How do you decide which crypto currency to buy?

I’ve been studying crypto currencies for a while and I’m still getting my head around the technology. How long did it take you?

You’re confusing two things: blockchain and crypto currencies.

Blockchain technology, might have some uses, a lot of the initial hysteria seems to be dying out as they’re they don’t appear do anything particularly new or useful. There was a time a few years ago when any company who mentioned Blockchain on their website got a 30% share price boost overnight. Thankfully, that madness has passed.

Crypto currencies’ populatity has nothing to do with the blockchain technology, it’s just a FOMO / get rich bubble pumped by 100s of celebs, which seems to have generated it’s own momentum. Their volatility and lack of liquidity make them totally innapropriate as a currency and most people now see their only future as a speculative asset (not dissimilar to a certian Tulip mania).

Personally I believe that there is a crisis of confidence approaching when it comes to fiat currencies and people are not going to put their faith in gold this time around.

Well that’s a hypothesis, however the trade in Gold hasn’t diminished, so not much in the way of evidence to support it.

In fact, the price is rising, which suggests more buyers than sellers…

Gold is too difficult to secure and any government can decide you’re not allowed to own it any time they want.

True, they could, but why would they want to?
And what makes Crypto any different?

If they wanted to outlaw it they could just block access to all the exchanges, would making trading it very hard (but not impossible).

I think the end game for most governments is to have some form of digital currency but one that they control rather than one that is decentralised. How they deal with the current crypto currencies is the question.

You’re sort of missing the point of fiat currencies, the fact they are regulated, controlled and stabilised means they are stable and low risk. You can sell a house and have 1/2 million sat in an account, not worrying it could delvalue by a factor of 2 overnight. Certainly not the case with crypto currencies.

If cyrpto currencies were useful as a currency ie stable, like fiat currencies, they wouldn’t go up in values and probably depreciate slightly with inflation, which would kill off 99.9999% of interest in them.

They’re just a speculative asset at the moment and unlikely to be anything else.

For me it’s simple – there’s nothing else that gives the tiniest possibility of turning my £200 spent now into 2k, 20k or even 200k in 5 years time. Perhaps a bet on Derby County winning the Premier League, Champions League and FA cup within 5 years would offer similar odds! 🙂

It’s just playing and a bit of a punt for me and I’d never pull my savings out the bank and chuck it at crypto – but £200 is a night out at a gig.

What would make the average person choose to use crypto over the currency in their country? And if you removed the only potential lure of getting rich quick? I can only see that it creates problems, not solves them. But I agree with footflaps, no matter how much I read about it, I remain utterly unconvinced. Well done to those that have made money on it. But I won’t be one of the suckers who makes them profit. Based on the GameStop saga there is no shortage of suckers out there.

If cyrpto currencies were useful as a currency ie stable, like fiat currencies, they wouldn’t go up in values and probably depreciate slightly with inflation, which would kill off 99.9999% of interest in them.

You aren’t even slightly concerned at the sheer volume of dollars printed in the last year, not to mention the M2 money supply?

I can’t say for sure what is going to happen but one thing I’m 90% certain of is that we are on the cusp of a major shake up of the financial world. If you think things are going to go back to normal then that’s wishful thinking on the same scale as the most enthusiastic crypto evangelists.

What would make the average person choose to use crypto over the currency in their country?

Hyperinflation.

Hyperinflation would be a good answer if crypto currencies were stable. But they are hugely volatile.

Hyperinflation.

Have you looked at the BC price graph recently?

You aren’t even slightly concerned at the sheer volume of dollars printed in the last year, not to mention the M2 money supply?

Well, so far, the $ is orders of magnitude more stable than crypto.

Of course, that’s what happens when no one is quite certain in the value of something. There are massive fluctuations while the market tries to figure it out.

The only thing we can be certain of when it comes to the value of crypto currencies is that the value lies somewhere between $0 and $5 trillion.

When you look at it on that scale it’s been remarkably stable so far 🙂

For me it’s simple – there’s nothing else that gives the tiniest possibility of turning my £200 spent now into 2k, 20k or even 200k in 5 years time. Perhaps a bet on Derby County winning the Premier League, Champions League and FA cup within 5 years would offer similar odds!

And this is Crypto is a nutshell. Probably accounts for 99.99% of invetors. The other 0.01% being blockchain evangelists who believe it will cure cancer etc.

Nothing wrong with it as long as people realise it’s just a completely blind bet.

What I don’t agree with is celebs / influencers pumping it as something it’s not to inflate their own holding as people will end up loosing money they can’t afford to. Same with Gamestop, lots of people jumped on for FOMO but far too late and just lost a load of money they couldn’t afford to.

