Anyone else interested in cryptocurrency?

Started by CaptainD, Thu 13/10/2016 13:55:34

Previous topic - Next topic

CaptainD

Quote from: manifest class on Mon 26/06/2017 13:24:28
Hey I hate to bring an old thread back, but this is the thread I myself was thinking of starting. Pretty exciting ride these past few months. Probably all going to nosedive again as it did a few years ago during the last boom in interest, but it sure is interesting to see companies offering crypto debit cards that make it now possible to use crypto to make purchases in the real world.

BTC continues on an upwards surge - possibly about to drop a bit though? Litecoin's recent surge was interesting (also annoying as I nearly bought a load the day before the first surge... gah!) and I'm curious to see what some of the developments / proposed developments have on market value.  I can't say I'm all that clued in as to what all of them are or how they will turn out, although it seems that unless BTC can truly get some kind of control over the block size issue, Eth or one of the other big alts might actually overtake it in market cap eventually.

One of the coins I'm interested in, "GoldPieces", is having a good little revival and has a new official website - http://goldpieces.network/ - and another, HYPER, has been relaunched as HYPER 2.0, with a pretty strong community behind it.  In terms of mass adoption though even Bitcoin is still in its infancy, and I still think BTC will be the first to gain any real traction on genuine usability for eCommerce.
 

milkanannan

Yeah I'm with you. I'm very bullish on the overall idea. I just wonder if BTC is going to be like Netscape was to the internet once upon a time. Either way, it is exciting to be a part of the movement. I got a XAPO account recently and am waiting anxiously for the debit card. I think these sorts of groups are going to help bring the concept into the mainstream and make it possible for non-tech type people to adopt the idea for general use.

Thanks for the leads on Goldpieces and HYPER. I'll check those out. At the moment I'm only really watching BTC, Ripple and Ether (still kind of a n00b).

Maybe Big Blue Cup should start an altcoin. :-D

milkanannan

Wow actually BTC has dipped again just tonight! ~2400 USD

selmiak

I'd just wait until BTC drops below 2k or even 1.5k again before buying big. then buy and save it and wait some years until BTC reaches 10k *rubs crystal ball*  ;-D

CaptainD

Quote from: selmiak on Wed 28/06/2017 09:19:15
I'd just wait until BTC drops below 2k or even 1.5k again before buying big. then buy and save it and wait some years until BTC reaches 10k *rubs crystal ball*  ;-D

It could happen... :P
 

milkanannan

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see it go way higher than that in our lifetime. It's an increasingly popular investment vehicle in countries like China among people that want to save money in assets outside the country. I agree it's going to tumble again at some point, but the next resurrection is going to be even bigger. Mwahahaha

CaptainD

China has made a huge investment in mining farms, so they desperately need the price to keep rising so they can stay in profit as hashing difficulty increases.  I would expect to see an upward trend overall, over time, though obviously there will be dips as well.  I'm more interested in alts really.
 

milkanannan

Yeah I guess the alts are where the quick money is. Sort of a gamble really. With my luck any alt I buy would go through the floor! lol :-X:-D

CaptainD

#28
Haha well they can go up or down really easily.  I've never put a penny of "real money" into crypto, just what I've been given as sponsorship or from playing games (not gambling, games that let you earn a little), and dabbled with trading.  I think in general if you can get in early on an alt that has a solid reason for existing, a good communicative dev team and active community, and above all are patient, you can get a nice profit.  Trying to go for the huge profits is, as you say, pretty much gambling (as is any scheme where you hope to get rich quickly I guess).

I find the whole concept of cryptocurrency interesting though.  Just how do we define value / worth?  Why is fiat currency viewed as "real" and crpto not (by the population at large)?  I'm not convinced that true decentralisation is even possible - you need some way of deciding what new innovations to include in your coin, update the GIThub etc, and that inevitably leads to centralisation of a type.  Then of course there are people that take advantage of other's lack of technical savvy for their own advantage, even big exchanges have been prone to attack, 51% attacks have happened, scams, exploits, ponzi schemes... it's quite a minefield to negotiate!

[EDIT] Although actually... after some thought, I don't feel BTC will necessarily become the first crypto to have major adoption.  Although initially this seemed like a no-brainer, these days confirmation times are long enough that an alt with a big market cap and following might just do it first - ETH seems the obvious contender although some that work alongside the BTC network (as I believe Guilden does) may be able to - usable anywhere BTC is accepted but with much faster confirmations (presumably... haven't really looked into that side of things much).  I've always been impressed with Blackcoin too, I think that could be adopted relatively large-scale at some point.
 

milkanannan

Yeah it is definitely hard to even guess what trends will occur as adoption rates increase. Transaction time for Bitcoin is indeed frustrating, but this will improve mildly with updates. I think people trade off slower transaction time for the safety of lots of nodes due to its massive popularity.

