Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.)

[T’Boo Ted Marshall 2741]

LTC looks like it had had the most upside this year.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

12K may be out of reach for the moment but the one thing that can be counted on is that you can’t guess the short term.   Of course it’s a different world when the market never closes. 1 week of crypto is equivalent to 3 weeks of stock market hours.

The Cash app from Square has quietly become a major player in retail buys of bitcoin. They previously allowed buys, sells and withdrawals to on-chain btc wallets.  Today they added deposits to have the app serve as a wallet.  Now it’s an offchain wallet so you do need a level of trust with Square and their security.   For safety I don’t think it’s good to keep a large amount there but smaller amounts make it easy to move btc around when needed.   Jack Dorsey of square and twitter is a big believer of btc.  He also seems to believe that blockchain tech is the future of twitter. 

[SquishMitten 10451]

I was a little slow on the BTC. Kept thinking it would make a good dip before working its way back up, but I FOMO’d around 10.5. Luckily picked up a handful of Ether about two weeks ago. That’s been nice 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

And 12K was hit.  3.5 days to go from 11-12.    (Didn’t it take 18 or 21 days to go from 10-20k during the last run?)

Like everyone now I wish I had bought more in 3000s but I’ve continued to buy upwards on a consistent basis.  I have a fairly high sell target so I don’t plan to stop buying soon.  Overall I have a quantity goal that I hope to reach over the next year.  So while it’s nice to watch the balances go up, in many ways I wish it would drop.

ETH is interesting. While they seem to have fallen back in terms of functionality compared to some other coins, they’re still the king of alt coins.  Name recognition and early adoption are important.  I still have a couple of miners that produce 1 Eth approx every 20 days.  It eats up some electricity and makes one room hot, but is basically an auto saver of eth for me.  

Edited June 26, 2019 by Nice Guy Eddie

[troph 24916]

That’s pretty cool, the mining part. I’ve been watching, still on the sidelines. About to kick off some meetings on the legal side of setting up various token/coin plans for a client. Gonna enjoy the ride learning about it and I still think this in its infancy stages. Plenty left to be made.

I’ll probably hop in before the year ends. In addition to the client work.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

Mining kept me interested in learning more.  For about 18 months of mining, I’m still down from the start up costs but what I learned is invaluable. Or that is what I tell myself.  I wouldn’t recommend someone get into mining if the plan is to make a lot of money because you won’t. 

 

 

[troph 24916]

Yeah I’ve got other things that make cash and take time and money so I wouldn’t dare. But it is facinating.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

Been a crazy BTC run since the last low in Feb.  It was actually lower in Dec 2018 but there was a failed run up in January.  

Value	Approx Date
3357	8-Feb
5000	5-Apr
8000	14-May
10000	22-Jun
11000	23-Jun
12000	25-Jun
13000	?

From looking at tradingview.com, in the Dec '17 run-up to 20K, it was only 10 days from 13K to 20K. And given the improvement of the network and exchanges, I don't see why that couldn't be duplicated or exceeded as FOMO grows.    In fairness, in the dropdown in Jan '18 it went down from 13K to 6K in 20 days.  To gamble large amounts of money in BTC, you need brass balls as said in Glengarry.

 

[Barry_McCokiner 160]

fire

[Blotto 23601]

Lulz. Coinbase (via the app anyways) is down. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

Ha.  It pushing close to 14000 when it dropped >2K almost at once.   Seems to have recovered somewhat.  Not exactly unexpected that some major selling will occur when the increase are 10% daily.  I used this drop to buy a bit more.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Nice Guy Eddie

[nycHorn 3044]

4 minutes ago, Barry_McCokiner said:

fire

That was a fun little wake-up plunge.  

[nycHorn 3044]

Just now, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Ha.  It pushing close to 14000 when it dropped >2K almost at once.   Seems to have recovered somewhat.  Not exactly unexpected that some major selling will occur when the increase are 10% daily.

Question:  how can both BTC and ETH both experience these massive ups and downs at virtually the same moment?  I get that the market is sensitive and connected to BTC, but man, it seems really in sync on a lot of these ups and downs.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

5 minutes ago, nycHorn said:

Question:  how can both BTC and ETH both experience these massive ups and downs at virtually the same moment?  I get that the market is sensitive and connected to BTC, but man, it seems really in sync on a lot of these ups and downs.

good question. trading bots?

[Telegraph_it 3360]

I bought around $6,000 a few months ago, right before it plummeted to $3k. I just sold it at $13,500 or so a few moments ago. That will work. 

[Barry_McCokiner 160]

1 hour ago, nycHorn said:

Question:  how can both BTC and ETH both experience these massive ups and downs at virtually the same moment?  I get that the market is sensitive and connected to BTC, but man, it seems really in sync on a lot of these ups and downs.

seem to always be that way right?  down to 12.500.  I jinxed it

[nycHorn 3044]

I think that a lot of the old alt coins are going to get left behind this round. People that got smoked a year and half ago holding hypecoins (ahem, like me) aren’t going to buy into coins this round. I see many people wishing the alt coin market would rev up the way some of the more prominent coins have, but i’m just not sure that’ll happen.