I may have missed it, but what’s a good app for having a dabble? I’m thinking the occasional night out on the beer rather than sessions on the Champers.

Todays rumour is Tesla are planning to invest 1.5b in Bitcoin

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-hits-43k-all-time-high-as-tesla-invests-1-5-billion-in-btc

A single man with so much power….

Binance or Coinbase Pro. Fees are lower than with the regular Coinbase app and the trading interfaces are pretty similar.

It’s free to transfer balances between Coinbase and Coinbase Pro so you could set-up both, get your free £50 from Coinbase and then move it into Pro as and when you want to trade something to take advantage of the much, much lower fees. Coinbase has easier to read portfolio and pricing breakdowns etc as well whereas Coinbase Pro is a bit harder to read.

I am currently on eToro, which is nice to use but probably not the best for Crypto (at least not day-trading type stuff) because the spreads can be very wide.

I installed Binance last week, but the interface looks like a child designed it, and the frequent broken English and nonsensical instructions didn’t really make me want to trust it with my money / ID / bank details, so I’ve disabled my account.

So I took a look at Kraken which looks a lot better (it’s certainly clearer and easier to understand) but haven’t put any money into yet.

Spread is to high on etoro for day to day pumps.
It’s good for ease of use thou. Elon just went long on crypto love him or hate him I do wonder how much he has stashed away in a wallet hidden in a sock draw.

Has anyone got any tips, thoughts on cardano as a currency to take a bit of a gamble on was thinking about 500$ so not world ending if goes to pot.
Also how the hell do I go about buying an it,as it seems well confusing to me as a complete begginer at this.I have a hl account but don’t think I can buy it through them.
Cheers

I use the Kraken app – looks like you can buy it through that.

What would make the average person choose to use crypto over the currency in their country?

because their own countries currency is going increasingly digital as well, and they don’t want whatever they’re paying for being viewable by the powers that be in their country.

I think crypto currency has a huge future, but in 10-20 years when cash it on its last legs. at that point, there’s a huge black market that needs ‘money’ to pass around, and bitcoin is not a bad option. I think by then there will be a clear leader, which will be more stable and used widely, but there could be several. I think these businesses will also go increasingly virtual/remote, futher driving away from cash.

Illegal drugs have an annual value (worldwide) of $300bn, which is approximately the GDP of Ireland. The need for money to power these things will not reduce

but in 10-20 years when cash it on its last legs

Again, confusing several things.

You don’t need crypto to get rid of cash, you just replace it with electronic fiat currency, which is what is happening anyway at different rates. Sweden is ahead of the curve here, but no crypto insight there.

at that point, there’s a huge black market that needs ‘money’ to pass around, and bitcoin is not a bad option

That seems to be the only non speculative purpose for crypto, enabling criminal activity – hardly a great advert though…..

You don’t need crypto to get rid of cash, you just replace it with electronic fiat currency, which is what is happening anyway at different rates. Sweden is ahead of the curve here, but no crypto insight there.

my point was that you need some way to pay for things that cash doesn’t – sweden might be ahead of the curve in getting rid of cash but how do you buy weed or pay for a prostitue, or do the equivilent of ‘cash in hand’ there?

does it matter that criminal activit isn’t a great ‘advert’ for crypto? its a use, which has huge value, so will drive (long term) a need for a stable, widely accepted currency that isn’t controlled by a government. Once that exists, why bother using the currency which your government controls?

electronic fiat currency

What exactly is an electronic fiat currency?

If you just mean cashless society then that won’t address the current issues with fiat currency in that it can just be created at will and then leveraged by banks who don’t require reserves to guarantee it which causes it to multiply.

If you mean something that has scarcity then that is just a national crypto-currency.

I can’t tell if you think the current fiat model is destined to continue for the foreseeable future (which is wishful thinking way beyond what crypto speculators possess) or if you think crypto is the future but only governments are going to produce it so there is no point in getting involved in private currencies.

You are very sure of your analysis but you don’t seem to have spent much time researching crypto unless you have but just didn’t mention it when I asked you last time.

Bitcoin is fully transparent on the Blockchain so it’s of no use to the criminal community.
Apple soon to join the party.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/apple-about-announce-5-billion-bitcoin-purchase-one-bank-thinks-so

Time to join the party.

A mate works with refugees. One issue is getting them a bank account Very tricky sometimes as banks are plcs and are not obliged to. Very hard to function in UK without a bank account.

Crypto – be your own bank. All you need is a mobile phone. And much like cash you can pay and receive value without the permission of a financial institutions computer that says no.

