Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

I saw it hit .85 on NDAX too, but I couldn’t get my order in when it did. Likely way too much traffic and orders going through. I did get to buy a bit on the dip though, just not that low sadly.

No I sold my 2 1/2 year sold for than I bought them for on Friday. Yeah you had to pre order 6-9 months ago. Hard to find now.

Is xrp gonna finally gonna take off?...lol
They won pre trial ( means nothing) , but fundamentally they are very strong and I think this will be the gem of 2022....
Good risk reward ratio

What hardware and soft do you use to mine? Would love to set sth up

Ouch. 1/3 of my portfolio has been wiped out in the last 36 hours with no end in sight.

Is this all because Elon musk said he thinks Bitcoin and ether are a bit over priced right now? Last night I saw Ada hit .87, but it’s back at .97. Considering what some coins are doing, I’m ok with it hovering around a dollar

ok so we are now lower than what I panic sold at yesterday... Do I buy back in and "recoup" my losses? I was holding Eth and Litecoin, lost about $1200 of my modest $5k buy...

Ok I bought back in, recouped my losses from my panic sale. Now I will hold and whatever happens happens. See you in July.

Good for you!
When in the barber-chair, and the siccors are flying ..... Just sit as still as you can

Welcome to crypto. Over a four year period I've watched my portfolio drop by 80% and then soar to 400%.

It's called an "emerging market", and it will be a very bumpy ride.

It will reward those with diamond hands.

Good to know! I'm sure several (like me) jumped in last week so we are really newbies and seeing this going up / down at such a crazy rate is... well

Come on $45k so I can jump back in the game Almost touched it earlier but was eating lunch DOH

I bought more at $47k. Seems to be a strong area of support right now.

For those of you that have been in crypto since 2017 or before. How does this run feel compared to the run in 2017? I’m not suggesting this will end in a crash or not. And either way, I plan to hold what I’ve bought. I’m more curious if it feels the same, or if the dips and resistances feel different, if it feels different due to more institutional support, etc. I wasn’t in crypto for the last spike, so I am just curious to hear about it.

The world was a more stable place in 2017. The Dow has the volatility of crypto these days. The institutional support makes this night and day IMO...it’s been completely “legitimized” now. I do think that in 2017 Alt coins were more sexy and exciting, things seem a little more focused on BT from my perspective

This still doesn't panic me at all, it's normal for crypto and Yellen and Musk's remarks are just the kind of thing that can create good and bad waves. I'm more concerned about the stock market right now dropping so much in the past week. Looking to buy more ETH if it drops a little more.

When you buy and sell BTC or others do you have to pay short and long term gains at tax time? Buying and selling so much could change your tax burden on those holdings.

More institutional and major holders now

Unfortunately you do. If you do any amount of trading I’d recommend tracking software. If you’re just doing a few trades a year you can use some of them for free. More than something like 50 transactions and the start charging.

I posted a link in here somewhere of what I use. I haven’t had any issues with it.

It felt more like penny stocks back then with a lot larger swings and tons of shitcoins with pump and dumps. Not that that stuff doesn't happen now, it just feels like with so many more people holding crypto, especially large institutions, as well as more established coins, the swings have stabilized a bit more.

I can tell you that no one who held Bitcoin for at least 4 years at any point in its 12 year history lost money. It's definitely a long play...not hold for a month, or year. Buy and hang on...give it 8+ years (two more halving cycles) and you will be very pleased.

It's definitely different this time. Institiutional money coming in is changing the game. It's still volatile compared to other assets...but not as insane crazy as it was the last time. I don't expect any more 80% drops (I could be wrong). I'd still expect 50-60% drop if we overshoot the S2F models (P.S. we always overshot and then retract). But, that retraction might be from $160k down to 65k (for BTC...end of this year...just an example).

I still think it will touch 45k it almost did 30min ago lol

Time to buy before it jumps up again?
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lasereyes-meme-campaign-goes-viral-on-twitter-in-apparent-bid-to-double-bitcoin-price-to-100-000-11614107554?mod=home-page

Just picked up a little ADA (Cardano) at 0.91. My first crypto other than BTC, ETH or LTC since 2017

Cardano/Ada should be ok this week. They have events on the 24th and 1st, and also said the Africa deal would be announced in February. Lately the price has been dipping at night, so if it hits a decent low tonight I’ll be buying a bit more Ada.

I started dabbling in crypto over the last week and am quite frustrated with the hidden fee's that are tied to either withdrawals or exchanges.

For example, today I transferred $64 worth of BTC from NiceHash over to Exodus so I could convert that to ADA and stake it. I already had 327 ADA in that wallet, so I wanted to add to it. Once the BTC reached Exodus, my current BTC holding was below the threshold to be enable a BTC > ADA exchange. Okay fine, I converted my 327 ADA > BTC, now having beyond the BTC threshold to convert everything back to ADA.

Well, the final exchange left me with only 345 ADA from my original 327 ADA, or roughly $25 worth of ADA from an original $64. WTF!

Did I just fuck up by exchanging the BTC while it had dipped further than ADA, making an unfavorable exchange, or did I just get fleeced with exchange fees?

If someone could help me work out a more cost effective method of exchanging and transferring, it would sure help a lot.

With you being from Alberta, have you used NDAX before? That’s what I’m using to buy Ada. It’s been alright. It’s nice because I just etransfer what I want to spend, buy Ada directly in Canadian funds, and then transfer out every couple weeks to my ledger and then stake the Ada. I believe each buying transaction costs 1 Ada as a fee, and it costs 8 Ada to remove to the ledger per transaction. So I wait until I have a couple hundred to a couple thousand Ada to transfer, and it cuts the fee % down nicely.

I had no idea, I’ll have a look at that, thank you!

No problem! It’s an Alberta based exchange, that’s why I just wondered if you had heard of them. It’s the first and only exchange I’ve ever used, so they might be terrible and I just don’t know any better haha. But so far I’m happy with it.

My experience with Binance so far is that their verification process is crap, their in app verification is broken so you have to use the desktop version, verification is slow (been many days), and their customer support is nearly non-existent. YMMV. It's a shame considering how big Binance is, while the same process in Coinbase and Kraken is simple and fast.

3 weeks for me and nothing yet. Ridiculous regardless of increased sign-ups. Sure would have been nice to get in on a few tokens they offer, you know, 3 weeks ago... but hey, keep leaving money on the table, binance.

Mark Cuban gives a good summary of the crypto movement:

If Cuban were to start a company today, he would also utilize new technology — he would center the business around blockchain technology, smart contracts and NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which reminds him of the early days of the internet.

“This is like the early internet days all over again,” Cuban told Kan. “I think [NFTs and blockchain tech is] going to be huge.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/22/mark-cuban-the-business-id-start-now-would-center-around-blockchain.html

Even though it can seem late to the game, the reality is that a small fraction of the world's population own any crypto, and hardly anyone transacts in it, so it's still at the very early stages adoption. Most of the coins and tokens will fail, but the ones that succeed will reward early adopters.

Also keep this in mind... Bitcoin was never designed for transactions, just a store. Most of the future value in crypto is tied up in the many types of transactions being invented as we speak. The reason ETH is slow to rollout 2.0 to fix their scaling issues is the many projects using it, so they have to be very careful not to disrupt the ecosystem. Cardano and Polkadot don't have that issue because their project adoption is a tiny fraction of ETH. Binance coin is going strong but it isn't even decentralized, so no one actually knows which of those 4 altcoins, if any are going to pan out. That's the reality of crypto at this point... there is no obvious winners, and in that lies the risk and the reward.

Weird, registered and got it up and running in a matter of minutes.

Would you recommend having a ledger or similar device? Can't those break down as well?

Also do you guys daytrade or sit and wait?

Five weeks now and my bank account still isn't verified. I transferred BTC over from my Coinbase account without any issues though.

Buy the Dips & HODL you make $ hand over fist!
“Not financial advice”

Nailed it!!! 100%!! Last 2 Bull runs BTC had 6 big corrections on the way to a new ATH. This past weekend was our second in this Bull Run. Does history repeat? Maybe. But it sure does rhyme often. BTC is an asset the world has never seen before. It’s in price discovery mode. When zoomed in on the charts it’s volatile! Zoom out, it’s appreciating at 200%+ a year, for the last 10 years! It’s outperformed Everything you could invest in during that time frame. Embrace the Dips! Buy the Dips & HODL! Just my 2 Satoshi’s

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My thought is that the overall crypto market will rise as more people (like me) get interested in it. Some crypto will be worthless, just like some fiat currency, but I think some will take off and the early adopters will be rewarded. My plan is to buy into the 4 that I think have the best potential for sticking around; Bitcoin, ethereum, ada, and dogecoin. I’m not a “wealthy” man but I have a little extra on payday, so I plan to contribute $25 every 2 weeks for the year (maybe ongoing), I will be buying whatever seems to be dipping that week and then I plan is to hold everything until 2030. If something takes off crazy then I might sell a bit to recoup my investment and transfer into whatever is low at that time, but my plan is to hold everything.

You and I see to have a similar plan. Little purchase every paycheck. Ten year hold pattern. I like those 4 coins and grab a few others here and there. I find this is more fun than $25 bucks a pay period at Starbucks.

Can any of you recommend a book or website that discusses crypto basics in layman's terms? Sort of a beginners guide to understanding how it all works?

I ask because I struggle with the mechanics of crypto (blockchain, staking, smart contracts, etc.), especially when I try to explain it to someone else (disbelieving wife). I feel like I understand the general concept. The philosophy. But the technical aspects and terminology are beyond me when I try to read about various coins. I don't know any coding. I'm not an engineer. I just don't have any background for this stuff.

Seems like this is the biggest hurdle for crypto needs to clear to make that last jump into the mainstream. The average joe needs to know why he should use it, how it works, and why it will continue to have value - and right now, that's not an easy answer.

Unfortunately, I can't point you in any particular direction. I've been reading about it for the last few years. If you have any specific questions, I'll be more than happy to help.

The "nuts and bolts" of the blockchain is that it acts as an immutable distributed ledger of account balances. Think of those big books you see in the old movies the banker has behind the counter. Says Smith - $86.75, Jones - $34.87, etc. That's the blockchain. The big difference is that the names are wallet address and the balances are coin quantities (ETH, BTC, LINK, Etc).

You lay claim to the wallet with your public / private cryptographic key pair which is basically your username / password combinations when you log into your bank account.

Transactions are validated, most typically, by PoW or Proof of Work. Meaning there are piles and piles of computers all over the world working to validate transactions on the blockchain. That's what makes it decentralized (not controlled by one entity like the company that owns the bank) and immutable (one computer can't just make a change to the blockchain). The computers do work and race to find a solution to the cryptographic algorithm. The first one to find the answer wins the block reward. Once the answer is found, all the other computers verify the solution and the transaction is written into the blockchain and can never be edited again.

Staking comes in with another transaction validation method called PoS, or Proof of Stake. In this case, the transactions are validated by a randomly chosen participant, called a Validator, that has coins staked or essentially pledged to the blockchain. The more coins you have staked the higher your chances of being chosen to validate the next transaction and get the block reward for validation of that transaction. Attempt to double-sign or attack the network and the penalty is losing what you have staked.

When staking with Coinbase, you're contributing to a big pool of other people staking with Coinbase. The larger the pool, the higher the chances of getting chosen to validate the transaction and the higher the payouts. For contributing to the pool, Coinbase, or whoever else you stake with, gives you a percentage of the payouts.

As far as continuing to have value, it's all belief. Just like fiat. If people feel it has value, then it does. That's why I try to find utility tokens, things that provide a service or fill some role in the world of cryptocurrency. I want something people will use. I feel those are the ones that will make it in the long run, whereas the off the cuff ones will die out serving no purpose and providing no value to the infrastructure.

Hopefully that helps a little.

I would recommend a hardware wallet such as a Ledger or Trezor. I personally use a Trezor. You can absolutely break them, lose them, etc. When you set up the device, a 24 word mnemonic recovery seed based on the BIP39 word list is generated that you write down on a piece of paper and guard with your life. Those 24 words can be used to recreate your wallet.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt

I actually store my recovery seed on a steel plate which is then stored in a safe. Break your Trezor and you can recreate your wallet with the 24 word recovery seed.

amazon.com link »

It's actually HODL.

Hold On for Dear Life

I was day trading 0.10BTC back in 2017/2018 on an almost daily basis when it was range bound between $11k and $14k for weeks. I really just accumulate these days.

Fees definitely suck sometimes. I'm not familiar with either NiceHash or Exodus, but coin transfers always involve some sort of fee. That's paid to the people validating the transactions as a mining fee. Without those fees, I'd turn off my miner.

Anyway, sometimes those fees are fractions of a penny and other times they are crazy high like they are with ETH right now. I was looking at a Uniswap between two tokens on a relatively complex smart contract. The fees were insane and made the trade not worth completing. I posted it around here somewhere. I always check fees for the entire transaction before starting.

Other times exchanges will have additional fees on the back end for moving the crypto within their own organization. Keep an eye out for those fees. I've found they are normally in the order of a few percent.

As you indicated, you need to watch when trading crypto / crypto pairs. Things can go sideways in a hurry if you're not paying attention. Especially like you said, if one currency is going one way and the other is going the other way. I'd suspect your issue was a combination of both. My 60 Coinbase purchases / trades have cost me $853.95 in fees.

That doesn't even include that damn premium they put on currency when you're in a hurry and just buy with your debit card. You'll look at the market and BTC is $50,000 and when you hit the buy button on Coinbase, the price is $50,500 when it's still sitting on Coinbase Pro at $50,000. They always do that shit and charge you a fee on top of the premium.

https://news.yahoo.com/coinbase-valued-above-100-billion-230617858.html

You can register and be up and running quickly EXCEPT for the USD deposit/withdraw and trade fiat/crypto pairs. That right now is taking over a month. I submitted my verification for that 5 weeks ago and am still waiting. Their support said it's a manual process and they are way behind.

Thanks for your explanation spyderturbo007. I appreciate it. Didn't want to make you all explain it to me, but...

So, if blockchain is a lot of computers working to solve algorithms to show that numbers of coins in wallets and transactions with those coins are true, then what actually are the algorithms? Puzzles? Computery busy work? This is where I get lost and where I have difficulty seeing value in what seems sometimes like money moving around in a electronic circle jerk. I know I'm asking questions that must seem REALLY dumb if you understand this stuff...