I grabbed another $1,000 worth yesterday when it fell to around $13,800. I couldn’t help myself.

Anyone else using the Blockfolio app? A buddy of mine introduced it to me. You can punch in all of your currencies along trade dates and prices. Then it keeps a nice log of what is up and what is down.

You missed the most important group...

- The people who have no interest in bitcoin's future as anything except something with lots of upside potential for appreciation in a short period - so it's a flipper's dream. The ones buying and pumping bitcoin as an investment purely because they see the potential to buy now, and sell much higher.

This group doesn't need to see bitcoin be anything but something to sell higher than they bought it. They don't care if bitcoin goes to zero.. as long as the crash is after they sold. They don't care if the doom is near.. because they feel they have so little exposure that if it crashes 'no big deal'.

This is the group that is pumping real money into exchanges... while the real manipulators are happy to see them and others keep coming in because they help validate their scheme.

Check out IOTA which is partnered with Microsoft and Fujitsu. It's currently in "4th place" as far as crypto is concerned. Trades for $4

https://cointelegraph.com/news/iota-interview-trust-systems-are-absolutely-pivotal-today

Quite a few...just a few of the leaders on that end...Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Zcash, Monero.

But that still might not have any affect on Bitcoin becoming the "de-facto" "store of value".

Also...they are working on a lighting network for Bitcoin which has already been tested and shown to work. That would greatly reduce Bitcoin transaction times and costs.

Certainly there is a LOT of that going on as well.

It kind of bums me out how much electricity is spent on bitcoin.

Yep...that's the same app I've been using.

And have you seen graphics card prices lately? I was lucky to get my EVGA GeForce GTX 1050Ti for $118 shipped last year!

Yeah. Spillover costs, I suppose.

I've read some interesting articles on energy trading applications of blockchain technology

https://btcmanager.com/why-the-german-energy-industry-loves-the-blockchain/

What did you find interesting about this article?

Wow, things have been flat since last night after the derivatives launch. I was doing alright buying and selling the swings yesterday, but my buy order has just been sitting there.

Oh well, worst case scenario is that I've paid myself back for my investment and I still have some BTC left.

Litecoin has skyrocketed

Tulips

The concept of blockchain is most commonly known in the financial market (e.g. cryptocurrency trading) but the concepts are also being applied to energy industries. The graphic below displays how consumers and suppliers trade in a decentralized blockchain energy market.

blockchain-model (resized).png

I saw that. Too bad I only have 5.

It’s a bubble, run for your lives!!!!

In typical fashion, I unloaded 250 LTC @ $144. I vaguely remember somebody noting something about an idiot in a previous post.

Moderator Request: Since this Tulip shaped Bitcoin bubble isn't going anywhere for a while, we are currently in desperate need of a Tulip emoji and a Bubble emoji.

I, no WE, thank you in advance.

because i simply can't leave a good thing well enough alone: out of boredom, over the last few days i've switched my mining rig over to mining Electroneum and then Karbowanec instead of Monero. The returns seem a little bit higher, but it's a lot more hassle, because i'm basically dumping the coins as fast as i mine them because i don't have the same faith in them that i have in Monero (which i just hold).

Funny, I thought about dumping my BTC and going Litecoin on the weekend but chickened out. I'm still up 60% but I'm beginning to think the BTC bullet train is over for now but it's hard to cut bait.

Well I can tell you that since I got in my BTC is currently up 159%
My Litecoin is up 200% over the exact same timeframe.
My Ether is only up 42% but I still like the long term prospects on that one. (Only 42%...lol)

I have no plans to alter any of my positions...but I'm not a "trader".

Underspin we must be in the Twilight Zone because you sir are UP!

FAO: New "investors". Remember to keep your wallet's backup phrase secure.

https://github.com/bitpay/copay/issues/6063

If you can read through that without laughing (or your eyes rolling 180 degrees and staring directly at your brain for a few seconds), you probably shouldn't be "investing" in Bitcoin for another 10 to 100 years.

Holy crap, what a thread.

But honestly, that's just general customer service. You should see the JJP Google group moaning on about the Hobbit code - it's about the same level of discourse.

I just signed up for coinbase, is that the preferred place to buy coins??

Besides Bitcoins they have Ethereum and Lightcoin are those any better or worse than Bitcoins?

Was late to the party on this, only made my first investment in bitcoin this time last week. Over the weekend i decided to move 75% of it across to litecoin... and jeez! These sort of gains don't help you maintain any sort of rational mentality to the crypto game!

Just be careful, folks. Don’t goof around with money you can’t afford to lose.

I just sold my small (and very stagnant) share portfolio, if it all disappears tomorrow I'm cool. I can definitely see how other people could start dumping more than they should into it though..

