bitcoin

I see the general stock market in need of a major correction....although I saw this 2 years ago and was wrong!!!

I heavily invested in physical gold and silver a few years ago and still own all of it as insurance against another financial collapse. People might not agree with this financially, but at the very least it has helped me to sleep better at night. The precious metals have been under pressure over the last few years as money that would traditionally have gone into gold and silver has instead gone into Bitcoin. Bitcoin is seen as digital gold partly due to its limited supply. I started investing in Bitcoin a few months ago and have seen some terrific gains. Any time there was a pullback I would invest more. I do believe in the event of a financial crisis either the precious metals or the cryptos will prevail. As I don't know which I am investing in both. If the crypto market were to completely collapse, I think precious metals would gain a new lease of life. I guess one is a hedge against the other.

As for Bitcoin being in a bubble, I suspect it might be, but I suspect the general stock market is too, but that keeps climbing with no peak in sight. Only 0.2% of the worlds population own any Bitcoin. Institutional investors are only now just starting to become interested. The CME group will be introducing a futures market before the years out which is huge news. Both Richard Brandson and Bill gates amongst others have publically endorsed Bitcoin (you can pay for a flight on Virgin Galactic now using Bitcoin!!!) The bitcoin multiplying company I invested with are about to bring the first Bitcoin ATMs to Ireland!!

Bitcoin can certainly go a lot higher before the next correction, however what concerns me is that it was meant as a medium of exchange, as a digital currency, but it is instead being traded as digital gold, as an assset. At the moment it is accepted by overstock.com, Expedia.com, subway restaurants, Microsoft and a few others. I would like to see more major retail companies like Amazon adopting it. If this happens I believe it may be presently undervalued.
I genuinely believe that everyone should educate themselves by watching a few simple you tube videos explaining the basics of Bitcoin and the blockchain technology behind it. It is fascinating stuff. Considering the currency has gone from just a few cents to $8000 in the space of a few years it should at least spark some curiosity amongst my fellow AAMers.
 
I have a few questions for anyone who knows more about Bitcoin than me. Is it easy to sell your Bitcoin and get your EUR back. Have you done it? Does the EURO go back to your back account? Is it straightforward.

Blockchain technology definitely seems to be something significant. But can anyone explain if every transaction in Bitcoin needs to be validated by each holder does it not mean that the delay in transferring the coins will just become longer and longer - eliminating one of the significant marketing points for bitcoin - its easy and quick ability to transfer. Particularly if it becomes more widely used etc?

The maximum number of bitcoins that will be available will be 21bn. But in actuality won't it be less due to the people who lost all their bitcoin in MTGox etc as well as people who had bitcoins stored on hard drives that they lost? Is that correct?

If only 0.02% of the population own Bitcoin, how will it really become any more mainstream at these prices. Will those who hold Bitcoin not just ultimately hold on to it especially if more retailers accept it as they will be able to live using bitcoin. If fewer places accept it people may have to sell to get some other currency to actually use. But if it were to continue to increase at this rate how would any "ordinary" person be able to get into it - what would the incentive be to get into it. If that is the case won't it really just remain a niche area for a few - some speculators who are hoping for an increase and those in the criminal world to pay for products and services in an anonymous way.

Interested in any replies and may have a few other questions - but these were a few that occurred to me. Happy to be enlightened.
 
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To answer some of your questions...
Bitcoin is extremely easy to buy and sell (with 0% comission on the exchange I use)
A free online bank transfer to your chosen exchange can be done within 2-3 working days. The exchange has a wallet where you can store your euros, pounds, dollars, and bitcoin. Most exchanges have a more secure offline digital vault which provides extra protection against hacks. There is usually a 48 hour waiting time, once bitcoin is requested to be transferred from the vault to the wallet. During this time you will receive emails confirming that it was definitely you who requested the transfer and giving you the option of cancelling it if someone else requested the transfer. It is not a good idea to hold you crypto on exchanges anyway. I am buying a Trezor hard wallet which is extremely secure. Selling Bitcoin to Euro is also simple and once again 0% comission on the exchange I use.

The blockchain technology behind the transfer of bitcoin from one person to another or one person to an institution is completely secure and has never been hacked. It is poor security on exchanges that is the problem. However lessons have been learned after Mt Gox.

The max amount of Bitcoin out there after the last one is mined in the year 2140 as you say will be 21 million. Some people have lost their private keys and this will certainly reduce the number available to trade. Those lost in Mt Gox are possibly still circulating or stored by the hacking group responsible.

I don't really understand your last question. But don't forget although the price of a single Bitcoin is approx €7000 now you can buy tiny tiny fractions of bitcoin.
 
landlord said:
To answer some of your questions...
Bitcoin is extremely easy to buy and sell (with 0% comission on the exchange I use)
A free online bank transfer to your chosen exchange can be done within 2-3 working days. The exchange has a wallet where you can store your euros, pounds, dollars, and bitcoin. Most exchanges have a more secure offline digital vault which provides extra protection against hacks. There is usually a 48 hour waiting time, once bitcoin is requested to be transferred from the vault to the wallet. During this time you will receive emails confirming that it was definitely you who requested the transfer and giving you the option of cancelling it if someone else requested the transfer. It is not a good idea to hold you crypto on exchanges anyway. I am buying a Trezor hard wallet which is extremely secure. Selling Bitcoin to Euro is also simple and once again 0% comission on the exchange I use.

The blockchain technology behind the transfer of bitcoin from one person to another or one person to an institution is completely secure and has never been hacked. It is poor security on exchanges that is the problem. However lessons have been learned after Mt Gox.

The max amount of Bitcoin out there after the last one is mined in the year 2140 as you say will be 21 million. Some people have lost their private keys and this will certainly reduce the number available to trade. Those lost in Mt Gox are possibly still circulating or stored by the hacking group responsible.

I don't really understand your last question. But don't forget although the price of a single Bitcoin is approx €7000 now you can buy tiny tiny fractions of bitcoin.
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Thanks for the info. And just to confirm, it's easy to get your the EUR in the wallet from your exchange back to your bank account after your sell your bitcoin for EUR right? The only reason I ask is that you always hear of people buying Bitcoin but I rarely hear of anyone selling it

I suppose my last point was, outside of speculation or criminality, what would be the attraction of Bitcoin to the ordinary individual over the current monetary system. I guess you could use it to minimise exchange rate risk but for most people that's not a high priority. I understand it's divisible of course but I just can't see what the incentive would for the majority of the world to get into it. In which case won't it be just the tiny few that will continue to use it for speculation or criminality. And I would imagine that the amount of bitcoin held by the criminal world represents a large portion of the total, does this mean that we will have a huge amount of criminal Bitcoin billionaires down the line. Or will any criminal trying to exchange their Bitcoin to other currency come under authorities scrutiny and hence try to continue living in a bitcoin world. It's anyone's guess I suppose.
 
Rebelrebel said:
And I would imagine that the amount of bitcoin held by the criminal world represents a large portion of the total, does this mean that we will have a huge amount of criminal Bitcoin billionaires down the line. Or will any criminal trying to exchange their Bitcoin to other currency come under authorities scrutiny and hence try to continue living in a bitcoin world. It's anyone's guess I suppose.
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another reason to stay well clear, if so much of it is held by criminals then it will never become a de facto currency. It also might explain why you never hear of anyone selling it, you cant buy property directly with it, you cant buy shares directly with it to my knowledge, you cant buy gold directly, it all most be converted into dollars or euros thereby re starting the paper trail that they are trying to escape from. Also criminals not the best investors afterall the nazis never got their hands on the gold they squirelled away in swiss bank accounts.
 
Noone knows who owns how much bitcoin, so saying that criminals hold a lot of it is unfounded. Criminals mainly use USD.
You can buy gold with bitcoin on suissegold and many other brokers.
You can buy property if someone sells it to you, but you still need to pass AML.

landlord said:
The bitcoin multiplying company I invested with are about to bring the first Bitcoin ATMs to Ireland!!
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I'm worried about this bitcoin multiplying, sounds like a classic crypto ponzi scam. I can see online there are a few bitcoin atms in Dublin already.
 
Rebelrebel said:
I know! At $5 a bitcoin I was going to buy a grands worth of them but just never got around to it and I honestly just never believe in them. So every time they have gone up since I've just thought that the increase has been crazy. I'd be a millionaire if I had and held them. But as I say I never believed so more than likely would have started selling out at $50 and considered my self just blindly lucky!
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Back in the day when I was a heavy advantage gambler some new bookies appeared that offered to take Bitcoin , in the whatsapp group I was in at the time there was about 8 of us , most of us hadn't heard of Bitcoin (I know I hadn't) but it was cheap maybe like 10c per Bitcoin or 20c I can't remember exactly. We all bought some for the purpose of using it on these obscure gambling sites , think I invested 1000. It never really took off (from a gambling point of view) but we hung on to our Bitcoin and generally forgot about it (pity we didn't develop full amnesia!) but fast forward some time later and we got back talking about Bitcoin as someone mentioned it had gone up in price dramatically. I think I sold at like €1 ( I don't remember really tbh ) but proabably made 5 x my money.

Out of the 8 of us , one of the guys was adamant it was going to be huge but even he sold at under 10€ , when I read the "if you had of bought xxx you'd be a millionaire stories " I don't really think they are realistic unless you went into a coma i'd imagine 100% of people will sell well before they let an investment grow that big.
 
landlord said:
I see the general stock market in need of a major correction....although I saw this 2 years ago and was wrong!!!
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I remember you saying it and lots of stocks that I bought around that time are up over 25% . I still think long term you should just buy the whole stock market instead of gold /silver and now Bitcoin. I don't get the fear people have over the stockmarket and predicting the next crash , it might crash it might rise for another 5 years, I think people suck at predicting these things , if it crashes I'll buy cheap but if I waited for a crash two years ago I would of lost out on lots of money.
 
Fella said:
Back in the day when I was a heavy advantage gambler some new bookies appeared that offered to take Bitcoin , in the whatsapp group I was in at the time there was about 8 of us , most of us hadn't heard of Bitcoin (I know I hadn't) but it was cheap maybe like 10c per Bitcoin or 20c I can't remember exactly. We all bought some for the purpose of using it on these obscure gambling sites , think I invested 1000. It never really took off (from a gambling point of view) but we hung on to our Bitcoin and generally forgot about it (pity we didn't develop full amnesia!) but fast forward some time later and we got back talking about Bitcoin as someone mentioned it had gone up in price dramatically. I think I sold at like €1 ( I don't remember really tbh ) but proabably made 5 x my money.

Out of the 8 of us , one of the guys was adamant it was going to be huge but even he sold at under 10€ , when I read the "if you had of bought xxx you'd be a millionaire stories " I don't really think they are realistic unless you went into a coma i'd imagine 100% of people will sell well before they let an investment grow that big.
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Yes totally agree with this. I would have more than likely sold out way too early due to lack of belief in them and wanting to get some profit. If people think they are just going to keep going up and up then they should get in now at 7,000. But I can't see myself having any interest at any price.
 
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ant dee said:
Noone knows who owns how much bitcoin, so saying that criminals hold a lot of it is unfounded. Criminals mainly use USD.
You can buy gold with bitcoin on suissegold and many other brokers.
You can buy property if someone sells it to you, but you still need to pass AML.
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I suppose my thinking here is that where bitcoin was heavily used was in relation to the whole silk road site. It was as a consequence of that site that it started to gain such popularity and that was mainly to do with criminality. So whether you were a purchaser or seller on that site these were the people who were early adopters and are engaged in some level of criminality. So logically, with them being such early adopters they must hold a very large store of Bitcoin unless they have sold out over the years which seems unlikely.
 
landlord said:
Incidentally I can now buy Bitcoin, Etherium and litecoin with 0% comission if anyone is interested
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Very interested in hearing about this.

I believe quite a number of car dealerships in the UK are now accepting Bitcoin as payment. In recent weeks i have seen a few dublin dealerships also advertising that they also accept it as payment.

From my understanding Bitcoin is now becoming more of a store of value and Bitcoin Cash is the new prevailing method of payment.
 
Rebelrebel said:
Thanks for the info. And just to confirm, it's easy to get your the EUR in the wallet from your exchange back to your bank account after your sell your bitcoin for EUR right? The only reason I ask is that you always hear of people buying Bitcoin but I rarely hear of anyone selling it
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Yes v easy to transfer from exchange back to your bank. I have done it several times. Although there is a 15 cent charge.
 
Pugmister said:
Very interested in hearing about this.

I believe quite a number of car dealerships in the UK are now accepting Bitcoin as payment. In recent weeks i have seen a few dublin dealerships also advertising that they also accept it as payment.

From my understanding Bitcoin is now becoming more of a store of value and Bitcoin Cash is the new prevailing method of payment.
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Do you know the Dublin dealerships that are accepting bitcoin? Curious to see which ones they are.

Also, perhaps a stupid question, but what is the difference between bitcoin and bitcoin cash?
 
landlord said:
Incidentally I can now buy Bitcoin, Etherium and litecoin with 0% comission if anyone is interested
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Coinbase is the largest US exchange and probably one of the most trusted.

Hot tip for avoiding the 1.49% coinbase charge and still effectively using Coinbase.....

First register with coinbase (free to register) and get the smartphone app. Photo I'd required for security.



Next Open Coinbase on your desktop PC and login. DO NOT USE THE APP.

Open another tab in the browser and select [broken link removed]

GDAX is owned by bitcoin it's like their sister company. You will initially have to add one extra photo ID.

Because this is run through Coinbase you will not have to sign up or even have to login. When you click on sign in you will be AUTOMATICALLY logged in. If you click on the deposit button on the left you can transfer your Coinbase euros or bitcoin into GDAX. It is a tiny bit more complicated using this then Coinbase itself but it avoids the extortionate fees. 0% fees for a limit order and 0.25% for a market order. Just follow the simple explanation in the YouTube tutorial below and you can avail of the 0% fee all the time.

https://youtu.be/lcCIjIAqM-4

I have used it now many times and it's easy to use, but feel free to post any questions.
 
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Rebelrebel said:
Do you know the Dublin dealerships that are accepting bitcoin? Curious to see which ones they are.
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Sarsfield Motors had something on their social media about now accepting Bitcoin along with another used prestige dealer based towards Meath. I cant recall their name at the minute
 
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