What do you guys think of 'Antshares' (NEO? I think it underwent a name change) This is the most popular China-based crypto at the moment. I tried to read the white paper, but often these concepts are way over my head. Just strikes me like another generic crypto. Seems to be gaining some real steam though.

CaptainD

Not familiar with AntShares but one thing immediately noticeable on the BitCoinTalk announcement page (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1571738.0) is that they have a large and highly visible team, led by a couple of (presumably, according to their descriptions) highly regarded, long-standing members of the crypto community.  Their MarketCap (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/antshares/) seems to have gone through the roof lately, it could just be a massive pump of course but if they're managing to get real-world usage (presumably in China and possibly surrounding countries?) then they could hold the value or even increase it.

I know what you mean about white papers, I've looked at a couple but 1/ the technical specifications are way over my head and 2/ I'm simply not interested enough to persevere reading about them.  I prefer to just know what plans there are for usage in games, acceptance by online traders, and community aspects.
 

milkanannan

I know for a fact Antshares aren't really being used in China for anything. I lived there for about five years and my wife is Chinese (no one in our Chinese circles has ever heard of Antshares), so there is probably a high degree of hype to the whole thing right now. Still interesting though. People in China move money using WeChat, which is sort of like a Whatsapp but with the ability to transfer Chinese yuan around or use it from the app to pay for things in stores. Not quite sure how Antshares would fit into this picture, but I think for a lot of Chinese people the idea of buying non-state controlled investments (i.e. Antshares instead of RMB) would be attractive. Just have to wait and see I guess.

Btw, that thread link you posted - 338 pages of disucssion?! 8-0

CaptainD

Quote from: manifest class on Mon 10/07/2017 20:25:30
Btw, that thread link you posted - 338 pages of disucssion?! 8-0

Yeah what tends to happen is the announcement thread of any particular alt gets used for any and every update (and the inevitable trolls etc), so it just keeps building and building.
 

milkanannan

Crazy. I checked the Whois on that site, and it gets 1million+ hits a month! Probably a lot of that is bots.

BTC down at the moment...which means the Antshares I just bought are also down. :-\ I swear all markets anywhere around the world hinge on whether I get involved or not. If you want anything to drop in value, just get me to buy into it. (laugh)

Danvzare

Quote from: manifest class on Tue 11/07/2017 03:54:04
If you want anything to drop in value, just get me to buy into it. (laugh)
Really?
So in other words, you could buy a little bit of stock for let's say Microsoft, and when it reaches it's lowest I could buy a load of stock and you sell yours. Then when it gets high again, I sell off my stock and share the profits with you. :-D

milkanannan

Hehe cheers. 8-)

Guys: BTC going to fall below $2000 USD tonight??? Crazy times. I'm paper walleting everything in the lead up to the possible fork.

CaptainD

I read that as long as you have BTC in your own wallet, you will get the value duplicated on both chains?  (Surely this will lead to a massive price dump if true!!)
 

milkanannan

Quote from: CaptainD on Mon 17/07/2017 09:53:42
I read that as long as you have BTC in your own wallet, you will get the value duplicated on both chains?  (Surely this will lead to a massive price dump if true!!)

Yes, I read that everywhere too. I'm not quite sure I understand this concept though. I'm keeping my BTC in a paper wallet until this blows over. My understanding is that when I credit the value in the paper wallet back to the exchange, the exchange will give me value in both currencies (should a fork happen). However, if you leave your holdings in the exchange through Aug 1, you are at the mercy of whatever currency the exchange decides to run with.

CaptainD

Yeah, pretty much (I've also never fully understood the whole "paper wallet" thing tbh!! :grin:) - I don't think I really have enough to worry about so I'm either going to leave it on the exchanges or possibly turn it all into a POS coin and let is stake for a while.
 

milkanannan

I didn't understand paper wallets either, so I tried using https://walletgenerator.net/ with a really tiny amount and it seemed to work OK. I transferred the remaining amount to paper wallet (not very much), so I guess everything is OK for now. (I hope! :-\)

Hey just realised you're for Birmingham. I work with two guys from there. They tell me all sorts of interesting/hilarious stories about life there.

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk