Home Forums Chat Forum How do you decide which crypto currency to buy?

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  • How do you decide which crypto currency to buy?
  • the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    I’ve just bought more Etherium

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    All adds to the thrill! 🤣

    Of course – no-ones every defrauded large numbers of people and run off with huge sums of ‘real’ money!

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Although easier to recover real money……

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    Tell that to Bernie Madoff’s victims! 🙂

    mrlebowski
    Free Member

    So, you decided to invest in something equally as dodgy as Bernie….

    That’s a well thought out move….👍

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    I’m not investing – I’m playing. I know the risks and only have a few hundred quid in.

    The same way people play the lottery, bet on a horse or play bingo.

    The rest of my huge wods of cash is safely in the building society and under the mattress.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Tell that to Bernie Madoff’s victims!

    They did actually recover some of the money from his assets.

    If someone has stolen / lost the key to a wallet, you’re not getting anything back, which is a bit of a flaw as you can’t police the system (and yes I know its designed to be unpolicable, but that is also a flaw).

    andrewh
    Free Member

    I dont think crypto can be compared to what Madoff did, that implies some sort of deliberate fraud and I dont think it’s that
    I think the dotcom bubble is a better analogy, we are all getting very excited and chucking lots of money into something, hoping to find the facebook or Apple but concerned that we might have just chucked all our cash at friendsreunuted. As discussed on the ‘is cash dead’ thread crypto may be the answer but who knows which one may become the accepted transaction method?
    It could be none of them of course and this is more like a tulip bubble or gold rush where once the excitement does down we are left with a few bulbs or a small patch of desert, but again neither of those were a deliberate fraud

    I’ve just bought £50 of ethereum and £50 of Maker anyway🤣 Its a bit fun, a gamble, not an investment

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Question: Is the mining side of things required to keep these things running? At some point, people are going to question the ethics of an industry that produces 130million tonnes of CO2 a year, for no tangible reason.

    Or if ethically you can look past it, will it hit a point where it takes the GDP of a small country to process paying for a coffee and cake at a cafe?

    doris5000
    Free Member

    Question: Is the mining side of things required to keep these things running?

    AIUIt, for Bitcoin and ETH, (and indeed any other Proof of Work coin – ETH Classic, possible LiteCoin?) yes, it’s a bit of a ponzi scheme and is reliant on

    At some point, people are going to question the ethics of an industry that produces 130million tonnes of CO2 a year, for no tangible reason

    People have been questioning it for ages! There’s a steady stream of questions. Here’s the FT, from yesterday: https://www.ft.com/content/0448b44d-1d78-48f8-8ca8-6edae7976a5f

    But as long as it’s profitable, people will find ways to justify it. There are Bitcoin mining companies on the US stock exchanges worth billions.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Also, ArgoBlockchain are going green.

    I always feel slightly that those things are fudging the numbers somewhat. If they weren’t using the energy to pointlessly crunch numbers, it’d be powering something useful on the grid.

    A bit like when people claim that Ovo/Octopus/EON tariffs etc are “green”, they’re not, they’re buying the same electricity mix as everyone else, they just buy up the renewable certificates which are supposed to encourage green energy production, but are currently barely worth the virtual paper they’re written on.

    I was thinking more like:

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/02/china-bitcoin-mining-hub-to-shut-down-cryptocurrency-projects.html

    Particularly in China, not a country you would associate with the ideals and reality of Bitcoin, a decentralized, currency immune from government interference, that’s ended up concentrating wealth in the power of a few? It’s very un-China.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    Also, ArgoBlockchain are going green.

    https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/202557/argo-blockchain-taps-into-cheap-green-power-with-canadian-deal-202557.html

    Utter bollocks. Diverting some “green” energy , from where it would otherwise be used, to waste it on crypto is not green.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    So, to sort of repeat someone’s question above, is there a greener cryptocurrency?

    richardkennerley
    Full Member

    XRP if you believe the sales pitch….

    One bitcoin transaction consumes an average 700 KWh of electricity, whereas one XRP Ledger transaction consumes just 0.0079 KWh. This means that for every 1 million transactions, 4.51 billion lightbulb hours are used to mine bitcoin compared to 79,000 lightbulb hours used by the XRP Ledger. In all, this makes the energy consumption of XRP 57,000 times more efficient than bitcoin.

    Bringing this back to computational costs, running a single XRP Ledger server is comparable to running a small email server and yet still has the means to power global payment transactions.

    andrewh
    Free Member

    How does it compare to, say, a share trading exchange?

    jimmy
    Full Member

    Utter bollocks

    I was being slightly facetious. But then I don’t know how much (excess?) energy that Canadian geothermal plant is producing

    robowns
    Free Member

    I had £100 of DOGE for a purely speculative gamble. It went down to about £40 immediately so I just ignored it – checked my wallet randomly the other day and it had balooned to £400 for no concievable reason; decided that return was good enough to cash out.

    The energy point made by Richard above is what I think will ultimately kill Bitcoin; so much focus from all investors globally on emissions these days that I just can’t see that surviving in the long term (given any coin could easily replace it as it’s not generally an accepted medium for transfer).

    Well covered in this post but Crypto is a pure gamble, anyone who says otherwise is generally trying to justify their own exposure to themselves IMO. My opinion only, YMMV, many have a different one clearly and they are welcome to it.

    I’ve got a number of equity and ETF investments; you could argue that they are more tangible given potential access to actual cashflows, but it’s become quite evident over the past few years that performance and DPS bears almost no relevance to equity valuation. In short, all a gamble, just a broader upside/downside fan which investors should take into account.

    hugo
    Free Member

    In short, all a gamble

    Not really. Currencies and commodities are a gamble because you’re betting the price for them is going to go up.

    Shares of companies, or bonds, actively generate cash and are an investment rather than buying a thing (like Bitcoin, or orange juice futures) and hoping it costs more next week.

    Share prices have increased at at overall average of over 10% for over a century.

    33tango
    Full Member

    Can someone recommend a wallet? I am shying away from a HW wallet, for now, as I’ve only gambled a little bit of money and buying a HW wallet will be a fairly significant cost compared to my initial outlay. Yes, I am a tight git 🙂

    schrickvr6
    Free Member

    Metamask or MEW.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    I was being slightly facetious. But then I don’t know how much (excess?) energy that Canadian geothermal plant is producing

    I think it was hydro but that’s beside the point.

    Unless they’ve reached a point where all the fossil fuel stations are turned down then it’s not really excess. You’re just nominally allocating some green energy to crypto whilst some coal years someone’s house.

    Without the crypto mining that house would be using the green energy.

    finbar
    Free Member

    Can someone recommend a wallet? I am shying away from a HW wallet, for now, as I’ve only gambled a little bit of money and buying a HW wallet will be a fairly significant cost compared to my initial outlay. Yes, I am a tight git 🙂

    Just leave it on the exchange, if you’re using a reputable one (Kraken, Coinbase, Gemini). A softwqre wallet introduces a greater risk of user error, and is therefore unlikely to be more secure IMO.

    andrewh
    Free Member

    If you leave it on an exchange maybe have two, halves the losses from any hack, or three, or…

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    I’ve finally got round to signing up to Kraken to start investing in cryptocurrency.

    I just wanted to check I am doing the correct thing for the first time transfer of funds. When I click on deposit gbp and choose the bacs option, I basically get their bank details along with a reference number for my account,

    I guess I just go to my online bank account & set-up a new payee using their details and my reference number so it ends up in the correct account??
    This makes sense but just seems a little old school, compared to what I was expecting. I thought it would be a bit slicker.

    The first deposit is held for 72hrs; I guess while they do some background checks or whatever…
    I think further down the line I can add a bank account to do this a bit slicker…

    andrewh
    Free Member

    Not sure about kraken but that’s how Coinbase works. Maybe just send a couple of quid over first to make sure you’re doing it right before doing anything significant

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    Cheers! I found a couple of YT videos last night and it does look like that is the correct way. Like you say though, I’ll probably send a smaller amount and when it arrives, send the rest!

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    I guess I just go to my online bank account & set-up a new payee using their details and my reference number so it ends up in the correct account??

    Not sure about kraken but that’s how Coinbase works. Maybe just send a couple of quid over first to make sure you’re doing it right before doing anything significant

    Agreed

    And more importantly IMHO was doing a test withdrawal as well.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    I was being slightly facetious. But then I don’t know how much (excess?) energy that Canadian geothermal plant is producing

    No such thing as excess green energy, if someone buys it, someone else will generate more leccy from coal to supply the user who would have used the geothermal energy at a lower price. All that happens is the deeper pocketed companies who want to green wash their activities buy all the green energy credits (whilst actually using the same energy mix as everyone else as they’re all on the same grid). So Google etc buy all the green credits whilst running their server farms on coal (in the US) and are officially ‘carbon neutral’.

    AIUI most of the bitcoin mining takes place in China running in provinces predominantly using coal to generate electricity.

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    Well, the money had arrived in my Kraken account! Just need to decide what to buy with it.

    I have a good record of buying at a peak, watching the immediate slump wondering what the hell I’m doing & then waiting for ages for things to recover.

    This should be interesting! I’ve done a bit or research, but plenty more required.

    beiciwr64
    Free Member

    Just need to decide what to buy with it

    Maybe look at TRX which you can stake and earn extra tokens if you freeze them.
    Not trading advice,works for me and earns around 20 free tokens a week.
    https://www.ledger.com/staking-tron

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    beiciwr64

    Just need to decide what to buy with it

    Maybe look at TRX which you can stake and earn extra tokens if you freeze them.

    Cheers. I have looked a bit at staking & am gonna do some more research on that tonight.
    I am not intending to be short-term trading, so looking at medium to long-term gains.

    doris5000
    Free Member

    Been reading a bit more about crypto lately. Going to bin off my (admittedly small) investments over the next month or so I reckon – in the same way that I don’t really want to invest in defence or fossil fuels, I don’t really want to be supporting crypto either. And I’m pretty sure there’s a sizeable correction in the post.

    Stuff like this drives it home just how much of an environmental shitshow it is:

    Bitcoin miner Marathon signs for coal-fired electricity in Montana – Beowulf Energy hopes a joint venture can keep its struggling coal plant burning

    And stuff like this makes me worried that there’s a gigantic scam in operation and if it collapses then the whole house of cards will fall down

    Is Tether both propping up crypto, and a complete scam

    I am not intending to be short-term trading, so looking at medium to long-term gains.

    I am by no means an expert, and have only been reading up on this stuff for a couple of months. But I think it would be prudent to tread very carefully and take profits where you can….

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    I’m taking a mixed view, BTC & ETH I’m just looking at mostly short-term and riding the rollercoaster (gambling), buying and selling to make small bits of profit.

    But I also have some money in even more speculative crypto (mostly XRP & IOTA) which I’m planning to leave for a few years until it fails or moons (losing it all completely would sting but wouldn’t put me in financial difficulties), taking the short-medium term gains on that just risks looking back in a couple of years thinking if only I’d held onto it all I could have retired… :p

    Earl
    Free Member

    The current Doge price. Has Elon lost control of his vanity experiment? Will he regret it if it comes crashing down? (If it crashes???)
    Or will it become the primary currency of Mars?

    paul0
    Free Member

    At some point, people are going to question the ethics of an industry that produces 130million tonnes of CO2 a year, for no tangible reason

    And stuff like this makes me worried that there’s a gigantic scam in operation and if it collapses then the whole house of cards will fall down

    Calling it an industry is a stretch IMO! Agree with the “no tangible reason” point, I’ve yet to hear a convincing explanation of the positive contribution crypto makes or could make to the world. Although arguably the same could be said for some of the more convoluted aspects of ‘conventional’ investing I suppose.

    I can’t help but feel that both are symptoms of a financial system which is increasingly becoming detached from the intrinsic value associated with producing things that people need or want. I’m not sure if this is a problem, but it has a bit of a “last days of Rome” feel about it to me…

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    I’m not looking at Doge anymore – I thought my 200% profit a few weeks ago was a result. I’m definitely into Bullseye ‘look at what you could’ve won’ territory now! 🙂

    bearnecessities
    Full Member

    ETC has gone berzerk!

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