 

[Zavala 1384]

18 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Mining kept me interested in learning more.  For about 18 months of mining, I’m still down from the start up costs but what I learned is invaluable. Or that is what I tell myself.  I wouldn’t recommend someone get into mining if the plan is to make a lot of money because you won’t. 

You guys made graphics cards expensive and sold out as fuck.

[Zavala 1384]

2 hours ago, Blotto said:

Lulz. Coinbase (via the app anyways) is down. 

Whoops "lost" 80,000 BTC sorry bro

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/mt-gox-founder-facing-lawsuit-for-losing-80000-btc/ar-AADsdH6

Idon't think coin base would do shit like this, but still.

Always keep the coins in your own wallet stored and backed up yourself, disconnected from the companies holding your coins.

[Zavala 1384]

19 minutes ago, nycHorn said:

I think that a lot of the old alt coins are going to get left behind this round. People that got smoked a year and half ago holding hypecoins (ahem, like me) aren’t going to buy into coins this round. I see many people wishing the alt coin market would rev up the way some of the more prominent coins have, but i’m just not sure that’ll happen.

 

[Larry T. Spider 1747]

18 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Mining kept me interested in learning more.  For about 18 months of mining, I’m still down from the start up costs but what I learned is invaluable. Or that is what I tell myself.  I wouldn’t recommend someone get into mining if the plan is to make a lot of money because you won’t. 

 

 

Anybody else out there have experience in mining? I find the whole idea fascinating.

[52-80 19274]

1 hour ago, Zavala said:

1 Doge = 1 doge

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

19 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Anybody else out there have experience in mining? I find the whole idea fascinating.

If you're mining as a hobby or at your home,  you have two big concerns: heat and electricity usage.  

I have an Ethereum setup where I basically turned one unused spare room into the mining room. I bring in outside air and exhaust it out. The room is sealed enough that it doesn't have a large impact to the overall house temp, but it can raise the humidity of the entire house. The GPU mining cards each run between 125-150 F, so moving that heat off the cards and out of the house is critical to maintain the hardware.

That heat is created from the large amount of electricity being pulled.  This results in a potential fire hazard if your house/room can't handle 1500-2000 kWh/month.  And you need a great electricity rate.  Anything over 10 cents makes it a losing proposition. 

Some people use outside sheds, basements, garages or even porches to offset the heat issue.  But you may not have adequate electricity at those spots, you have to invest in an electrician to help you out. And in an outdoor environment, you can run into dirt, water, or even theft.

Now if you're mining Bitcoin, you need a special mining equipment called an ASIC. Those are solo purpose machines: mine certain coins like Bitcoin. They have the same heat/electricity problems plus the added "benefit" of operating at the sound level of a vacuum cleaner.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

(con'td) 

There is a new(er) element to producing crypto coins via a method called master or service nodes. Basically you have to stake a certain amount of coins and technically commit to not transferring or selling them for a specific amount of time. Then you are allowed to run a relatively standard server that manages transactions and you earn the coins.  For the most part you drop the heat and high electricity usage. The downside is that payout is usually smaller and you temporarily lose access to your coins.

DASH is the largest coin that allows this.  However it ain't cheap.  You have to stake $155K, and you earn about $28/day in DASH, both based on today's rates. 6.5% annual rate of return.

 

[XYZ 2154]

Pffft...April and Billy’s scheme involving gold is better than all that mining stuff.

[nycHorn 3044]

What’s going on here? Is there some news I didn’t hear about?

[happyfunball 481]

[XYZ 2154]

English is hard.

[GRHorn 105]

12 hours ago, happyfunball said:

 

Couldn’t find this tweet.  Bs

[SquishMitten 10451]

Y'all think that's a good deal? If so, I'll sell you some bitcoin for $2K. It won't be a whole bitcoin, but it will be some bitcoin.

[tucker 238]

 

[SquishMitten 10451]

These stories always make me think of future treasure hunters. There’s probably tons of coins on the exchanges that the owner lost the password to, died and nobody knew they existed, etc. Those accounts can be hacked. Digital Treasure Hunting would be pretty lucrative if you could figure out how to hunt for them. Something with the processing power to track transfers over decades to find large wallets that haven’t had activity in years

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

On 6/29/2019 at 5:33 PM, SquishMitten said:

These stories always make me think of future treasure hunters. There’s probably tons of coins on the exchanges that the owner lost the password to, died and nobody knew they existed, etc. Those accounts can be hacked. Digital Treasure Hunting would be pretty lucrative if you could figure out how to hunt for them. Something with the processing power to track transfers over decades to find large wallets that haven’t had activity in years

Some people are just using weak passcodes: https://www.wired.com/story/blockchain-bandit-ethereum-weak-private-keys/  if a crypto owner has a sizable amount, it’s probably good to spread them over several wallets with different pass codes, etc.

Custodial services are starting to pop up where it allows people to create multiple keys required to remove crypto from the wallet and the custodian has one of the keys. the custodian themselves are not supposed to have enough info to create a transaction themselves.  This would be long term storage in which the owner wouldn’t be frequently accessing it.

