better.

Can they be safe? There have been reports of people losing their assets.
It is true that they can be stolen and lost. This is also true for cash and many other assets. If you are gonna store them yourself(compared to letting someone else store them like buying something like XBT) you should make sure your computer is well secured, that you have some good backup system. Maybe consider getting a hardware wallet like Trezor.

Won't the governments shut them down if they become too big, because they do not like to give up their influence on the currency.
We don't know. It might be hard to do politically and hard to coordinate with all nations. People on the internet don't really like having their freedom limited.

Which currency to trade? Which marketplace?
Bitcoin and Ethereum have the largest market caps today, so they seem like a good start. As for market places, selling dollars for bitcoins or ethers can be done at Coinbase, Kraken and Bitstamp.
 
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I bought my car with Bitcoin!
But I had to get a used one, since Tesla still doesn't accept BTC directly. The dealers that do, are all in other countries. And importing it myself seemed like a huge hassle.

Before you invest in anything, inform yourself how it works.

Bitcoin is good money in the sense of the word. It fullfills the criteria for good money better than most other currencies.

Ethereum is a really interesting project. It was not ment to be used as money. It is sad to see that the only real use of it so far is for ICO token sales.

Last but not least, if you buy Bitcoin, hold them yourself. Keeping them at a custodian is like browsing the web with a 56k Modem, while these days it's the other way around: We make phone calls over the internet. (This methaphos is from the great talk "The infrastructure inversion" by Andreas Antonopolus). Bitcoin is about being your own bank, and not needing intermediaries.
 
So.. everyone is getting ancy and wanting to buy in lately. Any projections on price? I know a Bitcoin enthusiast who thinks it hits $100,000 within 5 years or so.

I think it will crash to zero at some point. The activity of Bitcoin feels like another tulip mania event to me. The price is so volatile that it can't be used for its original purpose (i.e. as a secure and de-centralised currency). It's all due to speculation.
 
I think it will crash to zero at some point. The activity of Bitcoin feels like another tulip mania event to me. The price is so volatile that it can't be used for its original purpose (i.e. as a secure and de-centralised currency). It's all due to speculation.

People said the same back in 2013. Bitcoin specifically might drop to zero if there's a successful hard fork to a "Bitcoin 2" of sorts, but in such a situation, you'd end up with the same number of coins on the new chain as the old chain. (Assuming you control the private keys to your wallet, which you should - there's a few solid, quality hardware wallets out now that serve that purpose well)

The tech itself, unlikely to die out anytime soon.


So.. everyone is getting ancy and wanting to buy in lately. Any projections on price? I know a Bitcoin enthusiast who thinks it hits $100,000 within 5 years or so.

There's a number of people expecting a correction of some sort in the next month or two. Could go to $10k+ before then, but I expect it to end up back below where we're at currently before the next leg up. Could be wrong though. The upcoming CME futures thing will make things interesting. As will Segwit2x, whatever happens there.
I'd be cautious buying right now - if you do, I'd probably DCA my way into the position.
Might also be worth keeping a small position in Ethereum too. It's been consolidating for awhile, so that may be safer to build a position in right now than bitcoin.

Fair disclaimer, I've been slowly selling most of my position over the past week for a down payment on a house, so perhaps take my advice with a grain or ten of salt.
 
People said the same back in 2013. Bitcoin specifically might drop to zero if there's a successful hard fork to a "Bitcoin 2" of sorts, but in such a situation, you'd end up with the same number of coins on the new chain as the old chain. (Assuming you control the private keys to your wallet, which you should - there's a few solid, quality hardware wallets out now that serve that purpose well)

The tech itself, unlikely to die out anytime soon.

Bitcoin throughout its history has had many bubbles and crashes. I'm not really an expert in finance / economics, but that seems to be the pattern of any mismanaged / unmanaged currency. I do believe that if hypothetically, all of the speculators were to be flushed out of the market, that Bitcoin has some inherent value as normal currency - at least after value was initially seeded with the "10000 BTC for two large pizzas" deal by one of the early adopters.

It puzzles me that the Bitcoin forks have any value at all, e.g. Bitcoin Cash. Suddenly everybody has a second set of coins, seemingly producing value out of nowhere. And I'm sure that Bitcoin Core had risen to accommodate that. So it feels like a market manipulation that solely benefited holders of the core line. Stuff like this is why I feel the price of BTC has no foundation.
 
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