Will happen one day

If bitcoin is of no use to the criminal community then why do ransom scammers request payment in it? And what happens to the huge amounts that were stolen from exchanges? Wasn’t it mostly used for illicit trades on silk road etc?

I’m not arguing that the criminality element counts against it when comparing against traditional money. Just wondering why it’s so associated with criminality if you say it’s useless for criminals.

You can see the address of the wallets involved in every transaction. The difficulty, and the reason it works for buying whatever it is you’re buying, is tying the wallet’s address to an individual.

Hyperinflation

Haha.

What I don’t agree with is celebs / influencers pumping it as something it’s not to inflate their own holding as people will end up loosing money they can’t afford to.

Elon just went long on crypto love him or hate him I do wonder how much he has stashed away in a wallet hidden in a sock draw.

I find the cult of Musk worrying. One tweet can rock markets and send people into a frenzy.

The guy is an arse and seems to do these things to massage his ego.

It wouldn’t surprise me if he already holds a great deal of bit coin and is going to dump them and pocket the cash just for the lols.

Common uses of crypto that aren’t speculation driven:
-people in places like Venezuela who are keen to avoid inflation
-people in area’s with no functioning banking system such as war zones and refuge camp
-certain demographics in some regions who are excluded from holding bank accounts in their own name
-transferring money to family overseas and avoiding losing a chunck to western union

These happen in significant volumes daily and many of them have projects that tackle these specific cases, such as XLM, Nano, RSR, XMR

Sure some gets used for illicit purposes but guess what gets used more for facilitating human trafficking, drug smuggling and organised crime? USD, GBP and Euro’s

I’ve read all of the above, and whilst I think that I’m reasonably intelligent I’m not going to think too much about it all and go ride my bike!!

You’re sort of missing the point of fiat currencies, the fact they are regulated, controlled and stabilised means they are stable and low risk. You can sell a house and have 1/2 million sat in an account, not worrying it could delvalue by a factor of 2 overnight. Certainly not the case with crypto currencies.

You’re very definitely missing the point of why this is the end of the slippery slope for fiat currencies, and why people are seeking an alternative.

Something devaluing by a factor of 2 overnight is a very real problem when there is no underlying value, but we have seen significant institutional investment into BTC and other crypto now to effectively install a glass floor at certain values on those worth holding (what is worth holding is a very speculative argument though). People are looking not for stability right now, but for an increasing asset. Fiat currency is a significantly depreciating asset right now… If you have any, get rid of it into an asset that will hold its value in real terms (residential property) and reduce your debts, or find an appreciating asset. Approximately 25% of the US$ in existence in the world were printed in 2020… In real terms, if you started 2020 with $1000 in your bank account, spent none of it, and earnt no interest on it, on January 1st 2021 your $1000 still in your bank account was worth 20% less than it was 12 months previously! If that’s not frightening, then I don’t know what is!

If cyrpto currencies were useful as a currency ie stable, like fiat currencies, they wouldn’t go up in values and probably depreciate slightly with inflation, which would kill off 99.9999% of interest in them.

Currently they’re not that useful as a currency, what they are (in particular Bitcoin right now) is a store of wealth. The tech will improve, the adoption will be widespread, and Crypto (probably not Bitcoin so much ironically, as that will remain effectively Digital Gold) will be easier to trade as it becomes more stable in the future. What stops Bitcoin and many other Crypto currencies (there’s exceptions here, be careful of the pseudo Ponzi schemes and the Pump and Dump Boiler room stocks like XRP and many others) from losing their value over time is that they are a finite asset. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins minted, many have been lost already, and the rate of new ones being introduced slows is on an ever decreasing cycle, pushing the scarcity and the price up as more and more people use them for a store of wealth! In many ways, it’s a Capitalists wet dream…

They’re just a speculative asset at the moment and unlikely to be anything else.

So was pretty much every single major technological advance of the last 50 years… Everybody laughed at the World Wide Web for years after Tim Berners Lee introduced it to the world in 1990. By the late 90’s, many people had tried using it on their existing home computers on a dialup modem, explored emails, setup MSN Messenger accounts, and maybe bought or sold a few things on ebay before dismissing it as no more useful than that. Yet still people were evangelical about how it was going to change the world, whilst all you could see (along with most others) was how infuriating it was when you were busying messaging your mates on MSN when your Mum picked up the landline phone to call her sister and knocked you off the internet…

Then some people got broadband… No longer were they at the mercy of their mum’s phone habits! Information was more readily available, but the content was lacking, but now they could see some promise. Those who got Broadband were evangelical, whilst those who still felt burnt by dialup internet were very sceptical.