However what happens if the custodian disappears on you even if they don’t steal anything. Or they lose the key in a hack.   Regardless I think these services will flourish if crypto does.

[Guest Lobo]

isn't half the point of these things to have a blockchain ledger that can verify ownership no matter what?  

[52-80 19274]

8 hours ago, Lobo said:

isn't half the point of these things to have a blockchain ledger that can verify ownership no matter what?  

the ledger ensures authenticity of a unit of digital value.  it does not ensure ownership -- which is antithetical to the concept of privacy (or, semiprivacy) of bitcoin

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

10 hours ago, Lobo said:

isn't half the point of these things to have a blockchain ledger that can verify ownership no matter what?  

It verifies the wallet has a certain amount not that John Smith owns the wallet. It also means that if you’re careless with security, you may lose your coins and there is no central authority to get it back for you. 

The analogy is walking around with $$$ cash in your physical wallet.  If you leave your wallet unsecured on a table and someone takes your cash, that’s on you.

now most of us don’t walk around with large amounts of cash due to the risk and lack of need.   Crypto can be similar.  Have a very secured wallet for larger amounts, and other less secured wallets for small amounts, assuming we will ever use crypto for purchases. And custodial services will exist to protect and potentially insure funds. For a fee. 

[Guest Lobo]

Won't the custodian have a something of a fiduciary obligation (I'm using a term I know will probably have to be replaced in the crypto world)?  Security and insurance in the fiduciary sense is based on two things, that they know who you are and what you're placing under their protection.  In this case, how can they secure your wallet if they don't know what's in it?  And how do they make you whole again if they don't know you who are? 

[bernorange 8367]

27 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Won't the custodian have a something of a fiduciary obligation ...

See MF Global (or for a crypto specific example, Mt. Gox)

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

13k again.   Seems like we may have a run to break the year high at 13.9. 

[Rusty Shackelford 414]

Nees to test 11.8 again

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

There seems to be a pattern that 13K is the ceiling, and then dumps to 11K.  I hate to attempt to take advantage of an obvious pattern but I may try it with some of my btc during the next run up to 13.   I'm sure as soon as I do that, it will jump to 15K.

Captain obvious here but the alts seem toxic right now.  When BTC moves up, they move up by less if not drop.  When BTC goes down, they go down by more.  I'm tempted to use this drop to load up on some alts, but I don't want to see it plummet.  Oh well you only live once.

[ZB'Tejas 594]

2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

There seems to be a pattern that 13K is the ceiling, and then dumps to 11K.  I hate to attempt to take advantage of an obvious pattern but I may try it with some of my btc during the next run up to 13.   I'm sure as soon as I do that, it will jump to 15K.

Captain obvious here but the alts seem toxic right now.  When BTC moves up, they move up by less if not drop.  When BTC goes down, they go down by more.  I'm tempted to use this drop to load up on some alts, but I don't want to see it plummet.  Oh well you only live once.

Alts close to capitulation I would think... staying away from ETC/BTC and XRP/BTC ratios now that we broke below long term support there. Might get one final wick down but I would not buy back in until that start going to the other way.

 

In terms of BTC, 11.8 was the break out and we continue to test the breakout areas. Overnight went down to 11.2 and then another dip when Finnex came back online to fill trading gaps. I think there is still a change we go down around 10.3 - 10.8 so holding off on getting into any large long positions. Short at 13K would have been the better play (obvi) but not sure one more test of that range wouldn't result in a breakout.

If this thing break below 10K however we might be in a bad spot and time to start selling.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

Trump stating his opinion:

 

[Parliament 14357]

Well yeah.  He doesn't want anything competing with the World's preeminent fake money:

[American Swindle 102]

It looks like Trump had a meeting with the same powers that be that JFK did, but didn’t storm out like Kennedy. Instead, he’s being a good little orange boy.

That or he’s doing the bidding of the federal Reserve to get interest rates low to take credit for artificial economic prosperity for election points.

[nycHorn 3044]

Man, BTC and especially ETH are draining today.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

Yep.  Could be a decent buying opportunity. Or not.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

One major obstacle that crypto is starting to face is pushback from the US govt.  Who would think that the Trump Admin and Maxine Waters would effectively agree on something like opposition to Bitcoin and especially Facebook Libra.

Mnuchin describes his opposition because crypto is used for "drugs, money laundering, terrorism, human trafficking and tax evasion."  I imagine that he truly only cares about the last part. However you can't have the Treasury Secretary mention how there is an method for tax evasion that he can't easily prevent.

FYI, bitcoin and crypto in general in a freefall a few minutes ago.  recovered some from the bottom, so far.

[RDCanecutter 26512]

So, thread amnesty-- how many of y'all have used crypto for drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, or tax evasion?

And if you didn't use crypto, what did you use?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13530]

3 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

So, thread amnesty-- how many of y'all have used crypto for drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, or tax evasion?

And if you didn't use crypto, what did you use?

why did you leave out terrorism?  Seems like a big assumption to leave that out.