Coinbase is good, been around, active, well capitalized, up to date security, and easy to use. They also run gdax which has more functionality with ordering you might be interested in that if you are used to how typical stock exchanges work.

My off the cuff recommendation to people is:

1)Do some research before investing.
2)Start off with 5-20% of your current portfolio depending on your risk tolerance and comfort level with cryptocurrencies.
3) Never put in more than you are able to take a total loss on. Frankly no one knows if this is a bubble or not. If it's a bubble no one knows when it will pop.

Gonna be a wild ride for the entire world.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/11/people-are-taking-out-mortgages-to-buy-bitcoin-says-joseph-borg.html

"We've seen mortgages being taken out to buy bitcoin. … People do credit cards, equity lines," said Borg, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, a voluntary organization devoted to investor protection.

https://www.rt.com/business/412700-bulgaria-shocked-bitcoin-piles/

"Hundreds of thousands of bitcoins have been seized in an anti-corruption operation in Bulgaria, reports Zerohedge. They are currently worth $3.6 billion, which is enough to pay off a fifth of the country's national debt of $16.5 billion."

https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins

https://blog.iqoption.com/three-countries-with-the-largest-number-of-bitcoin-miners/

"China mines the most bitcoins of any nation and therefore also exports the largest number of bitcoins. This has been driven, in part, by cheap electricity – Chinese Bitcoin miners have gained an advantage by capturing a large percentage of Bitcoin’s hash power. Most, and indeed some of the world’ largest, mining pools are based in China."

Stupid is as stupid does.

Please everyone, read this. And abide by it.

And that’s what starts big crashes.

People just get plain greedy. And stupid. We’ve seen it time and time again.

Let’s hope (for everyone’s sake) that it doesn’t end like it generally does.

rd

John F Kennedy's father (Joseph Kennedy)had a method to identify a bubble; when a shoe shine boy gave him a stock tip in 1929, he sold everything and and shorted the market. Does 15 pages of bitcoin analysis on a pinball forum suggest that we've hit that shoe shine moment?

john-f-kennedy-father-jfk (resized).jpg

Should we worry if they start talking about the pinball bubble on a Bitcoin forum?

www.bitcoinforums.com\pinballmarket_bubbleorbuyin.html

Nope...not yet. Most of the people in my small town still have ZERO clue what Bitcoin is or cryptocurrencies or a blockchain and they certainly aren't invested. So we have a ways to go yet.

Agree 100%, from a personal perspective I'm viewing this as gambling more than investing, and kicking in money accordingly. It's like a good football game with these fluctuations!

'Bitcoin Jesus' explains his vision from the beach:

I think the 'wars' between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash are more interesting than the current spike/attention in Bitcoin Core.

I didn't watch the video, but I think it comes down to the multipliers. On two levels. Level 1 is that you get more "Bang for the Buck" by receiving 12 BCC rather than 1 BTC for the same (current) $16,800 investment. Level 2 is that it will become more difficult for a crypto like Bitcoin, currently trading at $16,800, than it will be for BCC, currently trading at $1,400, to double, triple, or quadruple in a short time period.

One thing I do know is that Litecoin is up 160% in 4 days.

The future looks bright, my friend.

.

Ok, you've made your point.

Oh don't worry my market poison hasn't kicked in yet. I'm waiting for more people to take out mortgages to buy Bitcoin

I’m not crazy about the cost to buy and sell at 1% each way, never mind credit card fees which are even higher (another 2-3%).

I’m used to buying stock at a flat fee that’s $5-6 a trade no matter if it’s a $600 or $60k trade.

You have to figure in 2% loss due to fees (plus short term capital gains) so it’s a large trading drag.

You can always buy direct from other BTC owners. Personally I’d rather just pay the fee and get some security in the transaction. I mean, more security - it’s still kind of the Wild West.

Haven’t seen any major movement on BTC for like a week now, I suspect we’ve reached a new plateau for the time being.

According to Coindesk, the start of the week saw BTC prices at $11,650 and it's currently at $16,981.19. I'd say that's pretty good movement still.

Meanwhile, LTC has been going bananas.

Correction...392%...one day later.

I'm expecting a correction soon.

Anyone into any of the crypto based stocks? I've been doing really well with RIOT (up 100% in the last 2 days), SING (pot and crypto, what could go wrong!), and MGTI.

My only fear there is it's not a form of diversification. If this is a bubble and the bubble pops they all go down with the ship.

I agree 100%. Then again, I'm the guy that likes to bet 10 hard and the field when the point is 10 at the craps table. If I'm going to go for a ride, I might as well go for a ride.

Are you planning on moving your LTC to something else? I think I'm going to hodl everything for now, but I'm open to insight.