Inbetween the time where Broadband first existed and everyone having it, the world changed in an unrecognisable way. The early adopters who saw opportunities with the technology, made huge amounts of money in a very short space of time. If you were given the opportunity to go back to 2006 and invest any spare cash into Google, Facebook, Apple or Microsoft, you’d do it without hesitation. Your £1k investment back then in any of those companies would probably buy you a very nice house right about now!

This is where Crypto is… We had a rejection back in Jan 2018, where it went through a Bull Market based only on speculation and promise, no underlying substance, no institutional investment. It crashed quite quickly, and took nearly 3 years to reach its previous all time high value. I understand the reticence… I got bitten too! But right now, the need is there as well as the desire. The world wasn’t ready to consider slowly moving from fiat to an unknown crypto currency back then, it was purely speculation. Right now it’s a VERY different prospect as circumstance has caused a very real need for lots of people to look for alternative stores of wealth. The need, along with some hype by people like Elon Musk (buy before he hypes it, or a couple of days after, not during the artificial pump!), is driving the price quite dramatically. But there is also huge amounts of leverage going on in the market, and for a lot of people when the price stagnates, they are paying huge fees to keep their position whilst it sits there or even depreciates slightly, so they often sell them quite quick once they’ve made a profit, which of course devalues it again. So crypto is in no way stable yet, and it is still a speculation for sure, but only in the same way that the hype over the dotcom boom was 20 years ago… And we all know how that turned out!

I find the cult of Musk worrying. One tweet can rock markets and send people into a frenzy.

The guy is an arse and seems to do these things to massage his ego.

The guy is an arse for sure, and a lot of his own personal movements (especially on Twitter) are just to massage his own ego. He wants to know how high people will go when he tells them to jump basically! But he knows it’s working!

It wouldn’t surprise me if he already holds a great deal of bit coin and is going to dump them and pocket the cash just for the lols.

Nah, he’s in it for the long haul… He’s invested just 0.2% of Tesla’s net worth in Bitcoin so far, it’s hardly a huge move in the grand scheme of things. He knows he’s pulled off a genius move. He’s exposed the entire Fortune 500 to Crypto Currency whether they like it or not, which means he’s exposed pretty much everyone in the word who has a stocks and shares ISA to crypto currency too, whether they like it or not. He’s forcing the hand of others like Apple, Facebook, Google etc. You think you’ve got FOMO right now…? I can tell you the emergency board meetings at the other tech companies right now will be full of FOMO! And for good reason…

In 3 years time, all the top tech companies will have a level of Bitcoin and other Crypto currencies in their holdings. I’m not saying it will be huge in percentage terms, but 1% of an enormous market cap is still a huge amount of money! Bitcoin’s market cap currently stands somewhere around $900Bn, approximately the same as Tesla’s. As soon as other tech companies start investing, Bitcoin itself will jump way ahead of all the individual companies in market cap, to the benefit of all of them!

So yeah, Musk is an arse, but he’s a very very clever one… He’s been planning this for a long time (all the DOGE shilling on Twitter wasn’t without reason, whilst others pumped money into DOGE as he shilled it, the price of BTC came down again after he’d artificially pumped it the first time round).

Spread is to high on etoro for day to day pumps.

Bitcoin Pro. Fees start at 0.5%, go down from there as your transactions increase. Can easily make decent returns day trading with their fees if you know what you’re doing.

Bitcoin is fully transparent on the Blockchain so it’s of no use to the criminal community.
Apple soon to join the party.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/apple-about-announce-5-billion-bitcoin-purchase-one-bank-thinks-so

Time to join the party.

It still will be in 6 months, a year etc… The earlier you get in, the more you’ll stand to gain though probably. However, don’t plan on getting out inside 3yrs would be my advice. There are 2yr periods in BTC’s history where you could have bought in at a price, and got out down… There is no 3yr period in its 11yr history where the price hasn’t at least doubled, and in some 3yr periods it has gone up by 10,000% or more!

Crypto – be your own bank. All you need is a mobile phone. And much like cash you can pay and receive value without the permission of a financial institutions computer that says no.

Will happen one day

Bingo! Whether it’s Bitcoin, Ethereum, or something else. It really doesn’t matter. You’re essentially buying into the concept that will take over from fiat currency sooner or later.

Many many years ago I got sent 10p of bitcoin.

It’s now become my retirement plan.

This… A friend bought 1000BTC for £100 back in about 2010. He made 10x return in 12 months, sold his 1000BTC for £1000 and thought he’d done really well!

If he had them still today, just 11 years later, they’re worth approximately £33.5m…

Put whatever you can reasonably afford (to lose) in… The less you put in, you’ll just have to leave it in a little longer until you retire compared to other people, that’s all.

Those looking to make big gains short term can get thier fingers bitten, unless they’re seriously good at day trading. But if you buy some, hold it for long enough, you will make some serious returns…

We’re in for a turbulent few years in my opinion but writing off crypto because it’s difficult to understand would be a mistake, I reckon.

100%… Imagine putting 1% of your expendable income into crypto on a monthly basis, then in 10 years you’ve got enough money to pay off your mortgage 10yrs early! Would you miss that 1% each month if it didn’t pay off? 🤷🏻‍♂️ Given I can’t go to the pub, travel etc. right now, I’m just chucking the spare cash I have that would normally be spent on that into crypto, and with a little day trading too, I’ve made a 25% return on my investment in the last 10 days… Could be worse!

For the record… 2 months ago I was still highly sceptical, there just wasn’t any evidence to suggest that Crypto was anything other than speculation once again that I could see. 1 month ago I was starting to see its potential and curious again. Now, I firmly believe that it will be the future of currency in some way shape or form… It’s just a case of when, not if in my mind.

If you were given the opportunity to go back to 2006 and invest any spare cash into Google, Facebook, Apple or Microsoft, you’d do it without hesitation.

This is vey true. Unfortunately some people with similar ideas about how the world was changing at the time bought Ask Jeeves, Friends Reunited, Compaq and Symbian…
Crypto appears to have one way ahead of all the others but it is still very new, will this continue to be the case? Go back twenty years and who would have predicted Apple selling more telephones than Nokia? Well, some did and they are now very rich, but most got it wrong. That’s the tricky part.

Approximately 25% of the US$ in existence in the world were printed in 2020… In real terms, if you started 2020 with $1000 in your bank account, spent none of it, and earnt no interest on it, on January 1st 2021 your $1000 still in your bank account was worth 20% less than it was 12 months previously! If that’s not frightening, then I don’t know what is

So have prices inflated by 20% as a result and is the USD worth 20% less against other currencies that haven’t been printing more?

Unfortunately some people with similar ideas about how the world was changing at the time bought Ask Jeeves, Friends Reunited, Compaq and Symbian…
Crypto appears to have one way ahead of all the others but it is still very new, will this continue to be the case?

There’s a difference between investing in the wrong technology companies and refusing to invest in technology companies at all.

If you invested in the technology sector as a whole and re-balanced regularly you might not be doing as well as if you had invested in Apple or Google individually but you would have still done very well without the risk of picking a Friends Reunited.

What people fail to realise is that there is more to Crypto than just bitcoin. The complexity of the eco-system has exploded since 2017 with bitcoin being the defacto value store and the other solutions being a mix of applications for the technology (such as Etherium), ways of allowing cyrpto to interact with the real world (such as stable coins and decentralised exchanges), and outright scams.

Everybody laughed at the World Wide Web for years after Tim Berners Lee introduced it to the world in 1990.

No, I don’t think anyone laughed at it. It was invented to solve a problem (distribution of research materials) and leapt on by many people who realised it was the solution to their problems too. Unlike cryptocurrencies, which didn’t solve any problem that real people had and are still struggling to find applications.

Hope youse all bought into KR1.

@jimmy and Argo. 😁

Unlike cryptocurrencies, which didn’t solve any problem that real people had and are still struggling to find applications.

The real problem that crypto currencies solve is the fiat system’s flaws. These flaws are being brutally exposed by this pandemic.

You can’t print 20% of all currency ever printed in the space of a year and not expect there to be severe consequences further down the road.

No, still not seeing that as a problem crypto currencies solve, much as its advocates would like you to think so, and the pandemic isn’t brutally exposing anything apart from overpopulation. The thinking seems to be “here’s something that some people on Zero Hedge want to hype up as a problem, here’s something looking for a use where we might make speculative gains, so let’s link the two together”. Yes, printing money can cause problems, but there’s no reason why cryptocurrencies are a solution, never mind the best solution.

No, still not seeing that as a problem crypto currencies solve, much as its advocates would like you to think so, and the pandemic isn’t brutally exposing anything apart from overpopulation.

20% of all USD ever printed being printed in the last 12 months doesn’t worry you?

Fair enough.

Also, how does having a currency that has a limited supply not solve the problem of governments being able to print money at will and pick up the tab at an undetermined point in the future?

@peekay I held on to ARB in my daughter’s ISA up to 1000% gains and sold some 😉